When Jan Bielen and a group of his friends overslept and were late for a bus tour to the Niagara Falls more than 20 years ago, they did not complain and panic. They rented a van and went on their own.
The idea of taking people on trips was born and Bielen started his business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and called it Polonez Tour Service.

Two years had passed and Bielen's business was booming. His small company offered short trips in the tri-state area and regular trips to and from the local airports. Bielen served mainly Polish people, tourists or immigrants, who did not speak English and needed help to travel.

But in 1982 everything took a different turn.  Poland was under martial law and LOT (Polish Airlines) suspended their flights from Warsaw to New York.  “We had to take people from New York to Montreal, Canada, so they could fly to Poland,” Bielen says.

Suddenly the 14-person vans were too small and Bielen had to buy minibuses to accommodate more customers.

PHOTOS: Iwona K. Hoffman Bielen owns two minibuses and three luxury buses

After Poland’s politics shifted and flights to New York resumed, Polish immigration to New York rose and Bielen found himself with plenty of business. He sold his vans and bought three full-size luxury buses, each holding 50 people.

Polonez Tour Service became one of the most popular travel agencies among Poles in the New York area. The company is the only Polish tour service on the East Coast that owns buses.

Bielen, 55, is also known in Poland. “Some people fly to New York just to take a trip with me around the country,” he says. The company also serves other Slavic groups - Slovaks, Czechs, Russians and Ukrainians.

Bielen’s company is popular among high-ranking officials from Poland, too. He toured with the Polish President’s wife, Jolanta Kwasniewska, who has used the service for the last three years. Kwasniewska has already booked the company for the coming summer.

“Every year she brings a group of poor children from Poland, many of them are orphans,” Bielen says. 

In January 2002, Polonez Tour Service was in charge of driving around the Prime Minister of Poland, Leszek Miller, and other members of the government during their official visit to the United States.

But not everything in the business is rosy. After September 11, like many other small businesses in the neighborhood, Bielen has lost lots of money. ”Business is basically dead,” he says. “Fall and winter months are usually slow, but this year it’s a disaster. People don’t travel, don’t fly, they’re not coming to New York.  The business is down by about $40.000.”

Yet Bielen is optimistic. “I know the business will pick up,” he says and smiles. “I am still planning my five, two-week trips around the States this year.”

And in the meantime, he takes people to airports; he picks up others, mainly regular customers. He also rents his buses and tries to make some money offering other ervices, like parcel service to Poland, or booking flights, selling tickets.

”I love this business,” he says. “Sure it’s been tough, but after more than 20 years I am not going to quit and leave.”

Next: Wings and Wheels

All Aboard
China Bus Bargain
Polonez Hits the Road
Wings and Wheels

Movies to Watch on the Bus

• Get on the Bus (1996)--Spike Lee film about a group of men riding a bus to the Million Man March.
• Central Station (1998)--A little boy searches for his family on dusty buses in Brazil's arid northeast.
• The Big Bus (1976)--A parody of disaster movies featuring a nuclear powered bus with a piano bar.
• Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)--The late great comedian John Candy and actor-turned writer Steve Martin play businessmen trying to get out of New York and home for the holidays.
• Speed (1994)-- Keanu Reeves stars as an LA bomb squad specialist.
• Bus Stop (1956)--Marilyn Monroe and a rodeo rider get stuck together on a bus in a blizzard.
• The Train (1965)--Burt Lancaster performed all his own stunts in this movie set during World War II.
• Strangers On a Train (1951)--Hitchcock classic in which two men agree to kill each others' family members, and one ends up having a crush on the other.
• The Bus is Coming (1971)--African-Americans fight to have their children bused to better schools.
• Mexican Bus Ride (1951)--A Luis Bunuel film about a young boy's difficult journey to visit his grandmother.
  

Books to Read on the Bus

• If Men Are like Buses: Then how Do I Catch One?
  Michelle McKinney-Hammond/Multnomah Publishers, Inc./March 2000
• Poetry in Motion: 100 Poems from the Subways and Buses
  Molly Peacock,Elise Paschen/Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc./ April 1996
• Why Do Buses Come in Threes?: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life
  Jeremy Wyndham,Foreword by Tim Rice/ Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated/March 2000
• Yellow Coach Buses: 1923-1943 Photo Archive
  William A. Luke/Iconografix, Incorporated/ November 2001
• Old Buses
  David Kaye/Shire Publications, Limited/July 2001
• Trolley Buses: 1913-2001 Photo Archive
  William A. Luke/Iconografix, Incorporated/ November 2001
• American Buses: City, School Yard and Highway
  Donald F. Wood/Paperback/MBI Pubg/ November 1998
• The Bus People
  Rachel Anderson/Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated/September 1995