Parking

Alternate Side Parking

I am currently in the midst of one of the oddest New York City rituals, the alternate side parking shuffle. The shuffle is a daily event that spans about an hour and half on streets all across the city. The idea is that cars vacate one side of the street, allowing the street cleaner to come through. It's also a municipal money making machine. Every person I know who has a car gets more than a handful of street-cleaning tickets a year.

A bit more than a year ago I stacked up a fat pile of bright orange tickets, fat enough that I ended up getting towed. I spent very long Friday afternoon shuttling between unpleasant city agency offices shelling out large sums of cash (perhaps even more than this here rickety Volvo is worth) to even more unpleasant city employees who snarled at me from behind bullet proof windows, Once the shelling out of cash part was done, my brother most kindly escorted me to a lot somewhere in Brooklyn where the windows were bullet proof and barred and the employees were downright criminal. It's possible that even more cash was required then, and I'm certain that the car was somewhat worse for the wear, its bumper listing to one side and one of its headlights knocked askew. I then drove it out my parents' house in Queens, where it wasn't required to be moved, and borrowed cars on an as-needed basis for a good long time.

I do, however, like having the car handy for upstate jaunts and the perpetual schlepping art that makes my job oh so glamorous. I've been keyed up enough lately that I'm good to go on 5 or 6 hours of sleep - this allows me to indulge my misbehavior (it still feels like misbehaving even as an adult) of staying up way too late while still waking up in plenty of time to move my car for street cleaning. So, after a while away, I find myself reunited with my car-owning street-parking comrades. On my particular block the shuffle starts at 9am.

This is how it works: 8:58am, I scurry out, coffee cup in hand, in some weird combination of pajamas and street clothes, being tugged along by Ollie who loves cars probably more than life itself. (Her enthusiasm usually means I end up with a good deal of coffee on my already fetching ensemble.) The car gets moved across the street, double-parked. I pop a gallery postcard in the window on which I've scribbled my street address/apt # along with my cell phone number. This is a courtesy for the unfortunate people who don't understand the intricacies of this long-standing ritual that boxes them in to their perfectly legal spot for an hour or so two days per week. (Sometimes if I'm late, I might have a hard time finding a spot to double park in. Squeezing a station wagon into a small slice of pavement with a parked car on one side rather than a curb is not for the sleepy and under-caffeinated.) Once the car is parked, and the postcard is positioned thusly I'm free to return inside for more coffee and some email, listening for the damp thwap-thwap roar of the street cleaner.

When the street cleaner makes its appearance, all the double parked cars light up in unison and follow in its wake sliding directly into the freshly scrubbed spots. And then, we sit. If we don't sit, waiting for the clock to hit 10:30, we're ticketed. The fact that the ticketing happens after the street's been cleaned, not while the cars are double parked, has always been a mystery (and a major annoyance) to me. It's the sort of arbitrary rule that reminds me of elementary school cafeterias - the only logic is that it's the law, not that it makes any real sense.

The sitting part usually takes up an hour or so. It's a nice way to get to know the neighbors. In fact, my neighbor Stuart who lives next door and has a shop up the street, knocked lightly on my door at 9:05 this morning advising me that lately they'd been ticketing double-parked cars (scandal! greedy bastards!) and that I'd be well-served to either find a meter or resign myself to surrendering my schedule to the entire hour and half span of the shuffle. (I chose the latter, which is why this post is so damn long and rambling.) Shortly after the cars moved en masse to their final resting place, my other neighbor, proprietor of the delightful Podunk, came to my window and asked me how I take my coffee, returning a few moments later with a cup just for me (milk, one sugar). For her, the shuffle is a family ritual - she and her husband and their daughter sit snug in their Bug chatting and sipping til 10:30.

I usually listen to FUV or read a magazine, or lately since wireless is nearly ubiquitous, I bring my laptop out and tap away. It's nice to see the neighbors. Monty and Rebecca's daughter Lark has a new puppy named Chicken. The tree lady, a neighborhood activist who is the ferocious guardian of the lovely Gingkos that line our street, just strode by purposefully pushing a shopping cart laden with hoses and trowels and various tree-tending accouterment. The construction workers, a new and temporary addition to the mix, have big ass SUVs with flag decals on them and nice biceps. It's an added interest that doesn't quite make up for the fact that they're building an impossibly tall hotel on the corner of what has always been a somewhat sleepy and charming block. All of it's usually enough to keep me entertained 'til 10:30 when I can go back inside and start my day.

Comments

[John]

Thanks for the entertaining description of a ritual previously unknown to this non-New Yorker! A great time for neighborhood bonding and/or deep thought...

[miss representation]

All us car owners with tickets? Hmph. Two years and one ticket (and that was because I was out of town and knowingly left the car in a sweeping spot).

It is true car ownership and working at home go hand in hand. And though some rituals are odd (I had a friend with a VW van that was so rickety he more often than not pushed it across the street. He could actually parallel park his van while pushing it), Jen should also note the odd adherence NYers have to the notion that parking on one's block is for some reason important, and that often causes most of the headache. I have a friend who refuses to park more than a half block from her house (part of that stems from not using the garage space she's paying for).

Me, I park at 5pm. In some neighborhoods a large number of people drive to or from work (I'm near a bunch of schools and one business where everyone drives in street parks). There's enough churn that you can park in about five minutes. Of course it ends up the same for all of us: the better our spot is, the less inclined we are to drive anywhere.

[Josh]

Reason # 12762 I will never live in NY. I don't care how good the falafel is.

It's hard enough just digging your car out of a pile of snow after the plows comes by and buries you here in Minneapolis. To have to do a synchronized parking bit by knowing the idiosyncrasies of the local government is just too much.

[mare]

Montréal must have been inspired by NYC. The only difference is that here the metermaids (we call the Green Onions because they have green uniforms and they cause tears) come before the cleaning truck and that after the truck has passed you can park again. Maybe it's not official, but I've never seen someone been ticketed. Our parking fines are higher than yours though. It'll set you back 42 Canadian dollars which at the current exchange rate is almost 40 US$.

[Daddy'o]

This ritual has been going on forever. I remember a block on 135St or so (near CCNY) in the middle '60s where people would not double park....but triple park and leave their keys in the car (The block had a Firehouse on it)....and when you came back in the afternoon you always found your car...somewhere on that block! Some things never seem to change!!!

[Will]

I will never understand New York City...

[R. Gay]

I can't wait to move back to NYC in 2 years. I am awash with parking memories.

[Erik Feder - The Parking Expert]

Thanks for this fabulous post describing something that is so uniquely New York City! I am amazed at how much others (non-New Yorkers) are fascinated by this ritual. Because I am The Parking Expert and have a website devoted to Manhattan Parking which features our unique Manhattan Parking Search Engine (kind of like a Google for street and garage parking), I was asked to appear on German TV not once but twice on major German TV programs (magazine style programs like 60 minutes) where they documented this ritual, which they termed "The Ballet of Cars". They are amazed at how we follow the street cleaner and (re)claim parking spaces, only to then sit and wait for the magic hour.

If you want to see the German "Ballet of Cars" TV clips, they can be viewed in our press room at: http://www.wheretofindparking.com/view/press_room_TV.aspx?intChild=0cityid=12
Please be forewarned that while other media clips are in English, these are in German.

[John]

I love the fact that you listen to the FUV!!!
And yes those traffic cops really kill me...Its all really just a money making scheme, the street cleaners just push dirt from one side of the street to the other.

[Kaleberg]

Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but not only does alternate side of the street parking encourage neighborly behavior, it also encourages amity between cultural groups because it is suspended for a broad number of religious and ethnic holidays. You can tell an ethnic group has arrived in New York when they have enough clout to get their BFD day alternate side of the street suspended, and other New Yorkers find out about it.

[Rathead]

A friend of mine has just developed an app that he's testing to find parking spots in NYC because he got tired of wandering around on his motorcycle trying to remember where he could park it.

http://beta.primospot.com/spots/search

It's actually pretty cool.

[Mags]

Hi all, I'm promoting my new business Meter Maid Alert. It's great for those of you who sleep through or forget your street sweeper times, etc. Check it out!

[J.M.]

Has anyone considered this--vacuuming streets instead of sweeping them? I see that there now exist in modest abundance very interesting (from a techie's point of view) vacuum trucks, relatively quiet, with huge horsepower going for them. Our Con Edison utility company employs them in NYC to clean up rocks and soil after breaking up the sidewalks and roads to upgrade wiring. These trucks could, with some intelligence, be adapted to the task of removing the even less heavy and bulky litter, leaves, etc. from the curbside and gutters without the real need for folks to move their cars. This would save millions of person-hours, megatons of gas and oil--what else? Billions and billions of frayed neurons!

For thousands of years we "beat" and "swept" carpets, until technology gave us the vacuum cleaner. Now we have trucks that could vacuum the streets instead of sweeping them. Why not give it a try? National Energy Secretary and department people--are you listening?

P.S. All those ugly signs and stanchions could be sold for scrap to pay for the vacuum trucks, or recycled as pruning hooks--or something similarly peaceful. As for those rude, churlish people behind the bulletproof windows; well, they could be given brooms and pails to follow up on any missed litter.

It would build character....and bid farewell to an obsolete and obscenely antiquated and unnecessary ritual.

[jessica smith]

Design and build car-parking systems . Includes real audio demonstration of products, and specifications in adobe format.

Car Parking

[hector]

Interesting post! I enjoyed reading your post. Thanks.