Parking, from September 2003

I have just returned from moving my car to a new parking spot, 3 avenues and 3 blocks away from my apartment. Finding the spot took a half an hour, since I am a novice and don't know this business well enough to scout quickly. I still have to squint at the signs on each block to see which day they have to be cleaned. I know the basics now, which is much more than I knew a few months ago.

I know here is a charmed time -- the early evening, in which prime spots can be had right on my block. There are other charmed times that are unpredictable, unless you're really good, and always seem to happen just after you've parked your car a mile away and walked uphill for a good ten minutes.

I know that summer is easier than any other season, and that parking at night at the end of a long weekend can be impossible. I know that if I'm too close to a hydrant, or do anything else wrong, I will get a ticket. I know how expensive these violations are. I know where the hydrants and driveways are on my block, and a couple of neighboring ones.

I know to go directly to the Mon/Tues areas if I need something on Thursday night. I know where spots can be found on Friday morning, and I know to look around the corner for garbage trucks on narrow blocks before turning into them in the morning. I know a little about etiquette -- if you see someone leaving, turn the blinker on and get behind the spot, leaving them room to exit. Grab it as soon as possible. Park close to the curb. Lock the club onto the back of the steering wheel, because it's harder to saw that way (possibly a novice habit, as I've already stopped doing that). Don't park near to auto mechanic garages. Avoid: the park, questionable blocks, below 4th avenue. Go south if you're in a pickle.

If you're hopeless, there's a parking garage on 11th and 8th Ave. I have not used that yet and would probably consider parking in a completely different neighborhood and taking the train home, or parking in a spot that's only good for a few hours, before forking over the cash they ask for. I can't say that for sure, though. If I were tired enough I might do anything. Looking for parking is such a monotonous, frustrating, pointless, mind-numbing task.

Another bit of knowledge I've gained: There is an elite force of parking veterans in each Brooklyn neighborhood. The owners of brownstones, if they don't have their own driveway, seem to have a secret system that I have not cracked. First, they always have spots on their block. Second, someone will double-park their car while the street-cleaner goes by, so they can grab the space as soon as it's legal again. I don't know yet whether the owners themselves do this or whether they hire a parking guru that only owners know about, but I have a feeling that know-how and money are involved. They're all in on it together, somehow. Perhaps there are parking posses -- a group on my block, for instance. The grumpy men in the building across the street have probably been doing this for decades. A few long-time resident families probably control most of the spaces on the block.

For a while, there was a deep hole in the pavement across the street, toward 7th Avenue, which I guessed was related to plumbing reconstruction. It was surrounded by flimsy sawhorse-things, and I normally wouldn't have given it any thought, except that a parking space opened up just behind it while I was waiting for one (another tactic I've developed -- double park and be patient until something opens up -- which can be infuriating because you can't read or you'll miss it, and you can't listen to the radio or the battery might go dead, and if you're in a rush, the block will show no sign of movement). Suddenly, as I pulled into position, close to the hole, I realized that I could easily lodge a tire in the hole if I misjudged the delicate art of pulling the front end in while parallel parking. So I let Derek do it, and he parked rather far away from the actual hole, which was fine my me. I checked the car a couple of times during that week and noticed that space had opened up behind the car as well. I thought of moving the car on the way to work one morning, but decided against it because I'd have to undo the Club and I was in a rush. A bad decision, apparently. When I finally got into the car to move it, I noticed a little white, handwritten note on my windshield. It started with "Please", but the handwriting seemed to suggest that it wasn't meant to be all that polite. It said "Please be kind enough not to take up 2 parking spaces!!" I felt miserable, as if I had been banished forever from the club of savvy parkers. I wanted to explain about the chasm that prevented parking too close, or explain that I wasn't the one who parked it, so it wasn't really my fault ... but I knew my excuses were pathetic. Especially when I saw cars parked up right against the barrier around the hole for the rest of the week.

When I first kept my car in the city for a week, I was thrilled. A car meant that we could go anywhere -- upstate, cross-country, to parts of Brooklyn not listed on the subway map. It meant I could buy furniture and transport it home myself -- or take laundry to someplace other than the godawful Russian establishment nearby, or go that big Queens shopping center for kicks. At first, it was an illicit pleasure, something that my father didn't want me to do because, as he explained to me in detail, the car was insured as a "garage car" in New Jersey that was only used during weekends and vacations (it had Jersey plates). If it got stolen or into an accident, the insurance company might somehow find out (how?) that it had been staying in Brooklyn and they could refuse coverage. I heard this argument constantly while I kept the car in the city over the summer (easy parking season) and finally got my act together to get it registered in New York (quite an ordeal). The plates were switched upstate, where we submitted all the paperwork (easier than doing it in the city) and I felt duly proud of my New York plates. Now maybe the traffic cops would treat me differently! Now maybe I wouldn't get those notes from my neighbors! Now my aggressive driving would seem authentic.

I'm still clueless about the nuts and bolts of owning a car, but I did get the thing inspected and made sure the sticker was in the windshield where it was supposed to be. At least I thought I did. I didn't realize there were supposed to be two stickers, so I got a nice $55 ticket less than a week after changing the plates. Nice little welcome-to-the-club gesture from the traffic cops.

I'm not sure this romance with having a car in the city will work out. I cannot seem to remember when I need to repark the car. I'm not used to having this extra member of the family. I need freedom but it might end up making me feel a little less free in the long run. Right now, I rely on Derek to remind me to repark -- if it weren't for him it would have been towed last week. And would be tomorrow. I have "MOVE CAR" stickies on my alarm clock and mirror, but they have lost their urgency. I need a method. This may get easier with time and it may not. We'll have to wait and see.