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It’s In NY #8

Central Park: Secret Society
Manhattan is home to three of my jobs. Radio promotions, sales at a small magazine, and trying to cover red carpets keep me in NYC 6 days a week at odd hours. Navigating the roads from Rockland County to NYC and finding free parking has become my mission because I’m broke. Queen of Parking is what my colleagues call me. Why do I know that you can park in front of the Ethan Allen on the West End after 10am, or that one place a sign is broken so you can legally park there on a weekday before 6pm? I know because it’s necessary for my survival.

In our society, “all we ask is trust.” I joined three years ago while looking for a parking spot before my radio station softball game in Central Park, a big step up from Roosevelt Island which has a whole other secret society, but I digress. I parked and read the sign: No Parking 8:00am–9:30am. Monday & Thurs. Wow. Finally, I didn’t have to trek from the bowels of West End & 61st street where I would run past skid row to Trump Parking after working until 2am at the station, to pay $30 because I missed the 8 hour time frame by 3 seconds.

Sitting for an hour and a half, writing, reading, or sleeping, all in the privacy of my plush Toyota sounded like heaven. Parking for free and walking 10 minutes to my job is a blessing, a short vacation before work. I thought I was so much smarter than those other commuters, I thought it would be easy.

The first month was brutal. What, I’m not the only one who thought of this? Newcomers to parking are not welcome. Pulling up at 9:15am almost got me killed. The veterans didn’t want to let me in, so they spit expletives like rappers. After a short screaming match with a guy twice my size, he backed up, and I passed initiation. But, in this society you learn the hard way: follow the rules or pay to park.

Driving around in circles and circles and circles until you find your clique who will make room for you, will make you curse the city, the cops, and contractors who save spots so they can work on the condo’s of the rich. The Others a.ka. Traffic Cops are evil vultures who sneak up on you while you are sleeping and slap a ticket on your car. And then there are the parking thieves. These chumps wait for you to move out of the way of the sanitation truck a.ka. “The Sweeper”, then pounce into your spot, leaving you stranded. This one guy did this three times, but one day, we all got out of our cars and yelled at that guy so bad he relinquished his stolen spot. “All we ask is trust”.

Doormen are your friends. If they like you they will warn you about the vultures and wave you down when a spot will open up. Queens, N.Y. native Jan, a handsome doorman who wears crisp white shirts and sophisticated embroidered silk vests, looks out for everyone who parks–if you don’t try to block the doorway. When asked about the craziest stuff he witnessed as a doorman, he laughs, “People fight over parking all the time, that’s it, nothing too crazy!”

Mark, a publicist parks reads and listens to Bloomberg radio. Why park on the street when he can afford to park in a garage, unlike me, “I like that fact that I can beat the system,” he smiled. Yes, that’s part of the fun for me too. Veteran parker Nic, a rock record producer happened to be teaching his grandpa, Aubrey from Australia the rules. Visit http://www.nichard.com/client_list.html

Central Park is a whole new world from 8am-9:30pm, like when the toddler was locked in the car and the CP police couldn’t get him out with the slim jim, but the Harlem task force was called in, the kids was free in seconds. Or when the homeless man beat up the homeless woman, and a stocky woman tried to intervene while everyone else with good sense called the cops. The homeless man, did I mention he was on crutches, started chasing the stocky, good hearted, but stupid woman up the street until the cops stopped him. I still see the homeless couple and their dog sleeping together on the steps every morning. Now that’s amore. Ain’t no ni##a like the one she’s got and ain’t no parking spot like that one I got.

To my CP clique: please forgive me. I hope this story doesn’t make it harder for us to find parking.

Next…
Central Park II: Deluxe Apt in the Sky & Blacks used to live in Central Park

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By Stephanie Taylor on 10/16/2007[read on] [3 comments]

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