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Inconsiderate Parking "A Gateway To Bigger Crimes"
By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 7, 2009
Modified Sep 7, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 7, 2009
Modified Sep 7, 2009
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In the latest City Room "Complaint Box" column (the previous one was about pregnant ladies and subway seats), Ray Rivera takes on the bad parking jobs in his northern Manhattan neighborhood. There's the cop and Buildings Department employee who "live in the neighborhood and park illegally every day in front of fire hydrants or in No Standing zones...They place city placards on their dashboards claiming to be on official duty. As official abuses of power go, this is fairly harmless, I know. But I consider it a gateway to bigger crimes, the way some people say marijuana leads to heavier drugs. Today it’s illegal parking; tomorrow, payoffs from the mob." (Still, Rivera and his neighbors have decided to stay silent, vs. having those city employees look for legal parking with the rest of them.) As for the civilian discourteous parkers, like the sporty Silver Mazda that insists on taking up two spaces even after notes left by neighbors, Rivera fantastzes about plastering "his car with those annoyingly sticky green notices the Sanitation Department uses when you forget to move on alternate-side parking days. You know — the kind you can never fully remove, even with hot water and a scraper."
Tagged
bad parking
free parking
illegal parking
parking
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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