Dastardly Neighbors

For those of you unfamiliar with parking cars in NYC, there's this concept referred to as "Alternate Side Parking." For a few hours on certain days, one side of the street needs to be cleared for street cleaning. In Manhattan this happens several times a week. In Queens it's just once a week. On one side of my street, for example, there's no parking from 9:30-11:00am on Thursdays. On the other side of the street, no parking from 9:30-11:00am on Fridays. So if you rarely use your car, you still have to move it at least once a week.

For some, Alternate Side Parking is an opportunity to get your car closer to your apartment. The whole street is clear, so you've got your choice. But you have to sit in your car for that hour and a half in case the traffic cop or street cleaner shows up. Then you pull around the block back into the same space. Simple enough.

Parking in Queens is nothing on parking in Manhattan, but still, my street starts to fill up around 10:30am, and then people wait, sometimes having conversations with their fellow parkers until 11:00am, when it's safe to leave their cars for another week. Others bring a book or magazine and a cup of coffee and just sit there. This morning, I took out my laptop and got some pretty good work done on a script I'm writing.

I was parked as close to a yellow line as I could be, near a hydrant. The next space beyond the hydrant was actually being blocked by a woman cleaning up leaves from one of Sunnyside's autumn trees. She was working excruciatingly slowly, and during the half hour I sat there, at least three cars pulled up to where she was working. She didn't even acknowledge their presence, as she slowly swept and bagged leaves. Each car eventually gave up and looked for another space.

Finally, her daughter pulls up and the woman moves. The leaf bagging was all a ruse. She was simply saving a parking spot.