Posted on 12/30/2004 10:00:51 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
Boston cracks down on winter tradition of reserving dug-out parking spaces
Thu Dec 30, 5:21 PM ET
BOSTON (AP) - There's an unwritten code of urban etiquette on Boston's narrow and often-snowy neighbourhood streets: You shovel a parking space and it's yours.
But this year, the city is cracking down on this age-old rule and warning residents that it will no longer tolerate the garbage cans, the chairs, the boxes and the Christmas trees that people put out along the curb to reserve the parking spaces they sweated to clear. Mayor Tom Menino is giving residents 48 hours after a snow emergency ends to remove their placeholders. After that, sanitation workers are supposed to haul the junk away.
The reaction in Boston's neighbourhoods has been frosty.
Frances Rizzo, 67, stood on a snowy sidewalk in South Boston on Wednesday and waited for the sanitation workers. The cherished neighbourhood tradition works, she said, and she was ready to replace her 72-year-old neighbour's traffic cone with a bag of garbage to preserve the parking spot.
"I think it's ridiculous," Rizzo said of the city's crackdown. The mayor's "got a driveway, what does he care?"
It is the second straight year that the mayor has taken on the practice. Menino says it is an issue of safety and civility, citing disputes that have erupted into violence and property damage, such as tire-slashing.
But residents say their informal rules work just fine and are vital in preserving peace during tough New England winters. According to the code, a few hours of sweat earn you a parking spot.
"If you don't do it, you don't park. You have to go along with it, even if you don't agree with it," South Boston resident Deanna Cusack, 52, who nevertheless acknowledged some people abuse the practice by staking claim to a space long after the snow has receded.
The practice is not unique to Boston. Various crowded suburbs have similar rules, as do packed cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago. But it is rare for a city to try to break the tradition, given the vigour with which residents defend it.
In Boston, sanitation workers moved a trash barrel from a spot belonging to city Coun. James Kelly, a vocal opponent of Menino's policy. Within minutes, a neighbour had dragged it back.
Residents speak with disdain about the "yuppies" and the commuters headed for the bus stop who want to take parking spots without working for them.
Tom Farnkoff, 64, blames the young professionals who have migrated to gentrified South Boston's new condos and apartments.
"They come home, they won't do anything, and they want the spots," he said. "They don't give anything to the community at all."
I really envy life in the Blue states.
Maybe so, but this really doesn't matter when you consider that the Red Sox finally broke the curse.
;)
This might be an opportunity for a republican to become the new mayor in the coming election.
LOL. If I lived there, I would ask the neighbors to move their cars, and plow the street.
Could be worse....like four counties controlling the entire state...@#^@#&##
But we ain't as smart as them. It is MUCH better to shovel out a parking place and park trash cans.
When I lived in Brooklyn, people would fight over parking spaces. Whoever got knocked in the snow first lost the space.
Maybe that's why we don't live there ... being idiots, and all. God bless them.
Tell me about it! Graybeard from Illinois.
Typical liberal solution that doesn't realize the unintended consequence will be that no one will bother digging out the spots from now on.
Thank God I'm a Texan
I remember attending this town hall meeting held by (former) Mayor Giuliani, where the most pressing issue was...CURB CUTS!
I'm not kidding.
This was the height of controversy, from what I can recall of that event.
I believe that the worst thing was flypaper on a windshield. You don't take a spot that someone else has shoveled.
Go to Bayridge.com and you will find lots of ranting about curb cuts. And Century 21. And Arabs, etc.
You don't have to tell me!
(Rolls eyes.)
-good times, G.J.P.(Jr.)
"When I lived in Chicago, I remember people pouring water over cars that would park in a spot someone else shoveled out (I did not have a car at the time so it wasn't me). The car froze-up and the offending person could not get into their car. I have also heard stories about someone on the the Keflyvik (sp?) Air Force Base in Iceland actually building a wall of snow around an offending car, and watering the wall down to create an almost impenetrable ice wall."
Good ideas, any more? LOL!
Bumperstickers soon appearred that said "At least the hippies plowed the streets". Needless to say the Socialists have remained in power ever since.
As a wise sage once said, "...bureaucracies often forget that it's easier to raise the bridge than it is to lower the river."
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