[SamAdams76]

Your story of holding parking spots with garbage cans, chairs, etc., was classic "East Boston" growing up. Even ironing boards would do the trick.

Then you have this guy...let's see the city public works department try to nudge him from his shoveled-out spot.

[kearnyirish2]

That’s great; nobody’s parking in HIS spot! One of the problems here is that parking is so bad in good times that people want to leave those placeholders out until the snow is practically gone. The neighborhoods were built over a century ago when nobody could foresee that every 17 year-old would be getting a car. In my town any new construction must have some off-street parking, but it is never enough to accommodate the number of vehicles that the new multi-family homes will bring. A couple of towns fight the blight by simply allowing no parking on any street from 2-6 am; that goes a long way towards discouraging illegal apartment conversions.

[DoodleBob]

It was a time-honored tradition in Philadelphia to leave lawn chairs as a holder for your shoveled-out spot. And if some dope took your spot, let’s just say a ten spot to some of the local youth usually resulted in frontier justice.