Moving It

         I live in Manhattan and park my car on the street. It goes without saying that I am a big fan of Alternate Side of the Street Parking (ASP) regulations.

        

ASP is a traffic law that dictates on which side of the street vehicles may be parallel parked during designated hours to allow the streets to be cleaned.

Twice a week it becomes illegal to park on the North or West sides of the streets in my neighborhood for an hour and a half. On two other days it is exactly the opposite. Signs with the little red brooms spell this out clearly and comprehensibly.

        

Isn’t that brilliant? Our streets are always sparkling clean and perfectly passable.

What’s a little disruption to my life weighed against civic duty? If I haven’t been clever enough to find a legal parking spot, I just have to get out to move my car before the traffic cops get to it. I can double park, giving me undisturbed time just to sit in my car and enjoy it for the hour and a half.

Double parking is always illegal in New York City. But no ticket will be issued if the driver remains in the car.

ASP gets me on my feet and out of my stuffy apartment. Who wants to sleep in and miss the fascinating activities of life on the streets of New York City?

This is time I can devote to checking up on my car. I can look to see if the battery is working or just see if it is still there. I can test my lights or my windshield wipers. I can read or listen to music or bone up on current events on my car radio while I clean out my trunk. As I said, I have a whole hour and a half for this.   

I get my exercise running to my car to beat the traffic cops, ever alert to serve and protect and hand out humongous parking tickets for being even a minute late.

         The best thing is that ASP saves me a lot of money. The cost of a garage in my neighborhood is about the same as the mortgage payments on a house in Ohio would cost if I had listened to my mother and stayed there.

                          

But as I said, running is great exercise. I am also kept mentally alert by the effort it takes trying to remember just where I parked my car in time to get to it before you know what regulations go into effect.

        

ASP also provides me with opportunities to meet other car owners, my neighbors, who have also rushed out of their own buildings to beat me to the small number of double parking spaces available.

        

Those of us who succeed in cutting the others out get to sit cheerfully in our cold or hot cars awaiting the exact moment when it will be legal to exit our vehicles.

        

One half hour before the parking rules change, we slowly and respectfully re-park our cars on the freshly cleaned sides of the street, knowing that at least tomorrow we won’t have to come out and perform this heartwarming ritual.

One is permitted a gratuitous glare at anyone having the temerity to abandon his car early and risk a ticket. There is a certain well-deserved righteousness bred in to the hearts of those of us who stick it out.

        

With the arrival of the longed for moment, car doors seem to open almost simultaneously as though choreographed by some omniscient traffic god.  Refreshed, we can return to our homes or work.

        

I cannot forget to mention the lessons I’ve learned from the commercial vans heroically competing with me for those limited spaces. I have seen spectacular feats of parking involving driving backward at 50 miles an hour down a one way street to execute a perfect three point parallel parking maneuver into an available spot. What acrobats of the roads!

        

Did I tell you about the traffic cops who build community spirit with their efficient yet respectful manner of calling out "Move it" or "Outta here"?

        

The sanitation vehicles are marvels as well.  It is a lot of fun to watch the cleaners rearranging the debris on our street. They have high tech, high decibel horns, which politely convey the same messages as the traffic cops, namely "Move it" or "Outta here. Now".

        

But what I really love best are those movie and television crews who help our city’s economy by taking over blocks and blocks of parking spaces in order to create an authentic New York City scene for an up coming movie or TV program.  Brightly colored, indecipherable signs are posted on trees and lamp posts to announce just how many days huge trucks filled with lighting equipment, scenery, dressing rooms, and catering services will occupy five or ten blocks of prime parking spaces.

I do wish they would tell us what the titles of these movies might be, however, so I can look forward to seeing my neighborhood for 15 or 20 seconds on film.

        

I hear that there are movie stars right here in my neighborhood. I have never actually seen one; I am usually out cruising outer neighborhoods for a parking spot.

        

An acquaintance who lives a few blocks away told me how thrilled she was when she met the star of a movie being shot on her block. “It was Robert Redford,” she crooned. “I actually got to shake his hand.”

        

“My, my,” I responded, “how very nice. You don’t own a car, do you?”