In the Driver’s Seat

I read Zach Helfand’s essay on parking in New York City with fervor (“Circling the Block,” May 12th & 19th). Though I consider myself agnostic, I’ve been a devotee of the parking gods for the past twenty-five years. Sitting somewhere between karma and Roman household deities, the parking gods give and take, and they often require a sacrifice.

Spending forty-five minutes searching for parking on one day might be the reason that, on another, your husband finds a space near the hospital just in time to witness the birth of your child. Maybe I could become a “garage person,” but nothing would match the ecstasy of scoring a spot right outside my apartment. As a missionary for the parking gods, I urge all parkers to have faith.

Ariella Papa
Brooklyn, N.Y.

I lived in Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy, and afterward my co-workers and I traded war stories. One colleague, who lived in Stuyvesant Town, bemoaned how long she’d have to wait to get her damaged car towed, on account of the hundreds of cars in the vicinity that had similarly been flooded. My immediate—and wisely unspoken—reaction was “Now there’s parking near the Lower East Side!” I didn’t even own a car, but I had thoroughly internalized the local attitude around parking.

Sharon Miller
Snohomish, Wash.

Helfand’s piece elicited rueful recognition. In the nineteen-eighties, a man with long hair, a black leather jacket, and a huge chain of keys patrolled my Upper West Side block, moving cars during alternate-side-parking periods. I never had to worry about my car on those days, because I left early to get to work outside the city. Then I got very sick. For about a week, I staggered outside with a hundred-and-three-degree fever, in a robe and slippers, just to move the car. Luckily, a friend in New Jersey took pity on me and brought my car to her house until I recovered.

Stephanie Harding
New York, N.Y.

I used to be an accomplished Brooklyn street parker. I was nine months pregnant in February, 2012, and I still planned to move my car after Super Bowl XLVI, in which the Giants played (and beat) the Patriots. I ended up going into labor during the game, yet I was convinced that I could re-park the car between contractions. By the time the game was over, it was too late. I debated sending my husband, but ultimately decided that I couldn’t spare him. The next morning, I received a ticket at 9:05 A.M., twenty-eight minutes after my son was born. I contested it and submitted his birth certificate—and I won! A parking victory for the people.

Kate Smith
Lexington, Ky.

I lived in the Bronx and Manhattan for thirty years, and I spent much of that time looking for parking. On numerous occasions, I’d circle a ten-block radius so monotonously that, by the next day, I’d forget where I parked. I either walked around or hailed a cab to drive me through my neighborhood until I found my car. During the winter, I prayed for snowstorms large enough to force the city to suspend alternate-side parking. Suffice to say that, much like other city dwellers, I woke up every morning asking myself the same three questions: Who am I? What am I doing here? And where am I going to park?

Stuart I. Rosenblatt
Greenwich, N.Y.

Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.