|
This is a story of CARS....
Post WW II These folks had just finished a war and were happy to be alive. They got jobs, got cars, got married and moved to the suburbs. |
CARS.....
Summer, 1940's. My grandfather loved his big fish and his big cars. In the seventies he drove an enormous eight cylinder Chrysler New Yorker. He had to sit on a pillow to see over the steering wheel.
|
|
CARS.....
December 31, 1999
|
Fifty years past my grandfather's earliest behemoth, After decades of Earth Days, and Save the Planet rallies, I found a gathering of gargantuan gas guzzlers, Real,registered, and ready to roll. Madison, WI, USA.
|
|
People liked the little red truck. |
"NO PARKING" Boston, Snow season: 1999-2000
The little red truck was a piece of trash that became a marker in the No Parking zone of a driveway. Three weeks later it disappeared. |
|
Parking wasn't always serious.
|
Sometimes it was homey and cute.
|
|
The first snow was pitiful. |
But marking was serious. |
|
More refined than a garbage can.
|
More crowded than a street of three deckers? |
|
Holy Holistic Medicine Center |
January 23, 2000 The Jamaica Plain mailman thought marking a parking spot after shoveling was fair. At least it was understandable. "This part of JP isn't too bad", he told me. "If you want to see real marking get over to Tower Street." I drove around Jamaica Plain, and Roxbury, and Dorchester taking pictures wherever I saw markers in parking spaces. After a while I only took the best bits. So many markers, were standard, so boring.
|
|
|
|
|
The Rasta Barrel |
The Rasta Barrel Companion |
|
The Traditional Tin Can |
The Functional Rubbermaid barrel |
|
Iris from Green Street (& Trinidad) |
Church lady from Rockview Street
|
|
Iris has her own parking spot and her own driveway. She clears her sidewalk with great style.
|
At the Latvian Churchon on Rockview Street this parishoner chopped the sidewalk clean. |
|
A very neat shoveling job across from the schoolyard. Roxbury, near Geneva and Columbia. |
I drove through Roxbury: Egleston Square, Humboldt Avenue, Columbia Road, Geneva Ave. I visited Dorchester: Bowdoin St., Meeting House Hill, and Savin Hill. Marking varied from street to street.
|
|
Almost festive. Dorchester |
Brand new, price tag attached. Dorchester |
|
Going nowhere fast. This suitcase said travel, but its owner said STAY. Dorchester |
What, me shovel??? This green chair and another across the street were plopped down in unshoveled MUSH. Dorchester |
|
Time passes..... |
Time passes.... |
|
February 4, 2002 Finally on the mailman's advice I trudged over to Tower Street. Everyone has told me " Oh, Tower Street is a GREAT street.....EXCEPT for the parking." Tower St is five blocks from Boston Police Department District E-13. But Tower St. belongs to BPD District E-18 which is three miles south in Hyde Park. |
Tower St: Forty eight three-deckers with tiny yards that have NO PARKING. |
|
Officer of the day, George Crowley E-18 |
Sandwiched between the Forest Hills T and the Forest Hills Cemetery. |
|
Looking up the hill to the Forest Hills Cemetery |
Looking down to the Forest Hills T Station |
|
Top of Tower Street |
Bottom of Tower Street |
|
Born on Tower Street Joe Quercio has been cutting hair for seventy years in this barber shop, across from the Forest Hills T Station. |
Joe's father was so thrilled at his newborn baby, he bought this horse-chair the day that Joe was born. Joe says he doesn't remember when people started marking parking spaces on Tower Street. In the summer people would yell out the window, "Hey don't you park there. That's my spot." |
|
On Tower Street marking was very,very emphatic. Triple Barrels |
Or just very emphatic. Double barrels
|
|
Sometimes complex. Cone, horse and barrel |
Marking was emphatic, personal, expressive and ubiquitous. I found an abandoned car with deflating tires, out of state plates and multiple parking tickets attached. Tower Street looked like the epicenter of an urban property rights movement.
|
|
Shyly personal. 37 Tower St. |
Assertively personal. 75 Tower St. |
|
Expressively personal. 55 Tower St. |
And, some would say, Artistic. Tower Street |
|
The happy marker |
February 19, 2000 On Tower Street this Saturday morning as the snow ends, people are out and about, extricating their cars from a mushy four inch snow. One woman say, "Don't you take my picture!!" Others wave and laugh.
|
|
The non-marker |
|
|
|
Boston Gas cones, long separated from the original owners. |
|
Congratulations! You are now the PROUD owner of an orange cone!!! You earned this...Love, Mary xxxx 5-31-73
|
|
|
This space reserved for.... |
|
|
Neighbors complained about this one near Woodlawn St |
|
|
No, there's no snow, but these cones and sawhorses need a job. Like marking a parking spot. |
In front of a very nice house. |
|
Meanwhile down the street, the Boston Transportation Department's newly installed sign post attracts two cones. |
Even before this year's snow, the neighborhood council had been lobbying for a resident parking program. |
|
And after many meetings, and neighborhood notifications and warnings, on April 1, 2000, formal law moved in on Tower Street. Resident Parking liberated Tower Street from the scourge of foreign, freeloading commuter parkers. Outsiders got parking tickets. But old habits died hard. Barrels and cones remained. For months markers remained. |
Marking in spring |
|
Mid-week markers on call |
Double barrels with blossoms |
|
Time passes..... |
Three months later, three thousand miles away..... |
|
First sighting 10:21 AM |
Compostela Spain , June 27, 2000 I found a short street, on a hill, with a clock tower, and a parking lot, just like Tower Street. And then, shock of shocks, I saw a chair, marking a spot. "Not in Spain,", I thought.
|
|
After the house call 10:40AM |
Tower Street revisited |
|
I'm so angry I will stand on the answering machine and hope somebody calls the police
|
What should be done about marking parking spots in the city of Boston? A. let it be. B. make it a big deal political issue. C. call the police. Here's are some numbers: Mayor Menino's office , and and all your neighborhood city hall liaisons, city councillors and local community police |
|
Parking tickets abound within sight of the Dome. |
The Massachusetts State House from the Boston Common This is where laws are proposed and passed -- but they don't cover parking in the city of Boston. |
|
Gene from Mattapan I never asked Gene what he thought about parking. He's a retired MBTA bus driver who has a nice car, and I'll bet his own parking space in his yard. |
Doug from Downtown Crossing. When Doug parks, he makes music in the public space for the people who go by. |
|
Thank you friends, neighbors, meter maids, BTD folks,officers of the law, men&women-in-the-street interviewees, lovely ladies, shovelers, markers, non-markers, and all. -- Gina
|
Some wise guy and me. Photo by Farhad Naderi |
|
|
Oh, before you go.... I saw this marked cone on Beacon Hill, on Easter Sunday, 2002. Louisburg Square is pricey. Ask John Kerry whose share of #19 has helped finance his 2004 Presidential campaign. I asked a Louisburg Square resident to explain this symbol of Southie. "Well, parking is tight on the corners," he speculated. To be fair, Lousiburg Square is not a fully public street. But an orange cone, a working class cone,claiming a parking spot for One Lousiburg Square, the most exclusive address in Boston...well, it seems like a triumph. I am not sure why. THE END |
