Parking on the Upper West Side

Parking is tight here because most of the buildings in the neighborhood were built before parking garages were common. There are probably more old carriage houses and stables on the Upper West Side than parking garages. People will do almost anything for a parking space on the street. I once found my car pushed over the curb into a tree pit by somebody trying to make enough space for themselves behind it. That got me a $50 ticket (which was reversed on appeal in mail-in traffic court.) To keep things moving, the city imposes alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules. If you are unfamiliar with this idea, it means you can't park in this neighborhood on something like Tuesdays and Fridays on the south or east side of the streets between 9:30 and 11 am or on Mondays and Thursdays on the north or west side between... you get the picture. They do this so the city can clean the streets. This has created a whole club of donut turners who sit in their cars holding the best spaces until the street sweeper drives up behind them, blows its horn to wake them up, they start the car and and do a donut to go from in front of the sweeper to its backside before anyone else can swoop in and take their space. Within one minute after the end of alternate side hours, every space is taken and one would never know that anything had even changed. Other drivers squeeze into what few impossible spaces are left for them.