Parking Enforcement: "a conspiracy against the laity, going back to, you know, medieval times."
Sometimes I think parking enforcement in Washington, D.C. is awful. And then I'm reminded of New York. Via The New York Post, the true tale of a man whose book-filled, duct-taped Honda has been parked at the same Upper West Side location for 11 years:
Eleven years ago, Charles Mysak snagged a primo parking spot on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 68th Street -- and he hasn't budged since.
The sidewalk bookseller keeps his inventory piled up in the beat up green '94 Civic, held partially together with duct tape, and feeds the meter $36 a day -- in quarters -- to hold on to the spot.
Traffic agents paper him with parking tickets for overstaying his welcome, and he's even been towed once or twice, but the defiant Mysak, 60, continues to hold on to the spot he first claimed during the Clinton administration.
Mysak tells Jalopnik that "As far as I'm concerned, most parking enforcement actions are predatory in nature: they're anti-business, anti-commerce, and by definition, anti-New York." He gets along with most street cleaners just fine. The parking cops, not so much:
His relationship with the NYPD Parking Enforcement squad, however, is a little more strained. "I pulled up to a burrito box… While my wife was in the car, a marshal pulls up, boxes her in, calls the tow truck, and holds us up for around $700. We eventually paid, but it's the principle of the damn thing."
More here. The New York Times profiled the Playboy-selling, Mencken-quoting Mysak back in 2005.
