Street Parking in NYC

We pulled our Mini from the garage two months ago to try out street parking. 

Spaces on the weekend in our neighborhood aren't difficult to find, often right in front of our house. The week, however, is much trickier both because our street is blocked off during school days and street cleaning requires alternate side parking.  Each street from south to north has a no parking window, like "No Parking Monday & Thursday 9-10.30AM." Then the next street north would have "No Parking Monday & Thursday 9.30-11AM." The opposite side of the street has "No Parking Tuesday & Friday 9-10.30AM."

Bryan has how and when and where to move the car down to an elegant effortless science, but when he goes out of town and I have to move the car, it becomes an inelegant effort — with the car ending back up in a paid lot.

Yesterday morning at 10AM, I take our car out of the paid lot where it had been for 24 hours (I gave up on Thurs), to move it. My plan was brilliant — find a spot that will be legal in 30 minutes and just sit in and wait. I put on NPR and start to circle blocks but am finding nothing. Suddenly, there's a great little spot my Mini can fit in in back of the school. After I smartly and snugly park, I get out to realize that it's available only because one cannot park there because of the school. I get back in, continue to circle, listening to NPR's analysis of the the governor's Senate pick, and circle and circle. 

This goes on for more than an hour before I give up. There's still time to make this experience worse, and I do. I drive the car with me to mid-town to work and only find no spots and a more expensive garage for the day.

Brilliance fades — I am novice.

Ethnography-wise , it is fascinating.

Walk along a street 30-60 minutes before the deadline and you see people smarter and earlier than I was, sitting in their cars, waiting and waiting. It becomes a cultural habit, and if you look closely, you can see that they're listening to the radio, doing their nails, talking on the phone, drinking coffee, reading a magazine. 

I want to knock on their windows to solicit advice, curious if I'll be warmly welcomed into this brotherhood of street parking or if the secrets are kept because the competition is so fierce.