in a video<\/a>, as she waved a business card calling herself \u201cThe Car Sitter.\u201d<\/p>\nThe video was reposted and in comments and replies, New Yorkers took the occasion to share their own parking tales and misadventures.<\/p>\n
Even if you\u2019re not hiring someone like Ms. Charlet, anyone who has tried to park on New York\u2019s streets knows that even when a space isn\u2019t pay-to-park, it still comes at a price.<\/p>\n
Driver engaged in \u2018car confessions.\u2019<\/p>\n
In the early 2000s, Cynthia Russo, then a stay-at-home mother, would pile into her Toyota Tercel with her 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son to deal with alternate-side parking on the Upper East Side.<\/p>\n
In those days, Ms. Russo\u2019s schedule was built around avoiding a ticket she said she could not afford.<\/p>\n
To make the time bearable, one of her two older neighbors would keep her company and they would pass the time baring their souls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to tell my husband it was like \u2018car confessions,\u2019\u201d Ms. Russo said. \u201cMy kids were in the car the whole time \u2014 they were oblivious.\u201d<\/p>\n
The neighbors opened up to her, and it came naturally to Ms. Russo to listen, she said, but she never told them why: She had previously been a therapist.<\/p>\n
A driver enlists help.<\/p>\n
Bash Halow, 60, a business adviser who lives in Chelsea, hit on an idea in a moment of desperation. If he sees an open spot on the opposite side of the street, he offers a person on the street $20 to hold it for him while he circles around.<\/p>\n
One day, several years ago, that person was an older lady with a push cart.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe unhesitatingly agreed,\u201d Mr. Halow said. \u201cSix minutes later, as I rounded the corner to grab the spot, I see this guy trying to park in the spot and the lady standing in the middle, not budging.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman used an expletive to tell the man to get lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saving this spot for my friend,\u201d Mr. Halow recalled her saying. \u201cThat\u2019s what really touched me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paid her at least $60 on the spot.<\/p>\n
Need access? Move concrete.<\/p>\n
For others, great parking spots come easier but cost more than money.<\/p>\n
Will Simon, 55, who lives in Park Slope, some years ago came upon what he called \u201ca perfectly good parking spot.\u201d The problem was that it was occupied by chunks of concrete from a hole that Con Ed had dug in the street.<\/p>\n
He took a few minutes to move the concrete and scored the spot. But Mr. Simon said that he, in general, has never seen parking as a chore. He said that people who complain about parking bring the suffering upon themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should have to earn your cars,\u201d Mr. Simon said, adding that the city owes him and other drivers nothing. \u201cI\u2019m able to store a 5,000-pound hunk of metal on public property.\u201d<\/p>\n
Go ahead. Take my car.<\/p>\n
For those who can, it may be easier to just ditch a car.<\/p>\n
Stuart Campbell\u2019s wife racked up parking tickets when she was a flight attendant living in Greenwich Village, he recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually her car was impounded \u2014 an old Hyundai, which was not worth much,\u201d Mr. Campbell said. \u201cWhen she went to retrieve it, she discovered the fines and fees were higher than the value of the car, so she never picked it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Make way for the street sweeper.<\/p>\n
At 9:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning in August, Brian McBride, a sanitation worker, parked his street sweeper in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn. Alternate-side parking had just begun but he waited before moving his mechanical broom down the choked streets.<\/p>\n
Anthony Saporito, a superintendent at the Sanitation Department, said drivers get a five-minute grace period after alternate-side parking rules begin before department workers start sweeping \u2014 and ticketing.<\/p>\n
Mr. Saporito followed the sweeper in a Sanitation Department vehicle with a clipboard of blank tickets perched on the dashboard. He pointed out the two, then four, then dozens and dozens of vehicles that had failed to move.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that car wasn\u2019t there, he could have just had a straight run,\u201d Mr. Saporito said of Mr. McBride, who, though deftly handling the sweeper, could clean only so much of the curb around a single parked car. \u201cBut no, he had to cut out. He probably missed about 10 feet on the back of the car, and he probably missed 10 feet on the front of the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every parked vehicle, except one with a permit for people with disabilities, got a ticket. The road, littered with leaves even in the dead of summer, kept its dusty appearance compared with the gleaming, wet asphalt where the sweeper had just passed with its whirring brushes.<\/p>\n
Mr. Saporito wrote tickets, printing foot-long slips from a machine attached to his hip before stuffing them under windshield wipers with a neon orange envelope. The Sanitation Department issued 515,582 alternate-side parking summonses in the 2025 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people will say, \u2018You know what? I\u2019ll roll the dice and I\u2019ll get a $65 fine once every couple of weeks rather than having to pay to put it in a lot,\u2019\u201d Mr. Saporito said.<\/p>\n
In neighborhoods filled with longtime residents, people remain \u201crule followers,\u201d Mr. Saporito said. It\u2019s the newcomers who push the boundaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, I can\u2019t tell you how many times when I was a supervisor here, I\u2019d pass this car and it would say: \u2018If you need me to move it, here\u2019s my phone number. Call me. I\u2019ll come move it,\u2019\u201d Mr. Saporito recalled.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the gold badge on his chest and said: \u201cDoes this say \u2018Mom\u2019? You want me to do your laundry, too?\u201d<\/p>\n