I have now been a monthly customer at three parking garages on the Upper East Side. I moved too far away from the first. The second one closed to make way for a high rise luxury condominium. As I type, my car is tucked cozily into the third.Parking garages are beautiful things. And for me, arguably necessary, despite the expense. When I moved from the suburbs into Manhattan, being able to afford a parking space in addition to rent was a prerequisite. I still reverse commute out to Westchester for work. I do so at ideal times for driving (leaving the city around one in the afternoon and returning around nine pm) and the worst possible times for parking on the street. Without a garage, I’d have to devote my mornings to moving my car to comply with alternate side parking rules and it would be challenging to find a space that late at night.
And, though I have certainly improved over the years, parallel parking is far from my forte. I need room for error, including the freedom to start over and re-try. When a line of cabs and commuters inevitably start to honk their horns in an impatient chorus, forget it, I’ll just pull away in frustration. I think if I had to circle around for the perfect space every night, I’d often end my day in tears. I imagine myself just stopping the car after hours of fruitless searching, getting out, and leaving it in the middle of the street. Or pushing it into the East River.
So I have invested a lot into the convenience of a guaranteed space every night. It’s like paying a whole other rent, but it has been well worth it. Still, it’s a strange phenomenon, h
anding over your keys to people you only half-know. Remember that joyride scene in the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? It’s doubtful that my little Hyundai would inspire that kind of illicit jaunt, and I do trust the integrity of the garage attendants, but it has crossed my mind.Because I commute every day, I spend a lot of time in my car. It’s almost like a second home: an office, a dining room, and a living room on wheels. Parking in a city lot, though, makes my car seem like more of a public space than a private one. This point was exemplified when I once happened to be walking by my garage and I saw an attendant reclined in my driver’s seat, napping. Just like subletting your apartment, or opening your home to guests, you give up a certain amount of control.
Along these lines, sometimes when you get back in it, your car feels as foreign as a rental. You have to re-adjust the seat and the mirrors so that you can drive it, just as the attendants understandably had to do, themselves. Sometimes, I’ll be changing lanes on the FDR and discover that the passenger side mirror is still folded in, the car equivalent of “sucking it in.” This is so that your car can fit into a smaller space.
Every once in a while, I forget something in my car, prompting the “do I really need it tonight?” debate. It’s not like the car is just in the driveway a few short steps from my front door, and I can just run back out there in my slippers. Banana? No. Wallet? Yes. Mittens? No. Cell phone? Definitely.
When I’ve decided to go back, I’ve had attendants do one of three things. They might fish out your car from the bowels of the garage and drive it down (or up) to you. If it’s already too packed into their car puzzle, they might ask what you forgot and where, and bring just that item to you. The craziest is when they escort you inside. This might get you a ride on the car elevator. And you’ll get the opportunity to see just how expertly they fit these cars in.
Seeing how each level is packed tight as a can of sardines, you’ll start to understand why the sides of your car are gradually becoming so pock-marked. Even a wafer-thin human cannot possibly squeeze into a car in that small of a space without pressing the edge of one door into the vehicle beside it, resulting in a tiny dent. My car currently has hundreds of these: it’s starting to look like a golf ball. Of course, you get these when you park out on the street or in suburban parking lots as well, so it’s hard to say whether my car would look more pristine (or possibly even more battered) if I wasn’t a monthly garage customer. I suppose if I had…how shall I say…a more luxury vehicle, I might swaddle it in one of those protective, padded, blankets. But that is not the case.
But my car has “weathered” more extreme mishaps in my years of garaging. Like the elevator closing
on the back of my car, crushing the trunk like bug while I watched. Like picking up my car and discovering that the fender was bashed in and streaked with yellow paint the same color as the garage poles. The wildest was when there was a dent along the width of my car roof unmistakably imprinted by “the lift,” those large stacking structures that are like shelves for cars. I have had the damage from these blunders both immediately fixed by the management and also denied. After all, most garages have a sign that says, “Not responsible for damage to your car or items left in your car.”I have to admit that, because my apartment is so small, my car also serves as a storage space for various and sundry items I can’t fit in my pint-sized apartment. I try to stuff all these things in my trunk – it is a disorganized mess back there – but there is inevitably overflow to the backseat and I feel much better having these items out when parked safely in the garage. If it were parked on the street, these items, even non-valuables, could tempt passersby to “reach through” the window, shattering the glass in the process. And that’s not how I like my windows.
One thing you have to leave in your car at a garage is the key. I have accidentally walked off with it twice in the last several years, one time noticing it in my hand when I reached my apartment, and another time receiving a frantic phone call from the garage to bring the key back because my car was blocking other customers. But there’s also danger of the reverse: getting so accustomed to leaving your keys in the car that you do so in other scenarios. Yes, that’s unfortunately happened once or twice as well.
Overall, though, the pros of parking regularly in a garage far out-weigh the cons and I do recommend it. The quality of life here on the Upper East Side is already excellent, and having a parking space you can count on certainly enhances it, dents and all.
