Between high rents, high fuel costs, and high stress, how does an urban surpie, or surplus dealer manage?
It’s a challenge, for sure!
Ask my kids, who roll their eyes when friends notice the cartons of merchandise piled ceiling high in the apartment hallway. >My mom sells stuff,” they explain, making the ‘crazy’ circle with their finger, as friends pass the giant Elvis collectible that lights up while singing, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hounddog…”
Last winter, after the boxes of Vera Wang crystal champagne flutes threatened to topple over on top of the dog, I rented a mini-storage space in New Jersey, just over the George Washington Bridge. My timing was perfect. As gas prices passed $4 per gallon in the city, they remained a dollar less in Jersey. When I checked last week, the NYC price was approaching $5 a gallon. So, every other week, I drive out to the mini-storage, load up on merchandise, and fill the tank.
But what about in between those trips? Garage spaces in New York rent for as much as a one bedroom apartment in most cities, so I do what is known as “alternate side of the street parking.” The routine goes like this: Most city streets are swept by large washer/sweeper trucks twice a week at designated times, during which it is illegal to park there. Leave your car during that period and you risk a fine, towing, or a large, hard-to-remove sticker on your window — like a ‘scarlet letter’ — that brands you a bad person by the Sanitation Department. So what do regular parkers like me do? On my block, sweeping is done between 11am and 12:30pm. So at 11, I and my neighbors move our cars to the alternate side of the street and double-park, leaving a note on our windshield with our phone number and address, in case the car we are bloking needs to move. At around noon, we return to our cars, wait for the sweeper (who usually swings by just past noon) and then as soon as he drives through, we zoom across the street and secure a new space on the newly cleaned side. We must sit in our cars until 12:30, because parking remains illegal until then. But then our space is safe until the next ‘alt side’ day.
Every neighborhood has its own variation of this routine. In some areas, the police make you sit in your double-parked car for the entire hour and a half or they will ticket you. In most neighborhoods, like mine, the regulars watch out for one another, making space for latecomers by adjusting our cars back and forth until we’ve carved out one additional space. We measure the distance from hydrants with our feet — 18 feet to play it safe, 15 to be within the law. The ‘regulars’ tend to be pretty interesting people, writers, actors, janitors, and others who make our livings out of our homes or managing our apartment buildings. In nice weather someone will set up a hose so we can wash our cars. We commiserate on the toll that on-street parking takes on our cars and offer opinions on what body damage should be fixed and what left alone because — frankly, the car will just get bumped and bruised again. And of course we remid one another of any approaching parking holiday. The parking holidays are a tribute to New York’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural fabric, with days off for Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays, Chinese New Year, you name it.
Alternate side parking may be a hassle sometimes, but it’s a very New York hassle. It brings us out of our apartments, allows us to meet our neighbors and enjoy a sense of community. It’s part of our very special street life and another example of how ordinary working people get by in ‘the city that never sleeps.’
