It's customary for Chicagoans who have had to shovel their own cars free to reserve that on-the-street spot with a chair. (Or a baby stroller, a crate, a bucket of rocks, etc.) It's also against the law, as legally, street parking belongs to any and everyone. The law is seldom enforced, but that may be changing.Ald. Dick Mell (ironically enough, the estranged father-in-law of Governor Blagojevich) has emailed his constituents that they must stop doing this. Only the city can reserve a parking space. He doesn't like junk in the streets, and shovelling a spot doesn't make it yours.
Huh? What? Of course it does!
I didn't realize that this was a uniquely Chicago custom, that snowy side streets in Minneapolis and Portland aren't dotted with lawn chairs, dining room chairs, the occasional ginormous imitation/unbreakable Oriental vase, etc. But I think it's fair. If you were out there at dawn to liberate your car, why shouldn't get to park there again when you get home in the evening?
I don't drive so my opinion has been instilled more by a sense of fairness than experience. I welcome the outsider's opinion. If you shovelled your own car free, do you think you deserve to claim that spot as your own?
I've never hear of this. If anyone needs free chairs, they now know where to go...
ReplyDeleteif it has always been this way...why change. it is a part of Chicago...just like deep dish pizza.
ReplyDeletesome folks just need to complain and cause trouble...LOL
They do this in Baltimore too and I think it's only fair, really. You do the work, you get the reward. People are such twits, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteBookMama's cousin used to live in Boston (Jamaica Plains) and each morning when she left for work, she would put a large, bright orange, plastic pylon in front of her house (in the street, of course)to save her parking space - it seemed to work!
ReplyDeleteBwahahahahaha that is the funniest winter thing I've heard of! That would definitely not work in Maine. At least not this part of Maine. We usually have parking bans on the major streets.
ReplyDeleteI remember that from when I lived in Chicagoland, and I didn't expect to see it again, yet here it was, right in Fall River, Massachusetts. I was visiting a friend in a large apartment complex and sure enough, everyone who had shoveled out their car had a chair of some description holding their parking space.
ReplyDeleteOne of my relatives has recently moved to Chicago for few years... When I see your blog, It makes me think that it's a small world eh?
ReplyDeleteMuch love
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It is a tradition in Boston - I especially love when the space saver is a beach chair surrounded by snow. They recently changed the law in the city so that you are allowed to save your shoveled space for 48 hours after a storm and then on trash day if anything is still out on the street the DPW comes by and throws it out. So now, people put stuff that they want to get rid of out to save their space and the city carts it away for free after a few days!!!
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