I ran into a friend,  a former Third Street neighbor, at the armory ceremony on Tuesday. She wanted to speak to Councilmember Bill De Blasio about the new parking meters on Seventh Avenue on 10th Street and above.

So we did.

When we left the building, said friend told me about a book called Tepper Isn’t Going Out by New Yorker writer, Calvin Trillin, about parking. Said friend has the same last name as the book’s protagonist.

Trillin’s book is the oh-so-New York story about a man who sits in his car reading the newspaper. Why? Because he has a great parking space. Here’s the blurb from the Random House website.

Murray Tepper would say that he is an ordinary New Yorker who is simply
trying to read the newspaper in peace. But he reads while sitting
behind the wheel of his parked car, and his car always seems to be in a
particularly desirable parking spot. Not surprisingly, he is regularly
interrupted by drivers who want to know if he is going out.

Tepper
isn’t going out. Why not? His explanations tend to be rather
literal—the indisputable fact, for instance, that he has twenty minutes
left on the meter.

But once New Yorkers become aware of Tepper,
some of them begin to suspect that he knows something they don’t. And
an ever-increasing number of them are willing to line up for the
opportunity to sit in his car with him and find out what it is.

Councilman Di Blasio knows that parking is probably one of the single most aggravating aspects of city life. Coming between a New Yorker and a parking space spells trouble. That’s why Bill says the DOT got it all wrong when they installed over 60 parking meters on Seventh Avenue without telling anyone.

Surprise.

Bill knows which way his bread is buttered. And he has to park his car, too. He asked the DOT to stop use of those parking meters and have a community meeting. Bill believes in the process. As he told me: "You talk to merchants, you talk to residents. you have a community meeting." 

That’s how it’s done.

Said friend with the same name as Trillin’s hero told Bill: "Thanks for advocating for us, Bill."

And she meant it.