Aydin
Rice King
Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
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Where Would Jesus Park?
quote:
March 8, 2005
NYC
The Politics of Parking on Sundays
By CLYDE HABERMAN
WHILE running for president, Al Gore said that when a tough issue arose, he often asked himself, "What would Jesus do?" For some environmentalists, that question morphed into, "What would Jesus drive?"
Not about to take a back seat, New York has further refined the concept. In this city of limited space and competing interests, the concern might best be put this way:
Where would Jesus park?
The reason for asking is that some politicians have lumped religion together with the city's parking rules and made it a big deal. (We almost said crusade.)
Conspicuous in this regard is the eminent theologian Fernando Ferrer, a candidate for mayor. Holding forth at a Pentecostal church in East Harlem last week, he said metered parking near houses of prayer amounted to "a tax on worshipping" imposed by his archrival, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
To make his point, Mr. Ferrer chose the Greater Highway Deliverance Temple, on East 111th Street, where not a single parking meter is in sight. In fact, Sunday worshippers there have no shortage of free street parking.
All the same, metered parking as an evil resonates in some quarters, especially those out to make Mr. Bloomberg look bad. They include members of the City Council, led by Speaker Gifford Miller, who also happens to be running for mayor. Mr. Miller, a spokesman said, is looking to roll back Sunday parking-meter rules for religious institutions, but in a way that "isn't destructive to the city's finances."
That's the tricky part, though, isn't it?
Mr. Bloomberg did not invent metered parking on Sunday. That happened long ago, after the old "blue laws" disappeared and Sunday in much of the city became just another day of commerce, the same as any other. Even liquor stores open now, without discernible protest, on what for many is the Lord's day.
The mayor's perceived sin was to expand the meter rules during the worst of the city's fiscal troubles post-9/11. Remember 9/11? We were strapped for cash. Somehow, no major politician complained then about a supposed tax on worship.
Now Mr. Bloomberg's critics are casting this budget necessity as one more sign that he is, in their favorite locution, out of touch with average New Yorkers. Never mind the surveys showing that most city residents do not own cars.
Indeed, some may wonder what makes car owners so special that they deserve these never-on-Sunday pronouncements. What about those who ride mass transit to church? Why not eliminate Sunday fares for them?
And if metered parking is wrong for the Christian faithful, does not fairness require that the same principle apply on Saturday for motoring Jews and on Friday for Muslims? For that matter, how about free parking for any place of contemplation, be it a Zen Buddhist temple or a secular humanist hall? Those people have rights, too.
THE reality is that New York politicians go out of their way to cut drivers slack, and religion is often the rationale. They all but trip over one another to find new days to suspend alternate-side parking rules, which are essential for street cleaning. This year has 39 such days, not counting Sundays. Many are on days like Purim, Ash Wednesday and Id al-Adha that have no religious basis for not moving one's car.
"I assume it started with Orthodox Jews saying they weren't allowed to drive, whereupon the Catholics must have said, 'What about us?' " said the writer Calvin Trillin, long a student of the city's parking culture. His novel from a few years ago, "Tepper Isn't Going Out," focuses on New Yorkers' intense relationship with parking spaces.
"It's sort of the New York way of doing things," Mr. Trillin said. " 'Well, we gave it to the Jews. We'll give it to the Catholics.' " And then to the Orthodox and to the Muslims and to others. Me-tooism is rampant. The best way for a group to know it has arrived in this city is to get the alternate-side rules dumped.
Come to think of it, Mr. Trillin said, metered parking near a house of worship is not all bad. "If you get really bored with the sermon, it's a good excuse," he said. "You could pretend that you're going out to feed the meter. Actually, you just want to have a smoke and not listen to fire and damnation anymore."
So, all things considered, where would Jesus park?
"Jesus would have a garage," Mr. Trillin said.
Perhaps. The betting here, though, is that he would take the subway.
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03-08-2005 02:44 PM
