I live in New York City. And in New York City, parking spaces are like gold. Fighting over public street parking is a nightmare, and garages are incredibly expensive. People regularly pay hundreds of thousands of dollars—the equivalent of very nice homes in other parts of the country—for single parking spots in New York.
For the longest time, I made do with street parking, electing to battle it out in my Lower East Side neighborhood amongst a sea of Lexus GXs, Toyota Siennas, and Honda Passports, each more dented up than the last. But around summertime last year, I managed to score a great deal on a space in an open-air parking lot just two subway stops away from my home, in downtown Brooklyn. For $99 a month, I could keep my car on one of the lot’s stackers, without having to worry about moving it for street cleaning or it getting broken into.
Stackers, by the way, are these things:
For people who have never lived in NYC, $99 a month for a single parking spot must sound like highway robbery. But people who have lived here will know it’s an absolute steal. In truth, I was able to snag a special “storage” rate online through the company’s web portal, which was really designed for cars that rarely ever left the lot. Normally, monthly spots at this place run around $400. The only downside to the storage rate is that you pay $15 every time you want to take the car out.
Seeing as how I don’t drive to work, this was a great deal for me. Even if I took my car out every weekend, I’d only end up paying $159 per month. So I’ve been keeping my Miata there ever since, where it’s lived a relatively comfortable life (for a New York City car, anyway). The lot increased my monthly rate to $125 back in July, which sucked, but I didn’t consider leaving, since $125 per month is still a wild price for downtown Brooklyn. Even the company representative admitted I was getting a deal:
Source: My email
Then, yesterday, I got some terrible news: The parking lot would be closing permanently. The last day of operations for the place is November 30th, which means I have just 60 days left to bask in the convenience before having to vacate forever.
Part of me hoped I’d be able to keep my treasured monthly spot forever, though deep down, I knew it’d be ripped away sooner or later. Truthfully, I expected something more dramatic, like a phone call from a disgruntled manager who realized I’d been gaming the system. I didn’t think it’d be because the entire lot would just shut down.
Before you suggest I try and plead my case to Edison ParkFast to transfer my monthly account to one of the nearby lots mentioned in the screenshot above, don’t bother. I already tried that. A representative for the company told me over the phone that they wouldn’t be honoring any of the current monthly customers’ pricing. If I wanted to move to a nearby lot, I’d have to pay the advertised monthly pricing ($450 per month, at the time of this writing).
I don’t want to pay $450 a month for a parking spot, obviously. With every other lot in the immediate vicinity priced around $300 a month or more, it seems my Miata is destined for a life back on the streets, right as the salt trucks prepare to hit the road for winter. Pray for it.
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I’m glad I left NY in the 90s. As a student at Pratt I had free parking next to the dorm and in 1990 my girlfriend could street park and I’d stick my motorcycle in the front yard of the brownstone. The nwe moved and apart from a few months in a temporary apartment I’ve had a garage since 1992. I see what $3000 a month get you in Manhattan and laugh. That pays the mortgage, utilities and some living expenses for a 3 bedroom house with a 2 car garage in Bend Oregon which isn’t cheap.
Just a thought also, if you don’t have loved ones or a job chaining you to NYC, you could live in Pittsburgh and that 400 a month would pay for a 2 or 3 acre lot within 10 minutes of the city that you could park dozens of Miata’s on, along with actual roads nearby to drive it on. Just sayin’!
This – I’m a Pittsburgh native, we live 40 minutes outside the city in the exburbs. Big enough to matter, small enough to still be affordable and not to overwhelm.
Right! And as much as we make over driving in that town, it’s extremely pedestrian AND car friendly. I live 40 miles away in Ohio, and I can get from my house to walking the strip in an hour. Can’t beat it.
Oh yes, many walkable neighborhoods and becoming more bike friendly each year. Parking is usually not an issue downtown or the local neighborhoods. Decent mass transit in some areas.
There are traffic backups and snarls, more due to terrain, bridges, tunnels and ’50s urban planning than actual traffic volume.
Do you really *have* to live in the actual city? Can’t you go slightly upstate, CT, NJ, or even Staten Island?
Do you actually need a car in NYC?
The city actually has usable public transit, and fares are capped at $34/week.
Also, one of Park Fast’s lots charges $100/month to park a fucking bicycle LOL
Going from the LES to Staten Island would be the most depressing move ever
Sorry folks, but I saw the picture of the dystopian match of car stack and had good red wine tonight, and I’m making it everyone’s problem-
It takes a 10 dollar donation per month to feed a child for a month through charity, and there are people paying 400 dollars a month to keep 09-12 explorers, equinoxes, and Patriots out of snowy streets.
What is wrong with us
Don’t worry. It trickles down.
And here I am bemoaning the lack of an actual garage like a jerk. My driveway holds our 2 cars, the truck, the shed a the end of it my bike, and still room for Amazon to pull in and turn around in.
That sucks, but also big city life, as others have said may as well store it farther out, especially as winter approaches, maybe have a like a winter storage place on the cheap farther out, and then try to find a summer spot closer by. I work with a guy that stores his Miata as his parents about 2 hours away while he usually commutes with his Prius, but several weeks in the summer he swaps them out.
Unless you’re a car collector or keeping it as spare parts or something sentimental, I’d disagree with storing a car any place where you can’t get to the car without a car. If primary car breaks down but secondary car is impossible to get to, you’re essentially now paying for two broken cars to exist instead of using the other one to help you fix the first one.
(I had a problem with making my projects my primary car instead of my actual good car until they broke down, I realize now…)
$450/month for parking? That’s highway robbery!
No, it’s parking lot robbery!
In 1991 I worked downtown in a medium size city. I paid $30 a month for parking. That’s about $70 today. $100 a month for parking in NYC was the deal of the century. Sorry it had to end.
I’m very thankful the only parking cost I have is the sanity of my spouse as I drag another shitbox home.
My logic is anything I can hide in the detached garage mentally counts as one.
So I’m trying to sell the big body Benz and replace it with a Sunrunner and a classic Mini.
Time to move it to the Brooklyn’s parking lot: Stanford, CT. Where it will join thousands of High School Econoboxes waiting their turn to take a bi-annual Ikea run.
I’m honestly shocked that a parking stack spot is even $450/month. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised that $150 in parts of Manhattan would be a *daily* price.
Ouch! I’ve got a free space for you if you don’t mind coming to suburban Chicago every time you want to take it out. We can exercise it for you daily if you’d like. 😀
That sounds awful. I think I’ll go run the leaf blower and clear off my driveway and be glad that I don’t have to pay extra for parking at home.
Don’t let Cate Blanchett see you!
Thank you for the reminder of how wonderful it is to have a driveway and a garage. Then again, I’m halfway to PA off of I-80.
Are parking garages in Hoboken or Jersey City any less expensive than Brooklyn?
Yes but they’re so much farther than two subway stops away, which is why this sucks so bad
True. It’s always a tradeoff between convenience and cost.
Convenience matters. I have a neighbor in Queens who rents spots in her driveway, but from LES you’d be traveling a couple of trains then either a bus or some walking to get here. Far cheaper than $450 though.
Genuine question from someone who has never seen one of these stackers until now:
When your car ends up 3 levels up and you want to use it, how do the lower cars get out of the way? Is someone in the parking lot keeping all the keys and allowed to drive the cars?
Yep, spot on. It’s a lot of shuffling around!
That explains the extra free. I thought the stacks had some sort of mechanical contraption to slide the car to the front and then down.
But if you’re on the ground and can just drive away, would they still charge you?
I have a condo in Brighton beach, Brooklyn. I bought it for $360k in 2013 and was “lucky” enough to buy one of the 7 spaces in the rear parking lot for $16k. I could sell.it today for $30k
Not too shabby – that’s basically a 7% annual rate of return…
Sounds like it’s time to move in with Jason. I’m sure he can clear some room under the Apple IIe in his basement.
Jason’s house is surrounded by off campus student housing. He has cars and an RV parked all around his house that almost makes it look like a used car lot. One more car isn’t going to cause any problems with the neighbors.
I’ve been to Jason’s house. He lives at number 1 Axe Murderer Lane.
Is that how you Brits spell XXXXX Street?
(Bob, if you reveal any part of my address again, I’m banning you. Got me? — JT)
This got creepy.
60 days notice doesn’t seem like much time for that many people to try to find new homes for their cars in a competitive market.
NYC sounds like hell.
For a midwesterner like me it seems totally implausible. Expensive cost of living, high taxes, lots of lousy weather. Yet millions love it there and good for them.
The weather is actually pretty good.
They don’t love it that’s why they are always so pissed off. I can’t recall ever seeing a happy NYer.
Out in public, it’s a requirement. Let’s people know you aren’t interested in whatever they’re slinging at you.
Counter, if you’re wandering around aimlessly there in public someone will often help!
It is.
Nah he’ll is cleaner and the residents are of a higher level.
Sometimes it is, but it has its perks and is mostly interesting. You’re never bored and it widens your perspective. It’s something that I’ve missed since moving out to the suburbs. If given the chance I’ll probably move back but more likely to the outer boroughs rather than Manhattan.
Just do what everyone else does in NYC and keep the car in New Jersey.
I live on a barrier island in Florida. We have a tiny short driveway that barely fits our Mirage. I was paying $200 a month to store my Nova off the island on the mainland. The places would always raise the rent every 6 months, so I had to find a new storage every 6 months. It was a big enough hassle getting the car out to drive it that I sold the car a few months ago.
I actually did maintain a spot in Jersey until I found this spot. Will probably move back there, provided I’m able to get back in
At this point, that’s kind of a deal anywhere that parking is tough. In little old Portland, ME, the apartment I once rented for $570/mo in the chic West End is now $2500+, AND you get to pay $125/mo per space in the attached parking lot on top. Or deal with street parking that is every bit as brutal as NYC. With a whole lot more weather related parking bans than NYC ever gets.
Two of my kids still live in Maine in Portland. They pay well over 2 grand for rent plus utilities and parking. One lives in Florida near us ands pays $800 utilies and a huge driveway both included. I hear how Florida is expensive to live in and laugh.
And as a bonus, the kids living in Portland pay stiff state income tax every year too. Maine has a middle of the road highest tax rate, but one of the highest effective tax rates in the country because they claw back exemptions and deductions starting at a much lower wage than most states. And the higher rates kick in at relatively low income levels too. Lovely place to visit, I am perfectly happy to not live there anymore. Especially about January an February.
I too ROFL when people complain about the cost of living in “FL”. What they are really complaining about is the cost of living in Miami, Tampa, Naples, St. Pete, Sarasota or Orlando, or on the beach – the “cool places”. In the not so cool areas, it is very, very reasonable. Yeah, insurance sucks, but my house cost $90K, I pay $1250 a year in property taxes (and increases are capped to a low percentage) and I save $15K a year in state income tax. Paying $4K for homeowner’s and flood insurance doesn’t seem so bad compared to that. And combined taxes and insurance for my place in Maine are just as much.
Even as much as I complain about how much my new house is costing me to build here (and I am getting boned by the tariffs, it’s a steel house), it’s less than it would be to build the same custom home in Greater Portland when the cost of the land is considered (nice double lot for $49K vs. $200K minimum), and the property taxes will be half.
You say that, right up until the Florida flood/hurricane insurance market collapses.
It already has. It was $600 when I moved here eight years ago. It could get a lot worse before I particularly cared given how much I save in taxes. I don’t actually have to have flood insurance where I am, but it feels like good peace of mind at $1000 a year. Plus winter in FL is nicer than summer in ME, and summers aren’t that bad either. Nowhere is perfect. Pick your compromise.
And the prices are mostly justified. I had “minor” roof damage (and the roof was about ready to be replaced anyway) and a couple of trees to clean up after Hurricane Ian, and my insurance claim was $25K. I got $18K of it back from insurance after deductible, and have a casualty loss tax deduction for the rest now that Congress got it in gear to declare Ian a “major disaster” finally. My next door neighbor had $250K – and from the outside the house looked perfectly fine. Of course, it would be nice if the state could do something about the rampant gouging that happens there. Somehow my other neighbors who had a new roof on a house 2X the size of mine the summer before the storm paid 1/2 what I did after the storm… Funny how that works. And technically, I didn’t even go through insurance – I paid cash to the roofing company and then got reimbursed by insurance. They didn’t even have the overhead of dealing with them directly.
Though the price of getting anything done anywhere is a bit insane. This past summer I had a big box elder tree come down in a storm at my place in Maine. $4K to get the tree removed (took them <4hrs), and the insurance adjuster figured $3500 to repair five sections of stockade fence that it took out. So after deductible and depreciation of the fence, I got a check for $6K. Paid for the tree work, and fixed the fence myself with sections from Lowe’s for $250 – but good grief, no wonder insurance is so expensive everywhere now. And no wonder my kid brother left landscaping to do fencing. What a racket.
I don’t have homeowners. It’s not even worth it on an older mobile home. The land it’s on is worth maybe $200k the mobile maybe $5k. If anything happened, the land could be resold for almost no loss.
Reason number 83 that I wouldn’t want to live in a large city: parking.
I’m sure the income keeps up with the additional cost of living charges like this but… two subway stops and $15 just to get to be able to open the car door?
How does one even auto enthusiast in that environment?
I assume he has a monthly subway pass.
Income does NOT keep up with the cost of living in big cities for the average schmo. Not even close. It’s only really worth it if the job just doesn’t exist anywhere else. Like finance or fashion or Hollywood or something. Or maybe the Techbro jobs in Silly Valley (but not many of them, IMHO). For working stiffs, you have to really, really want to live in the major coastal cities.
As a concrete example, when I was buying my house here in FL in 2017, I was working on a project in La Jolla, CA. The NICE part of San Diego. A guy I was working with was also buying a house, and it was almost identical in size and features (tiny 2bd/2ba), but no garage – street parking, albeit in a quiet neighborhood where that was supposedly not a problem. My house? $90K. His house? $990K. He made $25K a year more than me, but he had a wife making six-figures too, so they could afford it. I admit my house was obviously not that typical, but even at the $250K that a similar house in Maine would have cost, that is a crazy gulf in values. So even if working retail pays 2X, that nowhere near makes up for the difference in cost of living. And in places like NY, your money also doesn’t get you as much. As expensive as my old apartment in Maine is today, it was still a nice, big 2bd that I comfortably shared with a roommate. In NYC the same money gets you a TINY studio where you can sit on the toilet and cook dinner.
Just thinking of Maldami gets elected these will be the good old days.
I’m no high-falutin’ Neew York Siddy denizen but aren’t all the folks in favor of extravagant rent (i.e. landlords) against that guy?
Seems highly unlikely to me, based on what little I know about the guy.
Much more likely that nothing much at all changes. Inertia is real.
Big city guy but in Chicago where it’s a lot cheaper than most other big cities.
25% of my rent goes towards the 2 car garage out back and I have a much bigger apartment than I need only to have that garage. Since I have the whole thing I get free reign of what happens there. Welding, fiberglass / carbon fiber manufacturing, engine swaps, etc happen in there.
Per year I used to drive about 2000 miles mainly to get to and from the race car, race track, junk yard, welding shop, etc. Plus about 4000 miles on track playing / racing.
This year I had to take a year off as I had several serious dental surgeries that coincided with nearly every race. Of the 400 miles driven this year across 2 cars, maybe 10 of them were driven for a legit reason because I wanted to see something in person first vs getting free delivery, and the rest were simply just to drive.
If I wasn’t planning on getting back to racing next year and didn’t love my two cars so much I’d consider going car free. My commute assuming I went in 5 days a week would be $120ish and take 1/3 the time on the train vs driving. Fuel would cost about 40x as much. Other than getting tires mounted I haven’t been to any shop outside of warranty because who cares if it takes me 3 weeks to swap an engine as a worst case as I wouldn’t need the car even if it was my only car. Within 1/2 mile I can walk to 5+ grocery stores, 3 hardware stores, 2 autoparts stores, plus about 100 places to eat.
In the end I guess it’s easier to be an enthusiast if you’re commited, but harder to become one. Cost per mile is higher, but miles driven out of necessity are next to nothing. If your job and home don’t align with the L or Metra though you are royally screwed. There is nothing but pain for the first hour you’re driving.
I’m very familiar with Chicago (live ~2.5 hours from there) and have a sibling that lives there that ditched their car after about two years of not using it. Your story sounds exactly like I’d expected to hear.
I don’t mind cities honestly, but I don’t think I could live without driving. And driving into/out of Chicago is a PITA in and of itself, so I don’t know if I’d even want to have a car to take to a track a few times a year.
This was a big reason why I turned down a gig on Long Island 10 years ago.
Look at the bright side, now you’ll get really good at repairing and replacing slashed convertible tops.
Geez, I was paying about that 30 years ago.
I think I’d just give up on car ownership if I ever moved to NYC. Hardly seems worth it. Just rent a car if you need to go on vacation or whatever.
Growing up there was a (quite wealthy) family friend who lived in Manhattan but spent a lot of the summer vacationing in NY/NJ. He would just rent something fun each summer and have it for a month or two. Teenage me loved getting to drive his S2000, even more so knowing it was a rental 🙂
I lived in Manhattan for 35 years and did not own a car the entire time. The occasional rental sufficed.
Yeah, you’ve been getting a screaming deal. Hell, I was charging my neighbors a hundred bucks for my un-needed reserved spot in a hip neighborhood in Seattle, and that was ten years ago! $125 in NYC?! Hopefully all the scratch you saved will soften the blow when you have to alt-side-park every other day. Condolences!