SWEET THANG, Indeed! The Ruination of a Neighborhood Has Begun!

By the time HPD responded to my call early this afternoon informing them of a car parked in a clearly marked and signed NO PARKING ZONE on 6th Street at Prospect, another car was illegally parked on the opposite corner of the intersection.  The license plate on that car, a Mercedes-Benz, read SWTHANG.  HPD issued each car a $25 ticket.  (NO PARKING ZONE tickets should be at least $50!  There's a NO PARKING sign right in front of you to easily read!  There's a yellow curb to notice if you care to!  Parking there can get OTHER people killed or injured and OTHER vehicles totaled!)   By the way, where the hell is my commission? 

The people who parked those cars illegally were not residents of the area; they were "guests" of the business complex known as Pocketbook Hudson.  Or maybe they were employees of the complex.  But, in a larger sense, those people parking illegally were also guests of the neighborhood I and so many others live in.  A neighborhood whose charm and quiet, not to mention parking, are quickly disappearing.  Except that those "guests" don't give a shit about the Pocketbook's surrounding neighborhood or the people living in it, and they certainly don't care how much more dangerous their parked cars make an already unsafe intersection for other people.  They each knowingly parked in a clearly marked NO PARKING ZONE (the northeast corner does not have a painted yellow curb yet, just a sign that was installed days ago).  Of course, if their parked cars were to create a collision at 6th & Prospect, their cars will probably be unscathed and they would be able to drive home knowing they had done nothing wrong at all. (Over the years there have been some nasty collisions there due to low visibility of oncoming 6th street traffic for those exiting Prospect.)  When they parked, they probably said to themselves or their passengers, "What's the harm?  Let them ticket me if they notice.  We won't be parked here for long anyway."

And since neither of those NO PARKING ZONES is a tow zone and there are no overnight parking regulations on 6th, the cars can remain there for days or weeks with just one $25 ticket.  By all appearances, the city doesn't care how long anyone's illegally parked car remains at the intersection waiting to cause a crash, possibly a horrible one (speeding on 6th is a serious problem).  Hell, they don't care if both NO PARKING ZONES at the intersection remain occupied for days.  And the larger the vehicles the better!

Last night a guest of the Pocketbook complex and neighborhood parked their car in one of the two recently installed HANDICAP ONLY parking spaces on Prospect Street.  That got the owner a $100 ticket. (Where is my commission?)

Things have already gotten so bad in the neighborhood surrounding the Pocketbook complex that the developers recently attached this plastic sign to a nearby city-owned signpost, an act also known as a code violation.  They used plastic zip ties. 

On Washington at Franklin, a half block 
from the complex.  Code and truth violation sign!

And they lied.  The Pocketbook complex does not have a "designated parking lot" of any kind. The hotels' fucking valet service at the Washington Street entrance is using a city parking lot meant for "firefighters and guests" (guests of whom?), likely without the city's consent.  "All other will be towed," read the two signs for the dirt lot with no designated parking spaces.  It's all bullshit.  And it's only just begun.

Notice the cone in the street, too!

A phone call to the Pocketbook complex gets you a recorded voice welcoming you to "The Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths."  Baths?  What kind of "baths" are they offering the well-heeled?  Turkish?  Whirlpool?  Saunas?  Who said anything about "baths" four years ago?  Was the Planning Board made aware of the "baths" portion of the complex before they approved this project?  Did the Pocketbook developers have any "baths" in mind when they told the Hudson Planning Board that their estimated water usage would be 8,000 gallons per day?  8,000 gallons of water a day into the building from our reservoir several miles outside of the city, and 8,000 gallons of wastewater out of the building every day, through the city's fragile and ancient sewer system and then into the sewer treatment plant on Dock Street to be handled, treated and discharged into the river!  And, thanks to a DPW water meter, they had better be paying for every drop of those thousands of gallons of water per day they're going to use, not just $150 every 3 months like the rest of us using 100 gallons a day or less pay for!