How Bad Has The Parking Situation Gotten For Residents Surrounding The Pocketbook Hotel and Baths? The Signs Continue To Multiply!

 

If you don't reside in the shadows of the Pocketbook Factory, located on North 6th between Wahington and Prospect Streets, you may have difficulty understanding how bad the parking situation has become there.  These pictures should give you a better idea of the problem the PBH has created for nearby residents.  You should feel fortunate that you don't have to deal with what so many of us are dealing with over here.

Have you ever seen such signs in your neighborhood?  Would such signs indicate something is really wrong and broken and that City Hall simply doesn't know what to do (or, more likely, doesn't care)?  Would you find the signs attractive and welcome? Would a safety cone deliberately left in a parking space make you wonder what the hell is going on and what's in store next?  

The car parked on the front lawn has been a  
common sight since well before the PBH opened. 

The first "we're fucking fed up with this bullshit" sign -- though in calmer tones -- that appeared near the PBH business complex was attached to a traffic sign at Washington & Franklin a few hundred feet from the PBH.  Doing so is a code violation.  3 or 4 weeks ago, after being informed of it, HPD figured out whose sign it was and made them remove it.  Naturally, the resident then posted it on their own property.  Of course, no one can possibly read the sign from inside a passing car (nor could they when it was on the traffic sign)!

But the following sign of how bad things have gotten really says it all!  A neighbor of the PBH business complex with a driveway and business or two directly across Prospect Street recently decided that he had had enough of dealing with the sudden dearth of parking spaces that were once so plentiful.  So, what else could he do besides tear down a fence of his along the sidewalk to gain access to an open space behind it to create his own off-street, 3-space parking lot?  (Perhaps he will charge weekend guests of the PBH to park there!  And the city will allow him to!)  Of course, the fence not only hid the ugly open space, but also the dilapidated shack garage thing just beyond that no one should have to gaze upon.  That's the ugly structure with the stove pipe sticking out of the top that always seems to be bellowing smoke every day of the year.  A few days ago, the smoke coming out was so thick, dark and voluminous that I thought there was a house fire in the area. So, naturally, I took a picture (see below)! 

The car on the right is in the driveway of the house next to it.
The truck is not in a driveway.  It is parked essentially on a yard.
This is known as a code violation.

Here is a Google Maps screenshot from a few years ago of the same property, showing the fence intact.

The top of the stovepipe is in the middle of the picture.
Picture taken from Rope Alley, with PBH in background.

Unless residential parking permits are an active reality, there is no such thing as "residential parking" on any street. All spaces on city streets are open to anyone, no matter where they live or what state they've come from. The problem surrounding the PBH is that the city isn't preventing their guests and customers from parking on nearby streets, especially overnight. The PBH's planned guest parking lot on Washington east of 6th, coming this year on city property, won't completely alleviate the parking problem they've created for the neighborhood, which, I can attest to, stretches to State Street on Friday and Saturday nights. Nothing, including permits, will be forcing guests to park in the lot which is not exactly next to the PBH. Sadly, thanks to the PBH, the time for residential parking permits has come for at least three streets (Washington, Prospect and 6th). There may be a glimmer of hope in getting this accomplished: our soon-to-be mayor lives as close to the PBH business complex as anyone does. Otherwise, forget about it, and the cardboard "residential parking" signs will continue to multiply. Things could get even uglier.

A longtime local resident recently told me that a few weeks ago she was approached by the PBH's valet after she parked her car in a public ("residential") parking space on Washington next to the PBH, a space she had probably parked in hundreds of times. The valet told her that she could not park where she had.