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Comments
Wow...there's been lots of
Wow...there's been lots of pictures of messed up cars...but this one *THAT'S* The Southie Way
What's the address?
I have a clunker I'm not using and could care less about. Looks like the perfect place to park it till spring.
West 7th & C according to a
West 7th & C according to a followup
Very nice progress though
Very nice progress though still waiting for the first stabbing!
It's always funny
Until someone shoots his eye out.
I seriously wonder what the reaction will be when someone shows up and catches some a-hole vandalizing their car and kills them in the streets.
You have to be half crazy to park in a spot down there that someone else shoveled out but to destroy someone's car over it is also nuts.
When two nuts collide is when someone gets effed up big time.
It's probably time to stop letting these spot savers make all the rules. It's not the fucking wild west.
http://cappyinboston.blogspot.com/
Kent Brocckkkkmannnn reporting live
Re: "It's not the fucking wild west".
But it may be the fucking wild east - at least one VERY specific area populated by wannabe Southie Insect Overlords.
The reaction
More like
"We're appalled"
"We can't believe this"
"There's no place for this in the City of Boston"
And less like
"This is the inevitable outcome of telling people it's OK for years without making any sort of actual law about it"
Yikes
Relax ya psycho
People who live in places
People who live in places like southie need to get dashboard cams that can record 12+ hours. You can erase it every morning until some thug does something like this, then you can hand the footage to police, most of these people will have criminal records. Maybe someone needs to invent a southie cam that is optimized for this, like a Go Pro with 180 views placed in rear seat. Townie Defense Cam.
And then, instead of people
vandalizing cars for taking a parking space, you'll have people breaking into cars to steal the dashcams.
Not so sure that's a better option.
The police need to care first
The police seem uninterested in this form of vandalism. Unless your camera managed to capture the person getting out of their car with clearly shown MA plates with a local address it's unlikely they would do anything more then file a report. Marty Walsh has said he's unconcerned about things like this and police reflect that.
Not cool
To not care about smashing car windows. So if the Mayor and police don't care, at least the video could be made public. The criminal might not care, but others in the neighborhood would then know more about that person.
If it uploads to a remote server
And always keeps the last 18 hours or so, you would at least get the video, even if the criminal takes the camera. That would be more charge against him.
Having your video automatically be saved remotely anytime you are capturing video of someone who might not like it, whether you have the right to do it or not, is good practice.
To the supporters of space saving:
You are supporting a sense of entitlement to vandalize.
I'm sorry it's not as easy to park after a snowstorm as you would like.
Oh, please
That's like telling all Sox fans they support a sense of entitlement to riot. If you can't see that saving a spot you shoveled and condoning or committing vandalism are two different, mutually exclusive things, I'm not sure there's much else to say here.
I don't think you quite
I don't think you quite understand what "mutually exclusive means." Plenty of "savers" do condone this type of behavior, just check out the comments at the link. Furthermore, the entire space saving system depends on the threat of vandalism and/or violence, or else people would stop respecting the savers after about a week.
As it stands, the savers will be out until april, and most people won't touch them for fear of reprisal. If you save your spot, you are tacitly condoning these acts of vandalism. Deal with It.
Agreed 100%
There's no legal authority for space savers, so the only enforcement basis is extra-legal, i.e., violence or vandalism.
I don't think you quite
I don't think you quite understand what a fallacy of composition is . "Plenty of savers" may condone the activity -- as you say -- but not all of them. Probably not even that many of them.
It might not fit your narrative that everyone who saves a spot as a violent, destructive cretin, but these cases of vandalism are rare extremes. "Deal with it."
No one said "everyone" who saves spaces is violent
But the whole premise works only because people fear the minority who are.
The rare extremes are the
The rare extremes are the foundations upon which the whole rotten structure is built. I stand by my statement, which is not a fallacy of composition, bub. Either you misread the plain meaning of my statement, or don't understand the fancy terms you'really tossing around.
I don't think you quite
I don't think you quite understand what "mutually exclusive means." Plenty of "savers" do condone this type of behavior, just check out the comments at the link. Furthermore, the entire space saving system depends on the threat of vandalism and/or violence, or else people would stop respecting the savers after about a week.
As it stands, the savers will be out until april, and most people won't touch them for fear of reprisal. If you save your spot, you are tacitly condoning these acts of vandalism. Deal with It.
He must have felt bad after smashing the windows
So he carved "Not OK" into the door.
When you consider that some people think they own the spots near their houses in the summertime, I'm not surprised a Boston reprobate would stoop to this.
Adam, feel free to tell me it's none of my business...
...but is it really useful/helpful to post all these cherrypicked atrocity stories? They're really adding more heat than light at this point. It's your site, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but it seems to me that most people are just doing their best, not going around acting like animals. Maybe less attention to the space-savers, note-writers, train-wreckers and car-trashers would help us all get through it.
While you're at it, Adam, what's with all these fire
stories? How about a feature once in a while about the houses that are *not* burning?
And crime: always with the crime stories. How about a story where a person just sits there, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper and not getting mugged?
What about that, huh? It's called balance.
Crime and fires are much
Crime and fires are much larger and more notable than every instance of a tweet about space saver notes or petty vandalism. Is Adam not being balanced by not posting every instance of graffiti or litter in the city or every petty theft?
Felony vandalism, like this,
Felony vandalism, like this, is a crime. And its not petty just because someone in southie does it. Thats how drug lord/terrorist Whitey Bulger lived free in southie so long, it was overlooked because he was a townie from southie and not someone from Saudi Arabia or Iran. A terrorist is a terrorist, and a drug lord is a drug lord. Crimes like vandalism like this should be reported and enforced.
I agree that this is a
I agree that this is a notable extreme circumstance but continual posts of someone's angry sign are not newsworthy.
yes but..
you are right, most people are not acting being criminals but I think adding "heat" is a good thing.
It will bring attention to this ridiculous "tradition" and hopefully get someone in city hall to ban it.
Of course, I think it will take an outsider to do that but I hope to be proven wrong.
Agreed
for once, I agree with ya lbb.
I understand space savers is a hot topic, and yes it does drive traffic to this site (which AdamG probably wants) but the topic has gotten a bit old now. I really wonder if people are doing it just to get picked up by the news media, and I wonder if we just stopped, if these 'attacks' or 'nice notes' would stop.
I'll take an Olympic or Bike thread over a space saver thread at this point. It's really just getting old.
That would be amazing, in a bizarre kind of way ...
If people's thought processes really started "Damn! This guy's in my space, I bet Universal Hub [or the Globe or Channel 7] would love to see a photo of the car after I'm done with it!"
But I'm just not seeing that; I don't think we're into Worldstar territory here. The photos I'm seeing are being taken by people who either happened upon the incident (the smashed-in window or most of the passive-aggressive saver notes) or had it done to them (the car with the lipstick note from yesterday).
I should take a look at my Web stats to see just what people are looking at. I admit that traffic is up really dramatically since a couple days before the first blizzard (like close to 100% higher), but that was happening even before I started posting multiple photos a day of space savers/space-saver rage. I have posted a few snow-related items besides those :-) (I do know that Sunday was my highest traffic day ever, higher even than the day they caught Tsarnaev in the boat, and that that was mainly because I got the scoop on the T hiring people to shovel out the Red Line and that post went viral - so nothing to do with space saving).
I think what's meant here is
I think what's meant here is more that people are writing the notes to be noticed in the first place, whether that means by a passerby who passes it along to you, or by passing it along themselves.
LOl
I can always tell when you beat your traffic rates because your site crashes or slows to a halt (or I get that nice "refresh for a live copy" message)
No worries. It happens!
And no, not being snarky at all.. I know what its like to be a webmaster.. :)
Yes, I've been wondering how much is enough
And yes, the vast majority of us are not going around smashing windows with bricks or spray-painting cars - or getting into slap fights on the train.
But at the same time, things do seem to be escalating - if you scroll down the Parking page, you'll see the level of anger has gone up considerably since the first storm. I think that's worth chronicling. Maybe I should do what I've been doing with T commutes - not write a separate post for each problem, but combine them into a daily, or twice-daily summary.
yeah
I agree you're trying to do your duty and it has escalated. And yes, we probably would want to know that.
Combining them seems to be a good idea. I like the way you do the am/pm commute posts. I just feel like comments often get lost (and get repeated) when there's multiple posts about the same time.
Regardless, we all do think you're doing a bang up job and do appreciate all you do Adam.
Hasn't the level of anger
Hasn't the level of anger over EVERYTHING been increasing since the first storm? This is a really frustrating situation in general and for the most part it's completely outside of anyone's (especially the average citizen's) control. Aren't you kind of stoking the fire by repeatedly bringing up a hot button, divisive issue that makes people dig in their heels (and their space savers) even more so? I think the idea of a once or twice daily mention is a good idea. Even people that don't get embroiled in the debate are probably suffering from space saver fatigue from you and other news sources at this point.
No.
It actually just highlights the fact that the threat behind a space saver often comes to pass. You have the frustrated people who--thank goodness--just write pissed-off notes and then you gave the tire slashers, the keyers, et al. Maybe Marty needs to say--if he doesn't have the cajones to actually say no more space savers--hey everyone--threats and vandalism will NOT be tolerated. Talk to your neighbors, work out a solution, help each other, but enough with knocking off people's mirrors. I'm not holding my breath, mind you.
Oh, Sally
Being all rational and whatnot.
My claim would be that a disregard of the tradition leads to crap like this. Today I looked out my kitchen window at a line of 5 cars, all shoveled out, no snow between them, everyone knows each other, and they call put something out before they go, just like the people in front of my house (except the SUV drivers my way don't know each other, yet). No one causes trouble for each other, and they all want the snow to go away.
In the end, knowing the people around you, rather than treating them like the enemy, is the best way to live.
Keep posting them adam.
Keep posting them adam. Considering people will be saving spots for the next two months, it's an importal topic. Are advocates of space-saving getting sqeamish about seeing the atrocious results of their policy playing out day after day?
I hope so.
No. Just like it would not be
No. Just like it would not be okay to punch a guy in the face if he cut in line at a checkout counter.
There's no line for public
There's no line for public parking spaces. You park where there's a spot available, or the whole system breaks down.
Do you plunk down an orange cone at the front of the checkout line when you enter the grocery store, and save your space while you shop for an hour? Of course not because that would be absurd. The same logic applies to public parking spaces. There's no line. Theres no dibs. You drive around until you find an empty spot. You park there. When you leave, someone else parks there. If it snows, you dig your car out so you can use it. That's it.
There are plenty of other
There are plenty of other parking spots in my neighborhood. And anyone is welcome to dig out however much snow they need to to fit their car.
I don't normally use a space saver, but I will not dig a hole in however many feet of snow one finds to park again. Some parking spots had mounds topping out at 5 feet+, earlier this week.
If you want to dig out those spots in my neighborhood and park, no one is stopping you. My analogy is merely about customs and how they are observed. They should never be enforced at the threat of vandalism and violence.
Should vs. are
My wife was threatened, even after digging out her spot today. Someone left a pallet (used as a space saver for an adjacent spot) on her hood.
So the whole enterprise is backed by violence, or threats of violence.
Just because most of the folks saving spots are violent doesn't change the equation.
I can't disagree with you.
I can't disagree with you. But you can be threatened even without any space savers marking a spot. It happened to my dad, mentioned in another space saver topic.
I can only reiterate that vandalism and violence shouldn't be condoned in defense of space savers. If the city does away with space savers, I won't be sad, but we will undoubtedly get repeats of the sad story we heard from one person a couple of years ago:
http://www.universalhub.com/2013/citizen-complaint-day-you-shovel-five-s...
If we have snow like this again after space savers go, it won't be icy snow you have to shovel out multiple times. Instead, think of mini-Titanic sinking icebergs in neighborhoods like mine.
Like I said, it's your business
The thing about anger, though, is that if you feed it, it'll grow. If you bring up a sore subject with nothing that hints at a reasonable solution, or a light at the end of the tunnel, it just feeds the anger. It's a choice all around.
So, you would prefer that everybody just look away?
Stories like this don't feed my anger. It does indeed make me angry that the city tolerates felonious vigilante justice, but greater awareness of it isn't going to make me reverse positions and join in.
Lawless behavior needs to be exposed to sunshine if we're going to get the authorities to do anything but look the other way and hope no one gets killed. What you're advocating is more of the same: playing ostrich. That's irresponsible and unhelpful, in my book, especially if you oppose space savers.
Slim is always..
..dropping knowledge. Good stuff.
Keep posting.
Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.
These people need to have a mirror held up to them, to see how juvenile and pig-headed their behavior is.
Where to send a claim?
I understand you can send a claim if your car is damaged by a plow. Given that Mayor Walsh can tell people to not jump out of windows but apparently can't be bothered to tell people to not vandalize cars, and that he's done nothing but exacerbate this problem, I'd say send in a claim for this too...
What if on-street parking cost more?
What if on-street parking cost more - say $50 or $100 month... or $600-1200/year for a permit. The folks who owned on-street parked cars but who had only a marginal need for them might decide it was time to go carless. Even a 10% reduction in cars in some of the tightest neighborhoods would help. I notice a difference in the Longwood-Fenway area in the summer when the students are gone. And that's metered spots.
A friend who lives in the North End inherited an old but functioning car. He kept it for a time, but came to realize that he never wanted to use it because finding a new place to park it was too much if a hassle. Especially in the winter time. So he sold it, and his lifestyle was unchanged. I think of that story when I see cars parked under mounds of snow, clearly long unused. I doubt he would have kept the car for any amount of time if parking hadn't been free (or virtually free).
This is one reason we moved
This is one reason we moved out of Southie after the '95-'96 winter where we got over 100" of snow. Couldn't deal with the stress of worrying that someone would take the space that I had repeatedly shoveled that winter (which did happen!) and trying to find a parking space. One of the major things we looked for when we moved was a driveway. We got our driveway so no more worrying about parking ever again. Good luck to the rest of you.
Bought a house in the summer
So didn't really care that we needed to park in the street.
Until winter.
Maybe next time.
Garages
Lotta places in Southie now have garages.
Don't know what it was like in 95-96. Prob. much fewer condos with garages.
So here's my tale
My wife, near her new work place dug out her own spot, adjacent to a spot saved with pallets.
When she returned to her car one of the pallets was placed on her hood (as was the car adjacent to her).
So she's being threatened even after digging out her own spot.
Explain again to me why this space saver system is such a good thing???
victim has come forward
and says she was fired for being late to work, because of the time she had to waste dealing with this mess: http://www.whdh.com/story/28164280/vandals-smash-three-windows-in-parkin...