We’ve all heard the complaints, ad nauseum, about how tough it is to find a parking spot in Hoboken. In fact, it’s spawned an entire cottage industry of ice-breakers at parties, especially when non-Hobokenites are present. Once you say you’re from Hoboken, it’s all over – instant kvetch stories about parking come pouring out.
As for the complainers, I say, bring ’em on! It assuages my guilt, first of all, for living in a city that’s hipper than theirs. Smugly, I allow their mockery of my town’s infamous parking problems to roll like water off a duck’s back. But if things really get out of hand, I can always unleash the big gun: “Too many cars chasing too few parking spots – that’s the price you pay for living in a place where people actually want to go. I suppose being from Garfield, you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Yet there’s a strange joy in the way people recount their “war stories” about searching for parking in Hoboken, an exuberance that belies a deeper meaning. Since Hoboken has emerged over the past 15 years as the wild night out, club-hopping party capital of Jersey (the new New Orleans), could that gleam in their eye be the memory of a fun night out mingled with the “adventure” of looking for parking?
I, too, recall nights out in Hoboken when that psyched feeling of finding a spot, especially in a car full of revelers, led to a round of high-fives and a surge of energy we rode with us into the club. And when you occasionally “got lucky” and found a parking spot right away, you wondered, is the universe giving me a sign here? Will I be as lucky with the ladies tonight? (Cue up Sinatra song.)
I haven’t owned a car since my divorce eight years ago. My ex-wife got custody of my daughter and the car. But in the difficult waning years of my marriage, when it wasn’t always pleasant to be home, “lost time” searching for a parking spot was often a welcome respite. And with 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, if you factor in the chunk of troubled time before the actual split, which can drag on for years, I’d venture that a good 30 to 40 percent of Hoboken’s married driver population is singing along to their car radios at dinner time, circling the block but not exactly praying for a spot anytime soon.
And for non-marrieds, or even happily marrieds, an hour spent trolling for a parking spot can be a Zen-like, meditative experience that makes you a better person, or even a better citizen. You can culture yourself by reading an audiocassette book in the car, for example. If you choose to read My Life by Bill Clinton, you might glance up at the Tea Building and think: Bill’s buddy Jon Corzine lives there, right here in my town! Isn’t life beautiful? Maybe I’ll shake his hand in Starbucks one day, shake the hand that shook the hand of the man…. Ahhh, the possibilities are endless!
Hope is back with you in the car, rounding the corner of Seventh and Washington, cruising past Benny Tudino’s Pizza, a last bastion of non-milquetoast, non-Yuppified manhood. Characters: Italian Guido types. Cops: Real men. Put ’em on the Sopranos and they won’t have to act. Inspired, you pop in the sound track from Goodfellas or Bronx Tale and vibe out as Hoboken transforms into your own personal movie set. Stopped at a red light on the corner of Second and Washington, you glance at the cozily lit window of Tutta Pasta and it’s too good to be true: Danny Aiello is goombah-ing it up with his cronies! All this, plus the truckloads of beautiful women on the sidewalks, pouring off the trains and busses from their jobs in Manhattan. And you’re nit-picking about a little parking trouble?
Finally, a New York Times headline this week announced a sharp spike in diabetes cases in the nation, mostly preventable, due to poor diets and lack of exercise. So stop complaining, and feel blessed to live in a town that forces you to park your car 12 blocks from home. All that walking might just save your life. – John Bredin
John Bredin is an adjunct writing professor at Essex County College in Newark and William Paterson College in Wayne. Comments welcome at jfbredin@hotmail.com