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It just isn't a Boston winter without parking threats and violence
By adamg on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 12:14am
A newcomer to Boston, unfamiliar with our quaint ways, found this note on her car after parking in a space designated for visitors in South Boston on Monday.
In East Boston, though, they dispense with the pleasantries and just slash the tires right away.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
" You Must Not Have Seen The Purple Box "
I'll bite
ADORABLE
This happened on N Street
In case anyone wants to go looking for this now infamous and/or hilarious purple box.
Proof that the note is fake:
No spelling errors.
Ladies and gentlemen of the
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I would like to draw your attention to the acute lack of spelling mistakes. This does not make sense.
A South Boston resident who would leave a note and
not smash your windows and slice your tires is a blow in.
cool
hope the author gets his legs taken off by an errant snow plow.
A better idea
1. put worn-out tires on a POS car
2. set up cameras where they would get a good shot at a tire slasher, or a threatening note writer
3. Find the purple box, move it, and park
4. Watch the cameras for dimwit thug sightings
5. Trigger release of mercaptan spray
6. Sit back and laugh
Someone might actually do that
and go to jail for the spray trap.
If you want to do a bait car, use video camera (without audio) instead of chemical weapon trap, and call the police.
Chemical weapon trap?
That means you probably have one in your kitchen, if not your basement.
Mercaptan is harmless - used to make natural gas stinky.
What is wrong with them?!!?
What is wrong with them?!!?
My theory is that a lot of
My theory is that a lot of this is newcomer on newcomer. The note writer is a newcomer acting in the way he/she thinks they are supposed to act.
That is the theory that long time residents
want to push anyways.
Bullshit
You have no proof this was written by a "newcomer".
Joe Subaru
Of course you do the person was driving a Subaru.
Sorry misread the original.
Recent immigrant
Wearing a Scslly and Good Will Hunting T shirt.
Ah, to live and be threatened in Boston
Makes one almost long for tony Brookline, where private parking is required for any overnight parking, so a must for car ownership.
It'd be cool if the city could come up with some mix of alternate side parking and advertising use of free or discounted lots beyond cars displaced from emergency arteries to do some plowing to the curb.
brookline
Of course Brookline does a crap job actually plowing their side streets. Side street parking consists of driving up onto the snow bank and hoping your side view mirrors don't get scraped off.
It would be cool..
It'd be cool if law enforcement and the judiciary took brawling, bullying, and threatening a little more seriously and removed from our midst savages who don't belong out in public.
Brookline
does not have five story Home Depot looking luxury condos developed by transit orientated architects.
Brookline
Brookline does have ample parking space available in the overnight parking lots.
the thing I don't understand
Is that these threatening notes aren't really that anonymous. It's fairly simple to tell when they come back and park their own car in the spot. I would never do something violent or destructive, but a rude note like this would tempt me to come out with a bucket of cold water every half hour.
The solution is simple
Year round street cleaning, but in the winter month instead of the street sweepers they are plow drivers. Tow the cars not moved plow the streets curb to curb and then be done with the mess. But this is Boston why do something that makes sense!
i've been saying this for
i've been saying this for years. it really needs to happen.
How would this work?
Would the plows push the snow up onto the sidewalks where the home owners would have to remove it? On my street, it's one way with one side parking and I can see how this would work but on a two way, both sides parking street with sidewalks, you'd have to actually take the snow off site somehow which adds so much cost to snow removal unless you can establish snow farms in every neighborhood.
You could ask Somerville.
they seem to have figured it out.
Somerville?
No, we have the same problem and certainly don't do every week plowing. Once the snow is settled in, the only time existing stuff gets touched by the city is when the street gets too narrow. They will block off the street and bring in bobcats to dig the stuff out.
It's impossible....
...to stick a Cadillac up your nose, it's just imPOSSSible!
Actually yes, I believe in Somerville they cart it off (I don't know to where). In Montreal they round it up and truck it away. In Minneapolis they do something similar. It seems that there are many places at higher latitudes where people manage to live with snow and not revert to driving around in snowcats, or living a post-apocalyptic life of ritualistically lining the streets with odd idols and then violently attacking anyone who dares mess with them. I don't understand why Boston can't, neighborhood by neighborhood, establish street cleaning practices that work for the people that live there and help make urban life livable.
Space-saving is a result of communities of people trying to work out a system because the city won't do its jerb. And then the City, in the form of the "Ubran Mechanic" Mayor Menino, legitimizes this jury-rigged system with the "48 hour rule" rather than actually removing the snow from the streets so that we can maintain the amount of parking we normally have (which isn't actually enough in the first place). It's like watching Curly drill a hole in the bottom of the boat to let out the water and then getting him a new drill bit rather than smacking him in the head. Mayor Moe Walsh needs to get with it and solve this problem rather than perpetuating this bullshit (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I whole-heartedly engage in because I'm not losing MY fucking space to some bougey yuppie asshole that's just moved into the neighborhood).
Snow removal ops
Were a thing in 2015 in Somerville, but that's because it was necessary. I don't think it's standard protocol unless we get as much snow as we did again in that year. We're just using "park even" rules during snow emergencies, and otherwise no snow removal ops have taken place (only snow plowing/road maintenance/salting ops).
Sounds good
I'm not against it in any way but I am interested in what the urban mechanics would be around snow removal in our specific city. Montreal is the best analog probably given the age of the city.
This is the best statement in this post
and I agree completely. I also engage in space saving, using the 48 hour rule. Although I think the street cleaning schedule (or an even/odd address parking ban during snow, maybe just in certain neighborhoods, would be a million times better). I am also able-bodied so I typically shovel out my spot, most of the surrounding spots, and another typically empty space in front of my house, at least until I get tired. In an event like we had this weekend, I would just shovel a little bit more each time I went out to clear the sidewalks, hydrant, and crosswalk cut-out that touch my property. It's not hard if you are already out there shoveling.
The main issue is that people are REALLY lazy. If their electric snow blower can't handle the dense, plowed snow, or the cord won't reach that far, god forbid they grab a shovel. You don't need to be a hero with the shovel and lift 50 lbs at a time either, just go slow in stages, it gets done fast.
Folks seem to think that when there is a blizzard they get a couple days off to have hot cocoa and snuggle up with Netflix. In reality it is a call to work, likely harder than you would at your day job, to clear the streets and sidewalks for those residents who are unable to do so for a variety of reasons. I have never had anyone move my space saver and park in my spot, but I have also never used one for more than a day or so. We have one guy on my block who drives a Brookline Cab and he is lazy as hell. He never ever shovels, just rams his cab into whatever snow pile he can, parking crooked, in front of hydrants, etc etc. This kind of person probably deserves to have their car towed to the tire shop, but I won't be the one to make it happen. This example pretty clearly illustrates to me how someone with a shorter fuse than me can get fired up over this stuff though. Some people have no regard for others, their neighbors, or the community at large.
I guess each case is special....like a snowflake. (pun most def intended)
">https://youtu.be/bWIQe3
There's other methods as well to remove the snow quick and efficiently.
With a Mayoral election coming up, maybe it's time to start bugging prospective candidates on bringing snow removal into the 21st century.
not enough snow for that.
For the last 3 years, the state has shut down for snow on February 8th. Even during 2015, there was nothing to plow until January 29th.
Every year the city piles snow on the corners in Dorchester, blocking the crosswalks and then threatening homeowners that don't dig through 3 feet of packed ice to clear their walks.
Every 2 years or so, so city works person threatens me for cleaning off my car. The snow falling off my car was heaped there by city plows.
As awful as this is, it lasts 6 weeks at most. During 2015, my street was reasonably clear by 3/15. It seems wasteful to buy a whole pile of specialized equipment for that. New York has some portable snow smelters, but I don't how much energy that uses.
the problem with the spaces savers, is that everyone has different rules they think everyone else should live by. I think that saving a space for more than 2 hours is hoarding. I have awd, so I don't need to dig out. But apparently that means that i haven't "earned" the spot. You can't earn a spot because it is public property. I try to use my car as little possible in the city. Apparently, that is a problem too because I am taking up a spot that some one who drives every day needs.
It is all stupid. Find a system that works with your neighbors. No crimes are acceptable.
Not street cleaning
but snow REMOVAL. People only put out space savers because they remove the snow. The City cannot sweep streets when there is snow on the ground. REMOVE the snow and there's no need for space savers.
This would be great if it
This would be great if it snowed on the night before the street sweep/plow days but Mother Nature is unpredictable that way
shnow.
Well, it's been a week and we've still got piles. (And we all know how uncomfortable that is.) Even if it took them 7 days to get to it, it would be an improvement over what we got.
snowflake author
didn't have the cahones to leave his name. what a wuss.
i guess south boston is only tough in the movies...not in reality.
- south boston community member.
What a load of crap. Word of
What a load of crap. Word of warning: don't read the comments on the East Boston slashed tires pic if you want to keep your sanity. Some vile people out there attaching their real names to actual threats.
that person better watch it.
that person better watch out, or marty walsh may use his big boy voice and tell you to stop that or he'll give you a time out.
Why...
...is someone like this not in an institution? Mental, correctional, whatever - I don't mean Harvard.
Because this is how the
Because this is how the insanely dumb parking saver system endorsed by the mayor is supposed to work. The system is based around threats and stealing public property. A person was shot over this last year in Dorchester. The violence will continue until the mayor stops space saving and stands up to entitled, dangerous drivers.
I hate this person's i's
:
Colons for Eyes.
...kind of an unspeakable, Lovecraftian image.
I saw a purple box
I told her to seek medical attention.
LMAO!!!!!
LMAO!!!!!
Belongs in a museum.
This is a work of art.
There needs to be a high
There needs to be a high profile prosecution of someone writing one of these threatening notes. This one in particular might be suitable as they even identified their space saver. It should go all the way to jail time and get covered by all of the local media outlets (TV, online, etc.) That might have enough of a deterrent effect to last the remainder of the season. Once the effect wears off and these types of notes resume pick out another sacrificial lamb. A bit of police time intermittently is cheaper than the snow removal solution they're not willing to implement.
The obligatory
piece about someone getting threatened in Southie over parking. (Have seen and heard this happening elsewhere but Southie always seems to be the focus)
Just wouldn't be winter without it.
Thanks to whomever for perpetuating the stereotype.
What if
But what if someone else moved the precious box? People need to get over themselves and the city should do away with space savers.
The funny thing is that it
The funny thing is that it was probably written by a fellow "newcomer" who makes 6 figures in the Financial District. Don't be so quick to assume it's some Matt Damon or Ben Affleck type from the movies you've seen about South Boston hoods.
Not everybody in South Boston ...
Is a vengeful, expletive-spewing would-be tire slasher. The Globe provides the proof.
please don't leave chocolat on the ground
It is poison for dogs. Rats, seagulls and coyotes, I don't much worry about but they make a mess.
What if the REAL purple box
was the friends we made along the way?
Some idiot on my street used
Some idiot on my street used a rusty old bicycle to save his spot. Needless fyi day I ran right over it just like all the other bicycles I encounter on the roads
A real class act....
A real class act....
I wrote a more subdued note like this on my street. Kept it G-rated. Just told the owner that I would no longer shovel the space if he/she comes along to park there. Also left my phone number, name and e-mail, and invited the owner to knock on my door to discuss further. See? Some of us have guts!
Anyway, writing a note in this way is asking for trouble. You can get more with sugar than you can with salt. Just saying....
problem
i think the problem is most of these spots were not even shoveled out they just moved their car and put a space saver there.
and you have the nerve ADAM
to delete my comments on other subjects.
I don't believe there is any 4 letter word more appalling than the C word.
I ass u me you believe Adam everybody who reads Universal is mature enough to laugh at this note?
Sorry, but I return to my mantra of late
I don't care.
I'm not spending a lot of time analyzing anonymous comments these days, there are just too many of them, so I don't remember what specifically you wrote, where or why, which means I don't know the context, either, and, so no clue what specifically I found objectionable.
Sign up Steve
Then you don't need to worry about content moderation unless you're really out of line.
Purple box?!?
Is that the female equivalent to blue balls?
Yuppies do own shovels
I saw one of those morons removing the snow off their Infiniti with one.
Tweet to the Mayor
I strongly recommend sending this and all other such missives to His Honor's Twitter account.