For a city well-supplied with public transportation, New York devotes a large amount of signage to parking. I won’t post the ordinary this-is-when-you-get-towed signs (too boring, also sometimes inaccurate). Nor will I dip into history, such as former Mayor Ed Koch’s early 80s “Don’t Even Think About Parking Here” campaign. Instead, I’ll focus on weird elements of the genre I’ve seen recently, such as this one:

Every time I walk past this Garage, I wonder why someone felt the need to insert Temporarily. If the Garage is permanently Full, wouldn’t the sign say “Residents Only” or “Private Parking”? Also, does the sign writer think anything in life is permanent? I certainly don’t, least of all a parking spot in the crowded borough of Manhattan.

Here’s a sign posted next to a train station:

As I read it, you get FREE PARKING on all SUNDAYS & HOLIDAYS, but on only one measly SATURDAY — ever! My advice is to choose your day wisely. You don’t want to blow your free-Saturday card on a ten-minute errand.

Parking signs, by the way, presume a public that actually cares. In New York, that’s not always the case:

It’s a bit fuzzy, so I’ll reproduce the words on the sign next to the car blocking a building entrance: DO NOT BLOCK BUILDING ENTRANCE.

Not only cars bring out NYC rebellion:

Notice all the bicycles neatly lined up in the NO BICYCLES enclosure.

One more:

You can’t go wrong at this intersection. You can’t go right, either, but as I established with the previous two photos, New Yorkers don’t care.