Keeping a car in Brooklyn

I think it was Allison who asked if we had a car here. Yep- one.

This isn't really by choice. Paul's boss says he has to have one, although he's only used it for work two or three times. The subway goes nearly everywhere in New York City, but there's a few places that are just impractical to get to by public transit.

Here's some food for thought-- Almost all of the subway lines were constructed to get from one borough into Manhattan. So even though Queens is connected to Brooklyn (directly north), the quickest way to get there by train is to go to midtown Manhattan.

Anyway, the car has come in handy a time or two. We've gone to Bay Ridge's big (by comparison to others here) grocery store (it even has a parking lot!) twice and loaded up the trunk with food. Luckily there's a fire hydrant in front of our apartment building, so we park there and turn on the flashers. Paul hauls everything upstairs while I stay in the car to make sure we don't get ticketed.

Parking is a pain but not impossible. Street cleaning occurs every week, so you have to pay careful attention to the signs. For example, one side of the street we live on is cleaned every Thursday and the other is cleaned every Friday. So we have to move the car every week, whether we use it or not. When I didn't have a job, I would move the car five minutes after street cleaning ended and get a good spot.

I'm still not comfortable parallel parking, but I'm making myself do it. The car had to be moved yesterday, so I got in the driver's seat when I was walking back from the subway after work. Unbeknownst to me, Paul rode the same train home and had the same idea. When he saw the car pull away, he initially thought someone had stolen it! It would probably be a lot easier on both of us if someone really would.