BY THE VILLAGE SUN | The souped-up car is the super’s.
Some people have been wondering about this Maserati and how it can constantly stay parked in a designated pickup / drop-off zone on E. 12th Street.
Specifically, Choresh Wald, an avid cyclist who assiduously documents all the blocked bike lanes in the East Village — and there are a ton — has flagged the Italian luxury car in his tweets, urging The Village Sun to check it out.
@TheVillageSun still there pic.twitter.com/tlFxnhZtSP
— Choresh Wald (@Choresh2) October 12, 2021
It turns out the car’s owner is the super at 31 E. 12th St., a condo apartment building east of University Place, outside of whose front door the car is parked — between four cones, two in the front and two in the back.
A friendly doorman there Saturday evening, who revealed the super owned the car, explained the situation. He said that most of the vehicles that park in the dropoff lane, which is a No Standing zone, belong to detectives who work out of the Police Athletic League building on the opposite side of the street. Other cars that park in the lane belong to people, like the super, who work in the other buildings on the block, and have been “authorized” to park there by the detectives, he said.
As for the cones sandwiching the Maserati, he said they are there to “preserve parking” — for the super, obviously.
Asked if the sports car was new, he said, yes, he thought fairly new.
In one clear violation, the fancy car lacks a license plate on its front end, though it does have a rear license plate.
What I want to know is, how the hell does a building super afford a Maserati? That’s a mystery equal to the corrupt parking situation.
If he is just a super and the staff is watching car 24/7. What care do you have if he can afford it? Do you know what a good super makes?
The vehicle is parked in a No Standing anytime zone: the same parking regulation as next to a fire hydrant. No one is allowed to leave their car parked unattended in such an area. There’s no documentation of this “authorization“ for this vehicle to park there, no official document displayed on the dashboard because no such documents exist. It’s corruption, it’s illegal and it’s a shame that it’s acceptable by the elected officials representing the area, who are the only ones who can hold the Police Department accountable.
Too bad that the Sun and you feel the need to report and cry about something as frivolous as an illegally parked vehicle. Is it because it’s an expensive car? Seems to me that if you go around the neighborhood there are probably dozens of scofflaws. Are they on the list also?
Shouldn’t we be making aware of things that would actually benefit the community? But not. Let’s get that Maserati. Makes me laugh. Let’s write about some serious issues.
Hey, Will B, good point. We encourage you to check out Choresh Wald’s Twitter feed to see a much wider selection of scofflaw drivers’ cars in the area that are illegally parked and standing in bike lanes, No Standing zones and all the rest. Choresh singled this one out as egregious probably because the car is very distinctive and eye-catching — a Maserati with a racing stripe on it — and he always sees it there.
The police routinely breaking the law and “authorizing” their friends to break the law is a pretty important story. Good on Choresh and the Village Sun for covering it. Though I do think the headline could be a bit more pointed about what’s going on here.
Did the headline get you to read the article?
To be honest, meh, no not really. I was on the site to check for updates on other stories and passed over this one at first because it didn’t seem relevant to my interests. I would suspect you’d get more casual readers with an emphasis on police misconduct rather than mystery Maserati, but I don’t know what your traffic looks like.
Actually, this is corruption. Pure and simple.
It’s $115/day in tickets, not written, per car.
If a cop “only” takes a cheap meal is that OK?
Exactly: This is corruption. The fact that paid employees of New York City are permitted to violate the law by allocating public property to themselves, and then bestow gifts of temporary use of public property to those they like, is corruption.
The City Law Dept, District Attorneys and Attorneys General need to crack down. Otherwise, what else will these employees steal?
So you say specifically that the vehicle has no documentation of authorized parking. Relying only on a friendly doorman’s opinion, you make an accusation of corruption by the police. What about the parking violator’s culpability? Funny how you can blame this incident on the police and politicians. What if the doorman wasn’t friendly? Hey, you would be able to deflect this violation on him or articulate responsibility to someone on your on your sh*t list that day. Totally biased writing. No truth.
The article does not say anything about police corruption and makes no mention of politicians. The doorman said police “authorized” the super to park there. Make of that what you will.
When someone parks illegally, gets a ticket and pays the fine there’s no corruption. When there’s a vehicle parked illegally 24/7 in a location which is observed by active police officers 24/7 and is never being ticketed it is corruption by the police officers who choose not to enforce the law. Had they been ticketing the vehicle daily (or towed it) there wasn’t any corruption .