I am sorry to here about this ugly incident of someone claiming A parking place by violent means. It is a shame when Anyone in the neighborhood has to endure such dangerous, thuggish Behavior by someone who lives nearby.
But, I do not think It is due to new people. Sadly, I estimate that it is due to the General decline in civility and consideration. If you ever watch The show "Airline" on A&E and see how vicious and hysterical people Get in airports when they get to the check in desk too late, when Weather leads to flight delays, when they are removed from flights Due to aggressive and obnoxious behavior, etc., you are reminded That basic good manners and respect for others have sadly eroded. On Airline, the infuriated, out of control customers tend to resort To attacks on low level airline workers who are obviously not the Parties responsible for their problems. >From my own experience, I can report that irrational, nasty Acts in fits of parking rage are not new in our area. Back in 1997, I needed to have my front sidewalk replaced. I put Up a barrier in front of the sidewalk on the street, since the Guy doing the job would only put in the new sidewalk if he could Park his truck right next to the area he was working on. He delayed Coming for several days, during which time I kept the combination Of trash cans and boards, with a sign warning about the impending Sidewalk construction so people would understand why I had a Barrier in what ordinarily would be a parking space. One day a neighbor who lived in a rental unit a few houses west Of mine drove his car into my sidewalk, plowing into the barrier, Knocking everything down. Having smashed down the barrier and Scattered the pieces over the sidewalk, he parked his car right in front of my house. Of course, he did not clean up the debris. When I went out to confront him, he screamed at me, throwing a Fit. He complained that he "always" parked there, that the Space in front of my house was "his" space. (Of course, I usually Parked there.) He shouted that I had blocked the space for Weeks. (In reality it had been a few days.) And he went on And on cursing, yelling, threatening. His infuriated state Might have made some sense if I had driven my car into his And totaled it and he had a reason to be angry at me for Something I had done to him. It made NO sense when he was trying To justify his smashing down a barrier in front of MY house that was clearly set up to accommodate someone making essential repairs to MY sidewalk. The guy did not seem to be generally crazy, just someone prone to fits of parking rage, which I gather is a psychological cousin of the famous road rage. So, I don't think we necessarily have a new phenomenon here. But, It does make one very uncomfortable to discover such traits in neighbors. Ann Mayer 4312 Pine -----Original Message----- From: Yvonne Paterson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 3:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected] Subject: Parking rage With the influx of new entrants into the neighborhood it appears I now have as neighbors people, who have different expectations of what being a neighbor means. One of my neighbor tried to run me over last Wednesday evening! This was due to road rage - or rather "parking rage". As you all know, after heavy snow, like we had last weekend, parking gets very tight and for some reason people think that if they dig their car out of a spot then they own the spot. On Sunday we dug out two spots, our car and one where our weekend visitors had parked, we also helped out a neighbor. When we got back home after work on Monday. All the parkable spots on the street that had been shovelled (including "ours") had been taken so Milt dug the snow out of another spot so that we could park. When we got back to our house on Wednesday there were several parking spots available but folks had put trash cans and other objects in them to save them. There was a long stretch very near our house and the spots we had dug out (now occupied by others) that could accommodate about 3 cars. I got out to move the trash can in the spot nearest our house. As I was doing this a guy pulled up in a car and started screaming at me that it was his spot. I denied this and continued moving the trash can. He reversed sharply into the spot knocking over all the other cans, aimed his car at me and accelerated towards me forcing me to jump into the snow bank to avoid being hit. Milt pulled in behind him and got out of the car to ask him why he had tried to run over his wife! He shouted some invective and took off down the street disappearing into a house several removed from ours - and from the parking spot! I was really shaken and upset and we decided to call 911. The police officers who came were very sympathetic and went to his house to tell him that it is illegal to block the street because the city owns the street and it is also illegal to use your car to intimidate your neighbors. They came back and said that he had admitted being in the wrong and we would not have any more problems with him. We declined to press charges.We have not received an apology. What is sad is that for the first time ever, Milt and I seriously discussed moving out of the neighborhood. This is after 17 years and surviving the crack-cocaine epidemic, having our house burgled, our car broken into several times and being robbed in front of our house. Despite all of this Milt and I always felt that our neighborhood had a sense of community and well-being towards one another that was lacking elsewhere. However, the neighborhood has changed - most think for the better. Sure our property values have increased with the influx of new owners but it seems to have lost the sense of community I so valued and that kept me dedicated to living here. I had hoped when the neighborhood became fashionable that the kind of people who wanted to move here would share my general values and ideas about what is acceptable conduct. There has been a lot of discussion on this list serve recently about street crime. Well, this has been a reality of life in our neighborhood for many years but somehow I always managed to take it in my stride. I know that I have never felt more unsafe than when this "new neighbor" attacked me because he was so angry and out of control. I am still hoping that this incident is the exception and that we have some positive experiences with new neighbors that off-set this extremely negative one. Sadly, yvonne -- Yvonne Paterson, Ph.D. Professor of Microbiology University of Pennsylvania 323 Johnson Pavilion 36th St. and Hamilton Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104-6076 Tel. (215) 898-3461 FAX: (215) 573-4666 http://www.med.upenn.edu/immun/Faculty/paterson.html http://www.med.upenn.edu/micro/faculty/paterson.html ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
