A bar stool is used to claim a shoveled-out parking space in Boston. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. A8) BOSTON — It is a time-honored winter tradition here: Shovel out your car, and guard your newly cleared parking spot with whatever you have handy — a traffic cone, a potted plant, a bust of Elvis.
And so it was on Thursday, after the snowstorm that paralyzed parts of the South had found its way to Boston, that the cones and more personal items, known as space savers, began to appear.
“It’s a very simple rule — if you clean it, it’s yours,” said David Skirkey, 56, a guard at the Museum of Fine Arts, who cleared his wife’s parking spot in South Boston on Thursday afternoon, leaving buckets as his marker.
And while the practice appears to be alive and well in South Boston, which is believed to be the cradle of space saving in the city, another neighborhood, the historic South End, this week moved to ban it. Space savers are not unique to Boston. The practice has long been common in Pittsburgh and Chicago, and in Philadelphia, . . .
For the full story, see:
JESS BIDGOOD. “Efforts to Mark Turf When Snowstorms Hit Endure Despite Critics.” The New York Times (Sat., FEB. 15, 2014): A8 & A12.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 14, 2014.)