Tuesday’s Headlines Ask The Question: ‘Parking? Lots!’

The Mamdani administration made a long-overdue announcement yesterday: A parking lot in the East Village would be turned into 131 units of below-market-rate housing. (Gothamist covered it.)

Few details were given about the new building, already dubbed The Aurea, and one missing detail really stood out for us: The Aurea will be “a mixed-use development with … a senior center, community space and replacement parking facilities.” (Emphasis ours.)

Replacement? For whom?

Do you really need to ask?

The building will rise on what is currently a 30-spot parking lot used by officers at the Ninth Precinct station house on E. Fifth Street. But under the previous administration’s City of Yes zoning, new affordable housing developments were spared the requirement to build off-street parking — an initiative that then Mayor Adams and the City Council created to spur the creation of more housing and less parking.

Except all bets are off when the parking is for cops.

Now, you know us: We never shy away from drawing attention to the overuse of cars by NYPD cops and the agency’s failure to rein in their reckless driving and illegal parking. And the Ninth Precinct is a poster child. Yes, there is limited street parking in such a dense neighborhood, but the station house is within walking distance of four subway lines (which would reduce officers’ belief that they need to drive, but for the fact that half of all cops live in the suburbs).

In any event, when Streetsblog Summer Specialist Emily Smith visited the parking lot on Monday, she found about 31 NYPD vehicles and police officers’ personal cars parked there.

She tried to get cops to talk about why they drive so much, but only one played along. Officer Joshua Moye said he “has to” drive to work because he has kids. He also added that other cops park on the street, which isn’t cleaned by the Sanitation Department in order to accommodate the officers.

We asked the Mamdani administration why it was creating “replacement” parking for the police, but no one answered our questions beyond confirming that the parking lot inside the new Aurea would have 25 spots reserved for cops. The “requirement” for the police parking was a part of the request for proposals for the building, though, again, no one would tell us why. Such decisions are a choice, because, as we all know, there are no accidents.

It’s worth noting that there were three cars parked in “Supervisor” spots in the lot — and two of them had multiple violations for reckless driving, according to city statistics. One car had five red-light tickets while another had a speeding ticket and bus lane violations.

Another cop who parks on the street with a placard had 25 speeding tickets and three red-light tickets, so obviously we’re just so pleased that the city gifts this reckless driver with free parking rather than making him, safely, take the bus or the subway.

In other news:

• In a related parking story, another East Village lot will become housing. (City Limits)
• And speaking of police, the NYPD has apparently won this round of its fight to prevent the public from videotaping inside even precinct house lobbies. (Hell Gate)
• Streetsblog confronted Mayor Mamdani about his failure to undo one of Mayor Eric Adams’s gravest safety sellouts, but it turns out that anti-bike forces in Williamsburg still hold sway.
• Orange and Rockland counties’ bid to end congestion pricing was thrown out by another court. (Courthouse News)
• Robots on the streets of Hoboken. What could go wrong? (Tap Into Hoboken)
• The Times decides that one more tower on the almost entirely developed Williamsburg waterfront is a bridge too far, though, as we pointed out last week, Curbed disagrees.
• But, of course, Curbed is bullish on YIMBY kids.
• Gothamist proved what any good reporter felt in the gut: Don’t believe a word out of the NYPD until its full audit is done.
• The membership of Queens community boards is more diverse. But there are still a lot of drivers. (QNS)
• Wired followed our coverage of Uber’s delay-delay-delay strategy on autonomous taxis.
• Mayor Mamdani’s midnight soccer party is a success. (NY Times)
• Jet quarterback and one-time prospect Geno Smith is a reckless driver times three. (NY Post)
• As long as cars don’t spew from the belly of the Upper West Side Trojan horse, we’re fine with it. (West Side Rag)