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September 26, 2003
The Tow Lot There is
The Tow Lot
There is almost never a happy customer at Pier 76. People react poorly to having their car towed, and when they arrive at the vast fenced-in facility on the Hudson River at 38th street, they are sullen at best and generally something worse. Sadly, getting there seldom improves their mood.Pier 76 is the largest of the city’s car pounds. It’s open around the clock, and each year takes in tens of thousands of cars. Every five minutes or so comes a truck towing its payload: a night clubber’s Honda parked too near a hydrant downtown; a tourist’s Ford rental mistakenly left at a meter reserved for commercial vehicles; perhaps even an errant UPS truck.
And sometime thereafter appears blinking under the fluorescent lights of the main office the sorry owner.
However misguided these illegal parkers, the office of the “Main Pound” seems a cruel and unnecessary punishment. In this city of architecture, with a skyline that bespeaks a courage and competence almost beyond imagination, the offices at Pier 76 are without question a black eye.
But for the lack of the simplest and most inexpensive of efforts, these rooms are a daily testament to inattention and resignation, an environment which elicits the lowest common denominator of human interaction.
Ironically, there may be no single space which takes in more money to the city’s coffers. But you certainly wouldn’t know this from looking.
One’s first impression of the car pound is that of a tired overlit mobile home. The room is rectangular, roughly 30 feet by 15 and devoid of furniture except for several insufficient benches running along the back wall. The walls themselves are covered with the flimsiest of 70s-era faux wood veneers. Here and there duct tape covers holes which may well have been made by fists.
The whir of an unseen and massive central air system shakes the room, though one assumes that this system has more sound than fury given that individual air conditioners have also been punched through the thin walls. The air conditioners, having long since lost their plastic facades, present their soiled and gaping metallic interiors to the room.
Covering almost every surface – including even the thick glass of the teller windows -- are innumerable red, green, and orange stickers, each roughly the size of a credit card. It turns out that some unfortunate souls with invalid registrations must hire a truck to tow their car from the tow lot, and together these stickers represent a pitched battle between private towing companies. The red stickers have been covered by the green stickers, and these have been, in turn, partially torn off and partially covered by the orange stickers “24x7 Towing,” the orange stickers scream. “Anywhere Anytime. Ask for Tommy.”
Above each of the six teller windows, are full-sized stop lights: red for wait and green for go, as if those waiting had suddenly been themselves transformed into impounded vehicles.
There is a single piece of art: an unframed poster dating from the Cuomo administration which promotes the wearing of seatbelts and features the Oak Ridge boys, blow-dried and smiling. That’s undoubtedly because country music is so big in New York.
What signs there are provide minimal information: “The process to redeem your car starts at Window #1,” and “No personal checks accepted,” and “Bribery is a crime….”
There is, of course, no water fountain, and only a single, damp bathroom down a metal ramp in the back. The film Blade Runner comes to mind. Chains hang from high above, and dripping pipes of various diameters cover the walls like arteries.
Without question the prevailing sense among those that visit and those that work at Pier 76 is that this atmosphere is inevitable. It needn’t be.
Outside in the cavernous tow lot that runs the length of the pier, there is a sign proclaiming the six planks of the “Traffic Enforcement Creed.” The last three of these are to: “Perform our duties with pride; Render service with courtesy and civility; and Respect the dignity of each individual.”
Unless one takes the narrowest interpretation of each, Pier 76 would fail on all counts.
Even without considering new construction, it would be trivial to replace the sticker war with more helpful signs on the walls. An explanation of how to fight a ticket would be useful, phone numbers for city agencies, statistics showing the most towed locations or explanations of the most commonly misunderstood signs. Some curious souls might appreciate information relating to the trend in ticketing and related city revenues.
At a minimum, in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York, there could be a Snapple machine, an ATM, or even voter registration forms and a suggestion box.
And might there not be a struggling artist somewhere in this city of eight million who would be happy, at little cost, to provide something better than the Oak Ridge Boys?
A trip to Pier 76 may never be a cause for celebration, but it need not be a trip to hell.
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Posted by oliver at September 26, 2003 09:45 PM