Bridge and Tunnel Club Blog Home
Bridge and Tunnel Club Blog

No Standing . . . Literally, “No Standing”

Two men were ticketed Sunday for stopping in a “No Standing” zone. Problem is, they were pedestrians:

Two men who had just disembarked from a thank-you cruise for gay pride volunteers were stunned when they were slapped with $50 tickets for “no stopping or standing” in a fire zone.

They weren’t in a car.

“It’s so ridiculous that it’s hilarious,” said a perplexed Jason Eng, 25, of Manhattan who received the summons Sunday evening at Hudson River Park.

“I can’t believe this actually happened,” the software programmer said. “There’s no reason I should get a ticket. … We were walking to the subway.”

Dennis Spafford, 27, an organizer with the Manhattan-based nonprofit group Heritage of Pride, and Eng, a volunteer for the organization, had just spent the day celebrating with fellow volunteers on the weekly Sea Tea gay party cruise aboard the Queen of Hearts riverboat.

Eng and Spafford were among the last to leave as they said goodbye to other volunteers at Pier 40 in the West Village.

About 10:30 p.m., the pair began walking north through the river-hugging park, which is open until 1 a.m., toward the Christopher St. subway station, they said.

Eng said he and Spafford stopped walking and stood near a gated Port Authority vent in the park, where they talked for a few minutes.

Two signs on the gate read: “No stopping or standing – Fire Zone.”

Suddenly, a Parks Department patrol car pulled up behind them. “What are you guys doing here?” one of the two officers asked, Eng said, so he and Spafford decided they should resume walking.

Then the Parks officer on the passenger side got out of the car and screamed, “Don’t you dare walk away from us!” Eng said.

Eng said he and Spafford questioned why they were being stopped and the officer who yelled at them said, “I can arrest you.”

The men handed over their IDs to the park cops, and both were given tickets for “failure to comply with signs,” a $50 offense, Eng said.

You think your job is bad? Try being the spokesperson who has to defend this:

Parks Department spokesman Warner Johnston said the sign is aimed at keeping parkgoers away from “certain areas of parks that are service areas that we prefer the public not loiter at.”

He insisted, “It doesn’t refer to cars.”

But Eng and Spafford said the sign looks like it’s meant to keep people from parking by the gate.

“It’s totally a road sign,” Stafford said. “If it were for pedestrians, it would say, ‘No loitering.'”

What can you say? At least they weren’t towed.

Posted: July 20th, 2005 | Filed under: Tragicomic, Ironic, Obnoxious Or Absurd
Precedent Undone: Pedestrians Not Vehicles »
« Gopnik: London Bombings Smell Completely Unlike Smoked Mozzarella

Recent Posts

  • “Friends And Allies Literally Roll Their Eyes When They Hear The New York City Mayor Is Trying To Go National Again”
  • You Don’t Achieve All Those Things Without Managing The Hell Out Of The Situation
  • “Less Than Six Months After Bill De Blasio Became Mayor Of New York City, A Campaign Donor Buttonholed Him At An Event In Manhattan”
  • Nothing Hamburger
  • On Cheap Symbolism

Categories

Bookmarks

  • 1010 WINS
  • 7online.com (WABC 7)
  • AM New York
  • Aramica
  • Bronx Times Reporter
  • Brooklyn Eagle
  • Brooklyn View
  • Canarsie Courier
  • Catholic New York
  • Chelsea Now
  • City Hall News
  • City Limits
  • Columbia Spectator
  • Courier-Life Publications
  • CW11 New York (WPIX 11)
  • Downtown Express
  • Gay City News
  • Gotham Gazette
  • Haitian Times
  • Highbridge Horizon
  • Inner City Press
  • Metro New York
  • Mount Hope Monitor
  • My 9 (WWOR 9)
  • MyFox New York (WNYW 5)
  • New York Amsterdam News
  • New York Beacon
  • New York Carib News
  • New York Daily News
  • New York Magazine
  • New York Observer
  • New York Post
  • New York Press
  • New York Sun
  • New York Times City Room
  • New Yorker
  • Newsday
  • Norwood News
  • NY1
  • NY1 In The Papers
  • Our Time Press
  • Pat’s Papers
  • Queens Chronicle
  • Queens Courier
  • Queens Gazette
  • Queens Ledger
  • Queens Tribune
  • Riverdale Press
  • SoHo Journal
  • Southeast Queens Press
  • Staten Island Advance
  • The Blue and White (Columbia)
  • The Brooklyn Paper
  • The Columbia Journalist
  • The Commentator (Yeshiva University)
  • The Excelsior (Brooklyn College)
  • The Graduate Voice (Baruch College)
  • The Greenwich Village Gazette
  • The Hunter Word
  • The Jewish Daily Forward
  • The Jewish Week
  • The Knight News (Queens College)
  • The New York Blade
  • The New York Times
  • The Pace Press
  • The Ticker (Baruch College)
  • The Torch (St. John’s University)
  • The Tribeca Trib
  • The Villager
  • The Wave of Long Island
  • Thirteen/WNET
  • ThriveNYC
  • Time Out New York
  • Times Ledger
  • Times Newsweekly of Queens and Brooklyn
  • Village Voice
  • Washington Square News
  • WCBS880
  • WCBSTV.com (WCBS 2)
  • WNBC 4
  • WNYC
  • Yeshiva University Observer

Archives

RSS Feed

  • Bridge and Tunnel Club Blog RSS Feed

@batclub

Tweets by @batclub

Contact

  • Back To Bridge and Tunnel Club Home
    info -at- bridgeandtunnelclub.com

BATC Main Page

  • Bridge and Tunnel Club

2025 | Bridge and Tunnel Club Blog