If you’ve been around Charlottesville long enough, you realize that paying for parking is for tourists, college students, newbies or lazy people. It’s not that hard to find parking 1 or 2 blocks away from any destination site, be it the downtown mall, the corner or midtown.
We’re going to use this thread to solicit secret, free parking spots and we’ll put together a giant map of those free spots when we get everyone’s tips. Please leave your secret parking spot in the comments and we’ll start building the map.
Oh and if you haven’t seen our bad parking jobs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Popularity: 14% [?]
Tagged as: Charlottesville, Free, Parking, pay, secrets, spots
After business hours: the clock shop across Mono Loco…. four free, legit, well located spots.
Next to Escafe late-nite. Altamont Circle any time and in the side-lot at Second Street Gallery. Taking these latter spots has the added advantage of annoying grad students and city-funded pseudo-arteestes.
/Is it just me, or is this a torrential downpour?
@2 you mean people revealing their spots?
wtf is midtown?
@4: your mom!
jk.. it’s “West main” but makes more sense.
discussion here: http://cvillain.com/2007/06/23/the-rise-of-midtown-continues-at-horse-and-hound/
@2
by the downpour? no, it was a recurring theme in reply to Halsey Major suggesting thay I live under a cloud—in which assertion he is no doubt correct.
the small side lot next to the south street/water street lot - the one that says ‘no parking; towing strictly enforced.’
nope and nope. there are always plenty of spots.
I hear that you can park in the SNL lot over the weekend, but I haven’t tried it because I live near there anyhow and have a reserved spot. For the corner - over the weekend you can park in the little lot on Madison near the Mad Bowl unless there is a specific event going on.
“…annoying grad students…”
Well I feel unwelcome here. Geez. Are you all this snooty?
When I ride my bike downtown, I tend to locate rather easily a tall immovable object quite near to my destination, an object to which I affix my bicycle with a locking mechanism of great rigor. I recommend this method highly.
@9 Stanley can you get nicked for PUI?
i forgot—you can park in the drive-through of the bank-of-america on water street w/o fear of being towed after 5pm. approx four spaces.
@10: Yes, I’ve heard that you can, but it’s rare. Of course, if you get too sauced, you can also just walk your bike home.
Ive parked at the Omni 20 plus times in the past few months and not once paid. Either they are not charging or if there happens to be someone in the booth, I make it seem like Im staying there and search around for my key, but he is already waiving my through…my girlfriend and i do now as a joke to see how long we can go without getting charged.
@9 - Saddened, I think otter means people who drive the wrong direction on South Street and the ones who double park.
why would anyone announce their secret parking spot?
This thread is the worst post ever put on a message board. Why?
@9 Saddened.. …. Otter is just in a pisspot mood because he made a personal attack at Halsey Minor who very justifiably snarked back and now Otter is carrying a chip around on his shoulder which is half the size of Liberia. However on thinking about it, he does seem to despise certain demographic groups… students, children (only ages 0-5 and 6-12), teenagers,old people, people on bikes or pushing strollers, anybody in a uniform, the homeless, the ostentatiously wealthy, the wealthy in general,people of average means and of course the poor. Crikey, he hates the poor with a vengeance. But apart from that he is a really lovable guy.
Welcome.
@18 you forgot the universe of girls who have turn sour on his limited southern charms and daffy loping stride.
Grad students rule!
i just miss that pretty old bank, am amused by developers like CC, Danielson and HM who seem to want personal favours and praise for making money hand-over-fist as though making money weren’t enough of a gift from the world/city) and remember the lavish tax-breaks and subsidies poured by the city for the construction of the almost perpetually empty Omni (which i like and stay in whenever possible, just for laughs–and cuz a dear pal offed himself there).
Then again, i am practically St.-fucking-Thomas-Aquinas, loving all men and animals, but expecting more of them—a striving towards perfecting. The child to be more childish in playfulness, the poor to be more gentle and dignified in poverty, the rich to be more elite and noble and cultured to inspire others to be so, the teens to be more teenaged in energy and enthusiasm and drive, the middle-class to be more bourgeois in their solidity, level-headedness, value-loving.
Why aren’t our wealthy developers satisfied with their wealth to become more cultured and less vulgar and more elite? Why aren’t our children carrying pinwheels instead of wearing rat-tails and carrying cellphones and making gang-signs, why isn’t our middle-class industrious and inclined to self-betterment? Why don’t our grad students read books and talk about their studies?
I like unabashed and unpretentious lack of shame in what one is, and unpretence to being more but a desire to BECOME more–all the while expecting/demanding that they reach towards either excellence in THAT staying, or a dignified but again neither pretentious or expecting-of-praise reaching for more.
the poor i think is the only class i DO respect. I certainly dwell amongst them and give to them of my tiny all. And defend them unregenerately in the simple goodness of them, rail against the pretense that excludes them, drives them distanter and distanter from culture and life of this town, this county, this Commonwealth, this South. When was the last time Live Arts did a show that would be of the remotest interest to the under-educated, under-favored poor? About ten years ago–and which among them really would love to see Waiting-For-Godot, or The Vagina Monologues? At what restaurant downtown could our poor afford to eat, or feel comfortable eating-at? I once bought a vagrant a beer at Miller’s, and the guy had tears running down his cheeks saying he had never dared sit on the patio, thinking it was exclusive or whites-only, defacto.
then again, what’s the point of loving any group or any person if that love does not permit a light mockery, a mockery intended to improve and inspire them to self-betterment—if HM wants respect, let him behave respectfully to himself, let him buy it through good works, let him display a humility that shows gratitude for his privilege… not the vanity implicit in his statements of his own excellences, etc.
/it’s still fucking raining here.
@19
i’m a yankee. wrecked my knees in service of my country. and having made the most of hussies availble to me, am quite content with the very occasional nice-girl… perfecting instead my fucking love-for-humanity through solitary and hermitted religious study.
/it rains on the just and the unjust, mutha.
perfecting instead my fucking love-for-humanity through solitary and hermitted religious study.
The wifi reception in your monastery must be awesome..aren’t your late for afternoon prayer?
i pray with every beat of my sick, tired and coal-black heart.
I can recite abelard and augustine all friggin day in my head {and it’s never done me a whit of good}.
WTF is it with you people not respecting The Code?
@23 Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
@4
What, my repeated reminding people of the Code without evident result in getting people like you to follow it?
Acerbity is a rehetorical tool, dear friend and communitarian fellow-traveler. As is satire, which i have read in MArk Edmundson (UVA social commentator) is ill-comporehended by this generation and the last. Floozy and parlie are unquestionably the most gifted in each on this site, they these devices unfailingly well for humorous effect. I use them sloppily but with force of commitment for social change, and to incite self-reflection.
I do not respect nor admire myself nor my words, nor my person in the community, nor my attainments in life. Nor do I ask or expect the slightest respect from others. Has not been my concern. But you’d be an imbecile to imagine that i neither observe nor consider in depth this community, which i love to the extent of my being, and hope will be better.
Parking is nice. We should do more of it.
Hey please, could you please stop being a dick?
I usually park at parlie’s house and make him give me a piggy back ride downtown.
There are lots of other CVille secret parking spots from a (Benny and) June posting on the subject:
http://cvillain.com/2008/06/18/dont-tow-me-bro/
@14 omni’s always good if you leave after 1030 or so, and sometimes earlier cuz that’s when the attendant leaves.
also, the staples lot across from the omni is certainly NOT for customer parking only… my car’s been totally fine there for hours on end, even overnight.
Where not to park:
In front of Sidetracks/Eloise/ Derriere: They will leave bitchy notes on your car or have it towed
Anywhere on/near Garrett: Your shit will get jacked
South Street, before you get to South Street brewery: Fine fuh fuh-fine-fines of $25
Behind Second Yard/Market st: They will block you in
i’ve had several ipods jacked from sidestreet by Walker Square
and from AMTRAK/Wild Wings lot; never ticket or tow though.
i usually park at my house and walk through the bombed-out remnants of what i understand used to be a textile factory, but is now slowly returning to the earth through rot and gravity. in the meantime, it serves as a delightful place to smoke crack and be homeless. i carry a knife, and hope i never have to use it.
my parking spot sucks.
@33
apologies for non-snark, but parlie where is this magnificent place?
looking for photog/film location along those lines. this beside Avon/Belmont bridge?
living in belmont YET AGAIN means lovely things like: never driving anywhere. I walk right up 6th st to downtown, and not once have I been killed/maimed/otherwise molested. Love it. I make my drunkie-mc-drunk-drunk friends pre-game at my house and walk en masse to the d-town mall when we feel like living it up.
Also, around Moxie’s on the street, there’s usually good parking.
@34… could it be that monstrosity that’s partially IX?
one of those things is some kind of concrete-form company, viewed from on-high does look like dresden. but i think the bridge-side thing was textile. then again the woolen mills. parlie’s got me fogged. so much decay here in our little futureworld. if only someone would level some of these ruins and build ten stories of swanky hotel somewhere.
It seems pretty silly to give away your secret parking spots.
@38 - yeah, where is the “secret” part? I never even try to find anything on the street anymore. It’just takes way too much time, my add brain hasda figure out the stupid signage, multitask every 20 feet to figure out if it’s REALLY a space or not. I don’t have time for that shit. I park in one of the garages and throw money at the attendants, less whatever stamp reduction I can garner. My only challenge is getting back there before the place closes.
/only missed once. ok, and that’s kinda sad…
@34, 36: totally the ix building. gobbler and i once noticed during artini that one of the steel ceiling beams was held in place by… paint. we got another vodkamonster and forgot about it.
handy, thanks.
the paint-held-beam sounds like just the place to perch my sound-guy.
i’ll go explore tomorrow.
@ 20
Why don’t our grad students read books and talk about their studies?
i mean, do you *want* me to bore you more than i already do? frankly, at the end of the day after i’ve read what i, um, read, the last thing i want to do is discuss it here. and i’m pretty certain i can name about ten people in this town who are interested in what i’m reading.
@ 37
so much decay here in our little futureworld. if only someone would level some of these ruins and build ten stories of swanky hotel somewhere.
having re-read that i get your sarcasm (i hope), which is good because i’d swat you gently were it true. i adore the buildings that look like they could fall on you at any moment - even when i’m inside of them. (ahhh, ix…)
oh, and to be topical, my ’secret’ parking spot is in front of my house. i used to be lazy and not walk ten minutes and park in the lot behind 2 french hens, but then i got delightfully passive-aggressively yelled at by a very nice lady who told me that she and her coworkers reserve a bunch of those spots at night so they can come downtown and drink and drive home (okay, she didn’t admit the last part, but i made a fairly quick assumption). i took that as a sign to start walking, and hope that karma does its job.
/sorry, grad-student-long-windedness
@42 @20
i meant amongst yourselves, sweetie. But i have no doubt the charm you and your hubby exude would make even chatter of nematodes a fascinating conversation.
@42 @37
sarcastic, yes. I hate levelling cool old buildings to build new ones. also, just a whack at HM, who amuses me.
Y’all are some feisty bitches.
@ 43 you have me confused with someone else, methinks - mos def not married. but my little grad enclave does tawk amongst ourselves… in fact ALL we do is talk. i don’t know why can’t just have sex sometimes.
sorry, in a weird mood…
/nematodes: they’re what’s for dinner?
sorry Buster—apologies were for backup planet, at whom i slung innuendi.
have any spare grad-chiquitas for your old pal?
/vermicelli, the other white meat.
@46 - um, I’m way too sober to figure that one out. did I miss something? I’ll check back in a couple of glasses…
/dang, always missing something
vermicelli the worm or the spaghetti?
/it’s a line from a movie or something.
Worms? Like from bottles of Mezcal? Mmmmm
echo, i thought we’d lost you. hope all’s well.
i confess to never having eaten one of those.
is there any benefit, other than protein and bragging rights?
I’m not lost, just swamped by work.
Do you need anymore benefits? They taste like tequila.
sorry about work;
i outsourced all mine to kathmandou so i can better and more devotedly
serve kyle and admire you/floozy/parlie and send mash-notes to pink…
oh, i just thought in my idiot teen years not long ago my idiot pals tried to persuade me the worm
had hallucinogenic properties or somesuch amplification of the effect of tequila. urban legend?
Supposedly It has hallucinogenic powers, but I haven’t “seen” anything. I will say that I had one Saturday with my second drink, and I went from sober to drunk in about 15 minutes.
[My work has been outsourced to Ohio, and i went with it.]
Hmmmm. Worth testing in any case. The fifteen-minute turnaround sounds promising.
i’m all absinthe all the time these days, but will experiment in due course.
/ohio, so sorry. the rivers are pretty i hope.
Do you take your absinthe with sugar? I heard you are “supposed” to mix it with sugar and water.
The general idea is you have an ornately perfortated spoon perched across the rim of the glass, then dribble cold water over a sugar cube resting atop the spoon. The Olde Absinthe House in NOLA has a marble bar with holes worn into the marble from the incessant dripping of water from spouts overhanging the bar for this use.
i vary my mode d’emploi. Sometimes as above. Sometimes set the cube on the spoon, soak it with absinthe and set fire to the sugar cube then douse the melted sugar in the glass (doesn’t work with all brands), add water after.
Sometimes mixed with gin and egg-white (for foam), then shaken with ice. Sometimes just straight over ice with water. VERY occasionally with club soda and 4711 or orange-flower water, but that tastes like shite.
takes a while to enjoy sipping the stuff straight, but it’s a worthy and patient vice i’m enjoying more and more.
‘perforated’, sorry.
signing off, but you’ve persuaded me to have a big-ole glass before bed.
/as a return favor, explain to me how to use tequila, as i have no experience of it, no joke.
/cheerio.
Setting it on fire is such a waste of alcohol. But lighters are fun.
Fo real, I read you’re supposed to lose the sugar if you’re on a diet. All 12 calories of it.
Some people also think you’re “supposed” to take absinthe as a shot. Those people can be found slamming Natty at home, Jagerbombs at parties, and Patron in the bars.
@ 57 hand the tequila to whoever’s standing next to you. no joke.
@58
burning the sugarcube melts the sugar and sortof carmelizes it—changes flavor slightly and impresses chick (ooo! fire!). otherwise i’m with you–mere frippery.i’m pretty against absinthe-shots as being barbarian.
@59
i have always followed this sage advice.
PARKING. NOT ABSINTHE.
Hailing your triumphal return to Cvillain!!!
/parking his ass on the sofa with a jug of green-goo in front of him.