I went to a Mets game on Friday with my son. He treated me, and it’s a little bit of a sacrifice for him since he’s a Yankee fan. We went last year too, but last year, he drove and parked in a garage a subway stop or two from the stadium. This year, I drove and parked at Citifield. I now know how Uncle Steve is paying for all those big player contracts. Parking at Citifield now costs $40 for a game!
I’d kvetch about the food prices too, but food at the ballpark has always been out of reason.
I couldn’t get over the price of parking, until we left Citifield, we went to JFK airport to pick up my daughter-in-law who was flying in from Florida. Parking in the garages near the terminals is now $6 for the first half-hour, then $6 for each of the next three hours. After that, you don’t want to know, and I don’t want to tell you. Long-term parking is less costly, but I’m reluctant to call it cheaper, and if I fly on vacation from JFK, I hire a limo service to take me there and pick me up. It’s cheaper and a lot more convenient.
But the end result is that short-term parking at JFK is now so expensive that an awful lot of people don’t want to park there. I was going to say nobody wants to park there, but around noon on Saturday, the garages were roughly 80-percent full according to the airport’s website.
Still, the cell phone lot (free) was filled to overflowing at 11:00 on Friday night, the pickup area at the American Airlines terminal was parked three deep, and people were (in parking parlance) standing on the shoulders of all the access roads to the airport. I drove around for about 30 minutes. Here’s a handy hint. If you are picking up an arriving passenger at JFK airport, pick them up in the departing passenger area. There are a lot fewer cars there.
Another suggestion is to sell your car to an arriving passenger and buy one from someone who’s departing!
On an entirely different topic, did you see Donald Trump’s mugshot from the Fulton County Georgia jail? When I saw it up on all the cable news networks Thursday night, it made me realize that Donald Trump is the villain called “The Master” on the BBC sci-fi show, and that we need Doctor Who now, more than we ever have before.