If Only The Coalition Provisional Authority Had Instituted Alternate-Side Parking In Baghdad

Our cosmopolitan city rejoices in a beautiful display of ecumenism, religious tolerance and cross-cultural understanding:

In a city that has done the alternate-side parking dance since the days of sock hops, Eren Hock knew just what she had found as soon as she put the transmission in park and turned off the engine on Monday: a space on her Manhattan block where she could leave her car for up to 11 days.

Ms. Hock, 23, knew that she would not have to do what she often does — structure her evenings around hunting for a parking space that would be legal longer than her current one. Until — when else? — Friday the 13th, no one would mistake her for a character in “Tepper Isn’t Going Out,” Calvin Trillin’s 2001 novel about a man who is always after the most desirable parking space.

Ms. Hock lives on West 138th Street, where, she said, the alternate-side rules prohibit parking on Tuesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. But she knew that because of a confluence of religious holidays, the city’s alternate-side rules would be suspended yesterday and today (for the beginning of Passover), tomorrow and Friday (for Holy Thursday and Good Friday) and next Monday and Tuesday (for the end of Passover).

That has created an unusually long stretch when some drivers can sleep late or, like Ms. Hock, do something else in the hours they usually spend circling their neighborhoods. And circling. And circling, strategizing and cursing the car that got there a moment sooner and snapped up that just-vacated space.

. . .

All over New York, there are Christians who know when the Jewish holidays fall, and Jews who know when the Christian holidays fall. They are drivers.

“Thank God for Jewish holidays,” said Charlie Moon, 63, an interior designer who celebrates Easter.

He appreciates “all those wonderful obscure Jewish holidays that I profit from,” and mentioned holidays like Shemini Atzeret and Simchas Torah, for which alternate-side rules will be suspended on Oct. 4 and 5.