PARKING VS. POP CULTURE: 3 ‘Seinfeld’: The Parking Garage BY ISAIAH MOUWAND MARK BOTTS Parking vs. PopCulture is a series of articles dedicated to
significant parking references found in pop culture. The win- ner, either parking or pop culture, will be determined by whether parking ended as a positive or negative experience in the particular pop culture reference. This issue’s parking ref- erence is taken fromthe“Seinfeld”TVshowepisodeThePark- ingGarage,which originally aired onOct. 30, 1991, onNBC.
garage.Many of us have had such an experience. “Seinfeld” – nine seasons, 61
M
awards, 121 nominations. Top ranks among itsTVcontemporaries. Characters seared onto our cultural consciousness and catch phrases grafted into our vernac- ular…“yada, yada, yada.” “Seinfeld” raises its arms as the
undisputed heavyweight champion of tel- evision sitcoms of the last 20 years. No pithy topic could stand against thewit and humor of its cast of everyday people with everyday problems – even if those prob- lemswere foundwantingwhen compared withmore national and globalmatters. Still, when we can’t find our car in a multilevel parking
garage, is our mind filled with concerns for the national debt, ter- rorism or bipartisanship? No, we want to find our car. Everything else is secondary and tertiary. And so, Seinfeld and his band of two brothers and one sister
strike a resonate chord with our experiences and leave an indelible mark on our memories – because who hasn’t wandered about a parking garage looking for their car, all while talking to them- selves, reassuring themselves that they parked the car right … here! No, here!
OST OF US HAVE SEEN THAT hilarious “Seinfeld” episode in which Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer struggle to locate their vehi- cle in a large shoppingmall parking
Kramer promises the gang that his photographic memory
will recall their parking spot. But he forgets its number, and a hilarious debacle ensues, aggravated by each character’s person- al crises: Jerry’s (Jerry Seinfeld), a full bladder; Elaine’s (Julia Louis-
Dreyfus), a plastic bag of live goldfish; Kramer’s (Michael Richards), a newly bought window air-conditioning unit; George’s (JasonAlexander), being late for his parents’ anniver- sary party. At the end of an arduous day, they find Kramer’s car, only
to have their resolve stripped down further – the car won’t start. “The Dimensions of Parking,” from the National Parking
Association and the Urban Land Institute, dedicates an entire chapter to the concept of “wayfinding,” which refers to the process of reaching a destination. “Patrons making their way
through a parking garage create cog- nitive maps, and draw on the infor- mation in those maps in order to make and execute decisions about where to go and what to do next.” Clearly, the designers of the
parking garage that inspired Larry David towrite this episodemust have forgotten to read that chapter. Due to a creative and innovative
system of wayfinding at a Children’s Hospital Boston garage, co-author Mouw says his 1-year-old son was able to remind him what floor they
had parked on. “Deer, deer, deer,” his son shouted as they approached the parking garage elevators. Each level is named after an animal and littered with images of that animal precisely to help customers remember what floor they parked on. Other such examples of innovative wayfinding include the
Chestnut Parking Structure in downtown Philadelphia, where each level is named after one of Ben Franklin’s “SevenVirtues”; and the amajor garage in downtown Chicago, which usesmusi- cal themes and has each level named after one of the city’s pro- fessional sports teams. Not every parking structure needs to include Franklin’s
“Virtues” or names of sports teams ormusical themes, but effec- tive signage, visual anchors and color coding different levels of the garage can go a long way. The Parking Garage episode of “Seinfeld” turned a nega-
tive experience that happens to nearly everyone into a piece of pure comedy. It turned a usually frustrating situation into a “This reminds us of the ‘Seinfeld’ show ...,” with a little laugh, which is why parking wins to take the lead 2 to 1.
Isaiah Mouw, a CAPP candidate who works for Republic Parking System, can be reached at
imouw@republicparking.com. Mark Botts, who attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, is a graduate student in Regent University’s MFA program. He can be reached at
mark.botts@
yahoo.com.
PT 12 DECEMBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY •
www.parkingtoday.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48