I thought only us Police Officers can do that this guy is with the Press he's fair game. I see a marked Van behind him maybe he is in the process of being ticketed.

#4 your previous comments were not constructive or respectful.

"#4 your previous comments were not constructive or respectful."

RESPECT? Respect works two ways my friend. How about respecting peoples privacy and not post their plates on the net? I don't car if my news van or my personal car is on here. I think its funny that you people are mad at the way we park. because it wont change any thing. JUST DONT SHOW MY PERSONAL PLATE #

uh.... its not personal when you're out in public. common sense.

The vehicle has an NYP plate, that's fair game. You can take my cheapie camera, I know enough not to use an expensive camera. I get mine from Big Lots or Dollar Central. The ten dollar cams does fine in outdoor settings.

To clarify: The NYPD van behind the press vehicle was not giving this car a ticket. It was 1 of 4 NYPD vehicles in the lane at that time. 2 marked NYPD vehicles, 2 unmarked, 2 press, 1 city car, 1 unmarked car, 1 with a film permit and a Mr. Softee truck.

The typical daytime access to the Centre street bike lane.

"...and a Mr. Softee truck." :-)

I laugh whenever we get the "oh look how few complaints you have on the site, there must not be a problem" and "oh, you must not have anything better to do."

It's not like it's *hard* to find examples. It's an amazingly target-rich environment.

(Now I have to go find the rules for Mr. Softee trucks... I think DCA regulates them...)

I am a Police Officer and a cyclist and I will tell you first hand that this is a dangerous strecth of roadway. One of the Pics show a bus next to the car in the bike Lane, there isn't much room for bikes. But that is not a NYPD problem that is the MAYORS SEZ. if there are any PD vehicles in that bus lane then they were ordered to parked there from the Mayors detail. Most of time there are two cops sitting in that van. As for the press they do not have respect for anyone. there are reporters assinged to city hall press room and they will leave their vehicles any where they want. I commute to work and I love to see other riders wearing that vest "one less car" but coming off the bridge at chambers they are screaming at tourist to move so they don't have to stop and cut through the redlight. Since this is holy week before we post we should remember "He who is without out sin shall cast the first stone"

#4,
If you posted this, it would stay up, but you continue to post a bunch of crap about "Getting a Life" and "What a bunch of hypocrites" and similar insults. As it says here, be respectful. If you're not, it goes.

This is fine, negative, all good:

"How do you think the media covers the news? You think they park legal and place a quarter in the meter? You kiss the media's feet when you are riding you bikes all over the city, causing traffic, risking the lives of the people and the cops of this city and wasting tax dollars to pay for the over time for the COPS to keep you people in line. While that's going on you don't care that the press are parking on side walks, bus stops, and other "uncivil" places.

And why do you keep deleting negative postings? Its seems to me you don't like feed back, unless the people agree with you"

Folks, this is where press vehicles and police officers park when they have to be inside City Hall. This is where TV news vehicles HAVE to park if they have to cover City Hall, as they can't get their signals back to HQ any other way. Downtown Manhattan is tough for all.
Stop the whining.

If the TV news vehicles couldn't get their signals out from anywhere else, why did the DOT make this a bike lane? Where did they park before this was a bike lane? Seems like a pretty lame excuse.

#7 your right. But here is what happened, We use to park (many years ago) in side the city hall gate. BUT they stopped it for security reasons. So now we must park in the street. We started to park on both B-way and park row. But the Mayors office asks us not to park on B-way if at all possible (that's for Council members I think). Besides they are ONLY letting us enter City hall from Park row. So I and most people aren't going to carry 60 pounds of gear from B-way to park row. So we all agreed that parking on Park row was good for both the city and the press. So we are now parking there. So basically its an unwitting rule that Parking on Park Row are for NYP, NYPD and other city agency visiting City hall and 1PP.

I know you think its bad excuse but thats the it is. Untill they build us a lot or place signs, we are parking there.

oh and also for signal reasons, B-way and park Row are the only places MOST stations can get a signal.

JF:
Please watch the language.

Reposting:

"Okay, so while the DOT was officially designating this a bike lane, the Mayor's office unofficially designated it parking for the press and official visitors. Thanks for the information, #24.

There's an anonymous poster here who regularly posts messages along the lines of "Ultimately this is the Mayor's responsibility." Not to repeat that mindlessly, but in this case it clearly IS the Mayor's office that messed up in assigning a bike lane for visitor parking instead of either coming up with a parking solution (definitely necessary for the press vans) or saying, "don't drive to City Hall; take transit or find your own parking, because we'll ticket or tow any vehicles on Park Row."

Maybe now that Bloomberg is reversing some of Giuliani's paranoia and reopening the northern half of City Hall Park, he can find some parking, at least for the press trucks.

"don't drive to City Hall; take transit or find your own parking"

I'm sorry, but that's silly, how can a TV crew carry his/her gear on a subway? Those things start to add up. I bet the average camera man has about 200 pounds of stuff in the back of his car. How can they take a subway? And if there is breaking news in SI how will we get there? We will have to take the subway to the ferry, then find a taxi or take the "SI RAIL ROAD" It will take 2 hours minimum. we need to get YOU, THE VEIWER the story as fast as possible. Even if it wasn't for the gear, Its also not safe to be traveling around the dangerous areas of Brooklyn north and the Bronx with out a car. So We must drive and that means we must park as close as to the scene as a we can.

Just think, if any advocacy group such as this one has its press conferences on the steps of City Hall, the accredited news crews park right on Park Row. There's no where else to park in safety and get a live signal out from there. We compete daily for parking with vehicles from the mayor's own security detail, other official cars, and by City Hall Park, the bus stops.

As previous posters put it, it's where the mayor's office and the NYPD want us to park, and it is there we can safely wire up our cameras between our trucks and the press room, city council chambers or the front steps ... and because of quirks of geography, architecture, and electronic engineering our microwaved transmissions can "see" their destination - dishes on the south side of the Empire State Building.
Broadway's out of the question. There's no room on Chambers St. Inside the park is verboten. We can't park at J+R and string our wires across the street.
Let's get real here.

ES (#27), I didn't realize that saying "fuck" was aginst the rules; I'll try to avoid it in future posts.

#28, I guess it wasn't clear from my original posting: I do acknowledge that it would be good for the Mayor's office to provide parking near City Hall for television news crews. Of course you have a lot of equipment. You could use a cargo bike (http://www.rideyourbike.com/cargo.html), but I'm not holding my breath. My main point is that the Mayor's office should arrange parking for them, and saying "You can park in this space that DOT has designated as a bike lane" is not an appropriate way of arranging parking.

However, print and radio reporters, photographers, police officers, and generally anyone who doesn't need to bring a lot of equipment with them - don't need to bring a vehicle to City Hall. If they're coming from someplace transit-inaccessible, there are parking garages nearby and they can park and walk. Or they can drive to a subway station.

One comment about getting the viewer the story as fast as possible: except for the outer reaches of the outer boroughs, the subway is the quickest way to get around. If your reporters get stuck in Manhattan traffic, that slows down the story. Just saying.

Finally, in regard to those "dangerous areas," I'm a white guy and I've walked all over those areas. I also lived in the South Bronx for two years. The worst I ever got was a couple of threatening comments. If reporters are always driving and never taking the train, it might explain why the news is biased towards the car-driving elite and against the transit-riding majority.