Central Park Conservancy and the City have formed an historic partnership, devoted to "rescuing the Park from decay and restoring it to the original vision of its designers." To meet the challenge, CPC and Department of Parks & Recreation have launched an ambitious program: "Central Perks." It's goal: to make the perk of free parking for personal vehicles available to the city's thousands of current and retired civil servants.

Here is an example of what surely must be the "gold standard" in the Central Perks Program--a "citywide" pass apparently allowing the holder to park in any park--or, in practice anywhere at all--without fear of a ticket or the cost/nuisance of feeding the meter.

What's even more remarkable is that the DP&R has given this pass to a RETIRED former Deputy Commissioner of DP&R. There is not even the pretense that the placard holder is actually performing services for the city and has exigent parking needs; this is "pure perk." In some industries, retiring employees are rewarded for their years of service with a pension, or a gold watch. If you retire from the DP&R, you get the right to degrade the parks and park anywhere you like with impunity throughout New York City.

This placard holder is the "King of Central Perks." He parks his Connecticut-plated SUV on Central Park's bridle path, just steps away from the Upper East Side where he'd have to pay at least $700 a month plus ~20% tax to park his car west of Third Avenue. I have observed this car parked on the bridle path constantly, often weeks at a time, since last November. So this perk is worth about $10,000/per year. Of course, he's got not just one but two of these placards, so make that $20,000 per year, year after year: http://nyc.uncivilservants.org/post/index/648). How much was at issue in that Hevesi scandal again?

When this photo was taken on Nov. 26, 2006, the southern portion of the bridle path didn't have any signage on it allowing "authorized vehicles." It was no more legal to park here with this placard than it was in Sheep Meadow. Nothing like a little off-road action in Central Park, eh?

I wonder this guy's auto insurer knows how much time he's spending in NYC instead of Connecticut?