Photo: Space savers have long been a part of life in Boston’s neighborhoods, but someone on Richmond Street in Lower Mills may have been pondering a snowstorm in the after-life when re-purposing this stout-guzzling character and his porch furniture to preserve a hard-won parking spot in Lower Mills last week. Photo courtesy Lower Mills resident
Whether in Dorchester, Mattapan – and, of course, other cramped neighborhoods like South Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury, and Mission Hill – the wintertime “space savers” are like sacred stones on city streets. They come in all forms— orange traffic cones, broken toys, beach chairs, or some other pseudo-garbage item unearthed from the cellar for a single purpose: to preserve a coveted parking space a homeowner or resident has diligently dug out after a snowstorm.
Touch one, and you’re certain to get the side-eye. Move one, and there will be consequences.
This intensity of purpose taps into the creative juices of residents who can always be counted on for humor in the midst of snowbound life.
Someone on Windemere Road in Savin Hill was willing to go to the mattresses to protect their shoveled-out spot last week. Photo courtesy Chris Vella
“I will say I do enjoy seeing when people put old toilets out as space savers, because it’s unlikely that anyone will dare try and move your space saver,” said Jim Doyle of Fields Corner. “Another good move is using a city-issued recycling bin, because when the city comes around to remove space savers, they’ll leave the bin alone. Just don’t have your house number on it; the city will ticket you for putting your garbage out early.”
Edverette Brewster, the executive director of Neighborhood House Charter School (NHCS), said he has seen any number of household items used for keeping a space. “I think my favorite is always seeing a full-size ironing board,” he noted with a laugh.
That was shared by Brian Chavez, a Dorchester resident and owner of Antonio’s Hi-Fi Pizza in Fields Corner who favors ironing boards.
Mary-dith Tuitt, commander of the Carter Post in Mattapan Square, listed the whackiest things she has seen over the last week or so to save spaces to include “a Barbie Doll house.”
Phil Carver, of Pope’s Hill, said he has seen it all, from folding chairs to traffic cones to trash barrels to indoor furniture, but he appreciates the strategy. “The wildest part is not always the object, but the intensity with which people defend it,” he said. “Nothing says winter in Boston like a heated debate over a lawn chair in the middle of the street.”
But, he added, as the days go on, he gets a laugh at how space savers change.
“One thing I’ve also noticed is that the real creativity shows up when the city ends the space saver amnesty and starts collecting them,” he said, noting the 48-hour rule enforced by city officials.
“That’s when you suddenly see things people clearly had no plan for disposing of, like old window A/C units, broken furniture, or scrap lumber, pressed into service as ‘temporary’ space holders. At that point it feels less about saving a spot and more about avoiding a trip to the dump.”
Of course, that line of thinking is mindful of classic urban lore in South Boston and parts of Dorchester many years ago, when during one long winter, the late Mayor Tom Menino got irritated with space savers and announced that Public Works crews would be collecting them and throwing them away.
As the story goes, residents took to the phones and coordinated the largest trash disposal effort the city had ever seen as residents tucked their real space savers on the porch and deposited old televisions, paint cans, and other undesirable items from the cellar to be picked up off the street for free by the Public Works “space-saver hunters.”
Over the past week, The Reporter has noted baby carriages, sweater drying racks, thousands of orange cones, and even a leftover Halloween skeleton sitting on a patio chair and table on Richmond Street with a Guinness stout can in his “hand.”
But Dorchester’s king of the space saver community is conceded to be Paul Doherty, of Clam Point. Years ago, Doherty – a retired carpenter – made wooden cutouts of cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble, and Bart Simpson and used them as his space holders. They were so popular that neighbors asked him to make some for them, including Napoleon, the Pope, and a happy alien.
“I think a lot of people know about them because I’ve been making them for 12 years,” Doherty said late last week, noting he has Barney Rubble out this year alongside a freshly built snowman.
“It started because people were putting out chairs and I thought I could do better. I’m not an artist by any stretch, but I look up a character and copy it…It’s what I do. I made them for myself and for my neighbors.
“When it used to snow more, I’d say there could have been eight of them saving spaces all down Mill Street. I enjoyed making them and neighbors liked them, and it was fun…The Pope [John Paul II] is still a couple streets over and he’s been there forever.”
Doherty said the infamous “Menino Crackdown” brought the demise of several of his creations, which he responded to with some humor. After Public Works crews moved through Clam Point and absconded with Bart Simpson, the happy alien, and Napoleon, he set up a “character protest” on his front lawn with Lego man, South Park kid, and Bugs Bunny holding signs that read, “We Will Miss You: Bart Simpson, Alien, and Napoleon.”
In addition, he created a burly looking Public Works guy hovering over them ready to snatch them up. “It was a great joke,” mused Doherty.
But before making an exit to the dump, the Bart Simpson space saver caused quite a controversy in Clam Point, he said.
“The guy next door liked it, and I gave it to him and it’s the picture of Bart bending over with his ass out. Another neighbor came to my neighbor’s house and felt Bart was inappropriate, so he went out and put a cloth over [the rear end] Later, I went out and painted some pants on Bart. We all enjoyed that.”
