I really feel for my fellow Villagers with their SUVs and Merc’s having only one gas station left—the one on 8th Avenue. I remember when Houston Street was lined with stations, from Lafayette Street to Avenue C. In the early ‘70s I waited on Houston Street with a hundred other vehicles during the oil embargo just to get a few gallons. Outside of the wait I really did not mind since my motorcycle only took about three gallons. So now we only have this last station on 8th Avenue, and to tell the truth I would not mind it if this one also disappeared. In the last five or more years I have made numerous complaints to the 10th precinct about their allowing vehicles to park on the sidewalk. I have seen mothers with their children in hand or in carriages have to go into the street to get up the block. Once I was trying to take a pic with my phone of the cars on the sidewalk to show to the authorities. I was standing on the corner of Horatio Street when a short fellow the size of a jockey wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest ran out of the service station and up to me cursing and saying that I could not take pictures of private property. Besides the sidewalk parking, much of the day there is a long line of vehicles waiting to get to the pumps. In the past they would regularly block traffic on Horatio Street, and on occasion even 8th Avenue. Instead making the owners carry out some control over the vehicles coming into their station, the city has blocked off Horatio Street between 4th Street and 8th Avenue. Traffic now must turn left into the short block of 4th Street, then right at 13th, to get to 8th Avenue. Many times, I see drivers take the quick way by turning right against traffic into 4th to get to 8th Avenue. The drivers of cars lined up on the Avenue, now that they can stand in front of Horatio Street, think nothing of blocking the crosswalk, then they are bumper to bumper on the sidewalk as they compete for a place at a pump. No, it would not bother me in the least if this “only last one remaining” would go the way of the rest and close.
—Marc Felix
