Henry Grabar Parks That Thought

The Book Case

ABC News

Fiction, Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.1 • 766 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Henry Grabar is a writer for Slate, the online magazine, and he has written “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.” Now you probably are thinking, “I’ve never read a book about parking. A whole book? Come on.” Well, we thought the same thing but we were intrigued. So we read it and were engrossed. It is fascinating! It is funny! And it tells you so much about a subject on which we all have such strong opinions and about which we all suffer such frustrations. Just some facts he relates - major ones like “more square footage is devoted to parking each car (in America) than to housing each person” - and minor ones like Disney World has 45,000 parking spaces. 10 to 20 families lose their cars there every day.” Intrigued? Read on. The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News. Our bookstore this week is a grandaddy of second hand book stores - Second Story Books in the Washington, D.C. area. Books mentioned in the podcast: Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson by Hunter S. Thompson Volumes 1-4 of the Gonzo Papers - Essays by Hunter S. Thompson The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll say it very simply. Welcome to the bookcase. I'm Charlie Gibson, one of the hosts,
0:10.5	and I join you with my daughter. Kate Gibson, who is also going to greet simply. Hello. How are you?
0:17.4	Nice to meet you.
0:19.2	All right. Enough with the book nerds and discerning readers.
0:22.1	We have a very quirky book, should I call it?
0:25.8	Kate and I got this book a few months ago, and we said to each other, this is strange.
0:30.9	Are we going to read this book?
0:32.3	And we did, and we were fascinated.
0:34.2	The book is written by a writer for Slate.
0:40.4	His name is Henry Grabar, and the name of the book is Paved Paradise. But the subtitle explains what it is, how parking explains the world. When we saw that,
0:49.1	we thought, we're really going to read this? I saw it in a catalog. And when I saw that title,
0:53.6	I was like,
0:54.8	oh, yeah, yeah, I want to know how the author thinks parking explains the world. And actually,
1:00.2	just the title got me to thinking about how much parking is a part of my life. Now, I'm from New York
1:06.8	City. Now, when you're from New York City, alternate side of the street parking can be a second
1:12.0	job, really. Like, you should get full benefits just for doing alternate side parking in New York City.
1:17.1	But parking is a part of my life. When you get where you're going, instantaneously, your head goes
1:22.6	to parking because, and I think Henry Grabar does a terrific job of explaining in some ways our visceral and
1:29.3	emotional connection to parking. I mean, people are killed over parking spaces every year. And he
1:34.3	explains how when you get where you're going and the only thing that's stopping you from getting
1:38.9	to where you want to go on time is being trapped in your car. If there's something emotional about
1:44.0	that, I got to get out of my car, I got to get out of my car, I've got to get out
	...

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