No Parking

New York Times, May 9, 1939, p.25

Detail Carrying Out Valentine
Order Finds Good Hunting
Near Headquarters

The squad cars of several detectives, parked in Center Market Place, immediately behind Police Headquarters, were caught yesterday in the net of Commissioner Valentine’s drive against overtime parking, as were the automobiles of Mr. Valentine’s own confidential secretary and a patrolman in ɩne Bureau of Information whose job is giving information on license numbers.

The latter two got summonses. The detectives, having a better excuse for parking more than one hour behind headquarters, merely had their license numbers checked so reports may be sent to their commanders to see if they really had to park there that long.

While Patrolman Peter Coyle, the information bureau man, was busy checking the numbers of the automobiles standing in a solid phalanx along the east side of Center Market Place, which might be more accurately described as an alley, some one came in and informed him about a piece of paper that was stuck on his own windshield. Patrolman Frank Clancy, the commissioner’s confidential stenographer, got the news about the same time.

Although newspaper reporters assigned to headquarters have their offices just across the street, it turned out after the summons squad from Elizabeth Street had swept through the block that no reporters’ cars had been tagged. One press photographer received a summons- Arthur Fellig, a freelance.

The drive is an outgrowth of the blocking of Commissioner Valentine’s automobile last week on Center Street south of headquarters by a double-parked truck. Ten patrolmen with summons books covered the entire area for several blocks around headquarters yesterday. A total of thirty summonses was said to have been issued.
New York Times, May 9, 1939, p.25