The Endearing Pittsburgh Tradition Using a Chair to Save a Parking Space in Front of a Home

Filmmaker Dean Bog has created a wonderful weekly video series that focuses on the uniqueness on his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One episode speaks to the odd, but the endearing tradition of the “Pittsburgh Parking Chair”. This is a chair of any kind that residents leave out in the street in front of their house, next to the curb. It is used as a signal to all that the parking spot is taken. Bog explains that it probably started after a snowstorm hit and the people who spent time digging out their cars weren’t so anxious to let their hard work go to someone else.

This is a Pittsburgh parking chair. It was placed here, probably by the owners of this house, and it means this is my spot and you can’t park here. …I think that have probably started with snow at least from what I’ve heard, we would shovel and a neighbor could pull in your spot and it would be a feud with the neighbors. … It’s technically illegal to claim it as your own but in Pittsburgh, neither the police nor the people seem to care. It’s this widely accepted DIY neighborhood-ly solution.

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