A friend came in to downtown New Bedford to meet us for dinner at Freestone’s restaurant, just up the street from our apartment. She said:

“I drove up and saw all these empty parking places. I kept looking for signs that said ‘No Parking.’ There was parking right in front of the restaurant, but I wound up driving down a block because I just couldn’t believe there would be all this parking in downtown New Bedford. Finally, I rolled down my window and asked this man about all the empty spaces. He looked at me and said, ‘Lady, this isn’t Paris, France.'”