Uprooting the Old, Familiar Parking Meter

Motorists’ bane, magnet for thieves, and memorialized in the Beatles’ “Lovely Rita,” the diminutive parking meter has led an outsize life. But its days in New York City are about to expire. The city will remove its last decommissioned single-space parking meter in Manhattan on Monday, transportation officials said, the start of a yearlong process that will eventually eliminate all the steel-and-sludge-hued meters in the city.