New York Auto Pound Lots

Your Column One article on the New York City automobile pound lot (“Driven Mad on Streets of Manhattan,” June 5) brought back memories of one amusing response to having a car towed away.

On my birthday in December, 1974, my car was towed when I made a brief (and admittedly double-parked) stop on my way home from work. I took a cab to the impound lot and stood in the unheated car redemption line with a large group of people--all angered and demoralized by the cold, the inconvenience and the expense. They knew they had no recourse--they would have to pay for losing the parking game--and they stood in resigned silence. The clerk asked for my license and registration and immediately noticed that it was my birthday. He leaned as close as he dared to the air holes in the bulletproof window and called out: “Hey everybody, it’s this guy’s birthday!” The mood of the group brightened immediately. They suddenly had a real New Yorker opportunity to lift their spirits and give voice to their frustrations, and they did so in the most theatrically sullen, most comically malevolent and simply funniest rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” that I’ve ever heard.

STANLEY J. LANDES, Tarzana