A Modest Proposal for Parking in Portsmouth

SeacoastNH.com Presents 
Historic Portsmouth #466  

When I was digging through 1980s files this week for my article on the Market Square Mural (Portsmouth Herald, Monday, June 2) I stumbled on this old gem by photographer Ralph Morang. Controversy raged back in those days too about whether the city needed a high-rise municipal parking facility. (Continued below) 

 

Back then the heritage tourism industry was beginning to revive the city economy but there was open opposition to a garage. Ralph and I decided to satirize the situation by publishing a large poster with cars piled on top of one another. Ralph painstakingly created the photo in the days before affordable computer-aided design software using, I think, just scissors and darkroom magic. This was the prototype image. He later changed the background to the Portsmouth Athenaeum. We paid for the thing out of our own pockets and with the advertising support of two downtown stores that no longer exist. The caption on the poster read simply "Beautiful Downtown Portsmouth: Always a Parking Space."  Well, I thought it was pretty funny.  (Courtesy Ideaworks Creative Services) 

BONUS ARCHIVE PHOTO

Ralph Morang, creator of the Ideaworks Parking Poster
at a Portsmouth business trade show in mid-1980s