In my three years at Point Park, I’ve heard numerous rumors about the Mon Wharf parking lot at the end of Wood Street.
“[Unhoused] people live down there,” they say. “People do drugs and overdose down there,” they say. There are vandals and potheads down there who will beat you up. And best of all, “people use the bathroom down there!”
Some of the allegations have truth to them, but I have never witnessed anything like that.
The worst thing I’ve ever seen is a man attempting to change his pants as I walked around a pillar on my way up the stairs, and to class.
During sophomore year, when I began parking at the Wharf, I listened to the rumors and asked for a Point Park Police escort to take me to my car around 11 p.m. The officers were happy to do it, but to my surprise, they agreed that there is a large stigma about parking on the Wharf.
Throughout my sophomore year, I would go down the Wood Street Wharf stairs quickly, clutching my pepper spray in one hand, and keys in the other with my thumb on the car’s unlock button. Well, not just all of my sophomore year, but during junior year too. At times, I still do this.
Listen, the point isn’t to convince you that it’s completely safe to park there, because anywhere dark and open in the city at night is not. But for $10 all day, it’s a pretty good deal to pass up due to baseless rumors that people survived to tell.
The Globe’s layout typically ends sometime between midnight and 5 a.m. During that time I retrieve my car from the Wharf, and usually, it’s the last one in the lot.
Sometimes, the Wharf is deserted or groups of young people are down there smoking marijuana. Other times people hang out on the stairs, but usually they’re looking to mind their own business.
Most of these people are the same as you: they know about the Wharf’s stigma and rumors, so they don’t plan to interact with strangers.
It’s the cheapest daily lot near campus so you won’t catch me parking anywhere else. Even when it’s closed, if the lot chain is pulled over and the closed sign is put up, I still park in there without paying. While the Wharf may provide the oddest parking experience in the city it’s the cheapest and worth the trouble if you only need a spot during class four days a week.
