Sculpture Artist Recreating City Scenes Inside Old New York Parking Meters

Because people naturally associate parking meters with spending money, even the site of them is off-putting. Apparently, however, all it takes is some aesthetic modifications to allow you to see them in an entirely new light.

Artist Conrad Stojak was born and raised in New York, and now, he’s making some of the most quintessentially New York sculptures imaginable.

Stojak began buying old parking meters from the city and using them to house sculptures of scenes that relate to life in the “Big Apple,” such as a miniature versions of a subway car and the Flatiron Building. As if that wasn’t New York enough, Stojak works on his pieces in his studio, which is on the 67th floor of 4 World Trade Center.

If cities start replacing their functional meters with Stojak’s reincarnated versions — as he puts it — we’d actually want to park in a spot that has one, rather than drive around the block looking for one that doesn’t.