It’s war out there — at least when it comes to street parking.
A physical fight over a parking spot Thursday morning led to an arrest on the Upper West Side — just the latest kerfuffle among the nabe’s surge in quality-of-life issues, including aggressive jockeying for increasingly scarce parking spots.
Thanks to reduced alternate-side parking and an overflow of outdoor dining, road rage is running high. On Thursday, videos taken by a resident showed parking pugilists clashing over a spot, resulting in an arrest on charges of assault.
The local, Jason Haber, filmed the ugly twin scenes on West 74th Street, depicting two near-simultaneous melees when alternate-side rules came into effect on Thursday morning.
“It truly is prison rules out there on alt-side parking days,” Haber told The Post. “This was the worst that I’ve seen, and it was made more intense by the fact that two fights broke out just 30 feet from each other.”
He’s never seen quite the volume of anger on his streets, he said.
“Every once in a while, you see a parking ruckus, but never two right next to each other,” said the longtime Upper West Sider. The onlooker told The Post that one fight broke out after a driver was forced to vacate his spot during the street sweep and another driver swooped in before he could reclaim his spot.
The other fight involved heated yelling. Haber believed “both fights were triggered by the street sweeper moving through — that’s also why they started at the same time.”
The second fight ended with an arrest. A bystander said he ran over to break up the fight he saw unfolding between two middle-aged men.
“I saw two guys were arguing, and it got physical. I didn’t want the fight to continue, so I went over to separate them,” Efraim Martinez, 48, told The Post. He said he saw the older of the two men blow cigar smoke in the face of other, escalating the argument.
“That’s when they started wrestling . . . and the younger guy eventually threw the punch,” Martinez said. He and another friend tried to break the pair apart, but the police had already been called. “They arrested the younger guy, I think, for assault,” said Martinez.
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that a 58-year-old male was punched in the face during an argument over a parking spot and hit in the left eye. Jonathan Reiner, 46, was arrested and charged with assault. He was released with a desk appearance ticket.
Melanie Wesslock, an Upper West Side-based photographer, told The Post of the tense and competitive parking culture, “If you get out of your spot, there are 10 people lined up to take it.”
“I mean, it’s downright violent out there on [alternate-side] parking days,” Haber added. “[Friday] morning from 9 to 10:30 a.m., it’s my turn. Hopefully I don’t end up in the back of an ambulance by the time it’s done.”
— Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy