Parking in Salem for new residents

If you are a new resident of the city of Salem you might find that the area where you have been parking (if you park on street) in is blocked or reserved in October. Head over to the parking clerk or city hall and bring a utility bill and your car registration with you.  You can get a month of October pass which will let you park in resident parking areas.

Where should I park?

There are quite a few parking lots in the main tourist areas of Salem in addition to on street metered spots and the two garages.  We built a map to help you out a bit.

View Salem MA Parking Map in a larger map

How much will it cost?

Most metered spots cost $0.50 per hour and are enforced Monday through Saturday from 8am to 6pm.  Some spots have a max of 2 hours while others are only good for one.  Read the label on the meter to find out how much you need to pay. Some people try to park in one spot all day and just feed the meter every two hours.  However, depending on what meter maid is working the area you are parking in you might find yourself with a “meter feeding” ticket.  People who work down town have learned to move their car every few hours, tourists usually take a chance by feeding the meter but this can end in a big fat orange ticket.

Due to the success Salem is seeing with its robust nightlife, the parking garages now charge until 2am on Thursday – Saturday (Sunday morning) and are a flat fee of $20 on weekends in October.  Your best bet might be the MBTA commuter rail lot at $4.00 a day.  The walk to down town is a few minutes longer but ad the end of the day those few minutes will save you frustration and $16.00 As an added bonus the Salem News is reporting that funds have been approved for a six story 750 – 900 car garage at the commuter rail lot to be finished by 2011.

Salem Massachusetts was founded in 1626 and incorporated in 1629. You may recall from history class that there were no automobiles at this time. As such, most of the oldest neighborhoods including the down town area were in close proximity to each other and to the waterfront where Salem’s wealth came from. Luckily for us as Salem grew, it’s core foundation of neighborhoods stayed put and the same roads they walked hundreds of years ago we walk today.

Since many of our visitors stay in the down town or wharf neighborhoods when they come to Salem I ran those locations through the walk score algorithm and came out with a whopping 98 out of 100! So if you are a tourist or are looking for someplace to live where you don’t need a car, Salem is the place for you.

Find the walking score of where you live or where you are going.

With 16 years of history in down town Salem I figured Cafe Graziani had to be doing something right. Boy was I wrong.

Here at theSalemInsider.com we are always looking for a good breakfast. Nobody I talked with ever mentioned Cafe Graziani so I figured it’s time to give it a try. The first thing I noticed when we walked in were a bunch of uncleared tables. I usually take this as a good sign as a sign of a busy restaurant. Unfortunately in this case it was a sign of being understaffed.

The waitress was quite friendly and attempted to make a personal connection with all the patrons and the menu prices were very reasonable. That is where things started to fall flat.

Our coffee was luke warm at best, and tasted horrible. I got the ham and cheese omelet which was paper thin and made with what appeared to be one extra thin slice of ham and one piece of cheese, it too was cold. The side of “homefries” were nothing more than chopped potatoes with a shake of parsley on them, slightly warmed – not cooked through.

There are plenty of great breakfast locations in Salem, this is not one of them.

Atmosphere: D
Service: B
Food: D
Overall: D