Kent Automatic Garages

One of the first Kent Automatic Garages was at 44th Street, just east of 3rd Avenue, and another (now the Sofia) is a block west of Columbus Circle.

[2] Specifically, cars were handled by an electric parker, a small rubber-tired machine which ran beneath the auto and engaged with the rear axle using a rubber-cleated coupler.

The parker required approximately fifteen seconds to move sixty feet from an elevator, lift the car, and return with it.

It saved time by bringing a car from its parking space and returning it to the ground floor, without starting the motor.

[3] In 1928 the Packard Motor Company sold a plot 100 by 140 feet (30 by 43 m), which became a 25-story Kent Automatic Garage on 43 West 61st Street (now the Sofia condominium building) at the northeast corner with Ninth Avenue.

[8] The post–World War II economic expansion brought many large autos which cut the capacity of the garages in half.