MINNEAPOLIS – Dignitaries from Internet comment sections and public meetings around the nation and around the world arrived in Minneapolis early Wednesday for ceremonies marking the first anniversary of the April 1st Parking Massacre. A 9:00 AM service on a windswept Glenwood Avenue sidewalk under Ramp A drew thousands of parkers mourning the over 800 spaces that lost their places.

“See where those orange cones are? That’s where I used to park,” explained one solemn onlooker, wiping a tear from her eye.

Early on the morning of April 1, 2014, parking terrorists placed a “closed” sign in front of a parking ramp at Nicollet Mall & 4th Street, and a second team simultaneously fenced off a full block of surface spaces several blocks away in Downtown East. This coordinated attack cost the downtown area hundreds of spots, catching commuters off guard as they arrived in the morning rush hour.

Nicollet & 4th garbage ramp is closed for good. Demolition tailgate party TBA pic.twitter.com/iQdee9aBl7

— MSPmusings (@MSPmusings) April 1, 2014

The 463 spaces in the Nicollet Mall & 4th Street ramp gave their lives to make way for a new headquarters building for Xcel Energy.

A full block of surface parking bit the dust today in Downtown East! Making way for new office tower. #Minneapolis pic.twitter.com/v6AcYzvahq

— MSPmusings (@MSPmusings) April 1, 2014

The surface parking lot bounded by 3th and 4th Streets South and 4th and Portland Avenues provided 340 parking spaces for downtown commuters. The lot had to go to make way for half of an office complex built by Ryan Companies for Wells Fargo–the other half claimed a StarTribune office building and additional surface parking in a separate, earlier attack.

The extremists promised in later videos (warning: NSFW if you like surface parking) to tear up the full block of surface parking in front of the Armory, for a “park,” with no parking, which raised the question: where will park goers park?

“It’s too hard to park downtown,” said literally hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans about Downtown Minneapolis, where it is not hard to park. “You may have to walk several blocks,” they repeated. “It’s better at home, where I park my car.”

Surface parking dominoes continue to fall across Downtown Minneapolis in trapezoidal block, half block, and quarter block chunks. The cost of parking has risen at two local parking ramps–last week, early bird daily rates at the Haaf Ramp rose $1.50 to $7.75, and at the Gateway Ramp–an inbred relative of the Nicollet & 4th Ramp–early bird daily rates rose $1.00 to $8.00.

Metropasses remain $76/month, or less. Parking also continues to be cheap and easy.