“Parking is such street sorrow” is a pun on the famous line from the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
     
”Quotation marksmanship: Evelyn Knight: The new traffic rules in New York make parking such street sorrow” was published in the syndicated newspaper column “Broadway” by Walter Winchell in the Charlotte (NC) Observer on October 28, 1946. Evelyn Knight (1917-2007), an American singer, possibly had the line written for her by a press agent. “Parking lot sign in Jersey City: ‘Parking is such street sorrow’” was printed in the Amarillo (TX) Daily News on March 21, 1950.
 
       
Wikipedia: Evelyn Knight (singer)
Evelyn Knight (born Evelyn Davis, December 31, 1917, Reedville, Virginia – September 28, 2007, San Jose, California) was an American singer of the 1940s and 1950s. Damon Runyon, in one of his newspaper columns, described Knight as “a lissome blonde lassie with a gentle little voice and a face mother would not mind having brought home to her.”
       
Wikiquote: Romeo and Juliet
The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (first published 1597) is a play by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two young star-crossed lovers. Perhaps the most famous of his plays, it is one of his earliest theatrical triumphs and is considered the archetypal love story of the Renaissance.
(...)
Act II
Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
. Juliet, scene ii
 
Dictionary.com
Parting is such sweet sorrow
A line from the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare; Juliet is saying good night to Romeo. Their sorrowful parting is also “sweet” because it makes them think about the next time they will see each other.
     
Newspapers.com
28 October 1946, Charlotte (NC) Observer, “Broadway” by Walter Winchell, pg. B8, col. 4:
Quotation marksmanship: Evelyn Knight: The new traffic rules in New York make parking such street sorrow.
 
Newspapers.com
21 March 1950, Amarillo (TX) Daily News, “From A to Izzard” by Wes Izzard, pg. 1, col. 1:
The Hudson Newsletter, which specializes in odd signs, reports these:
 
Parking lot sign in Jersey City: “Parking is such street sorrow.”
 
Google Books
The Reader’s Digest’
Volume 69
1954
Pg. 108:
Parking Is Such Street Sorrow
   
Google Books
Herb Caen’s Guide to San Francisco
By Herb Caen
Garden City, NY: Doubleday
1957
Pg. 27:
ANON. “Parking is such street sorrow.”
   
Google Books
The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
By Robert Byrne
Pg. ?:
New York, NY: Fireside
2002
2,370
Parking is such street sorrow. —Herb Caen
 
Twitter
Kate Robbins
@KateRobbins
Parking is such street sorrow
#ChristmasShoppingTraffic
4:03 AM · Dec 23, 2013·Twitter for iPhone
     
Twitter
Andrew
@CourierBoyUK
“Parking is such street sorrow” - Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon
11:06 AM · Jul 4, 2014·Twitter for iPhone
 
Twitter
El Arroyo
@ElArroyo_ATX
Just call me William SHOOKspeare every time I try to find parking downtown
Submission by Alejandro C
(The following text is shown on the restaurant’s sign.—ed.)
PARKING
IS SUCH
STREET
SORROW
12:28 PM · Apr 28, 2021·IFTTT