Lewis had to take a taxi to visit the city garage far from the city center.

The technology has been successfully applied overseas, but the only other public robotic garage in the United States has been troublesome, dropping vehicles and trapping cars because of technical problems.

Nonetheless, the developers of the Chinatown garage are confident with the technology and are counting on it to squeeze 67 cars in an apartment-building basement that would otherwise fit only 24, accomplished by removing a maneuver space normally required

Rather, the garage itself does the parking.