Another MINI related article from The New York Times (free registration required). Here's a snippet:

NYC MINI

Alexandre Klabin is a mild-mannered, polite young man, the kind of fellow who opens doors for strangers. But, once a day, he allows himself a measure of wickedness.

He pulls out of a parking spot, peers into the rearview mirror and watches as a normal-size car, say, a Honda Civic, tries five times to fit in the same spot.

Invariably, the driver gives up and the car pulls away. That's because Mr. Klabin has vacated a “Mini spot”, a 12-foot-long parking space on New York streets that now conveniently holds the shortest car in America, the new Mini Cooper, with more than an inch to spare.

“I feel guilty when I take big spots,” Mr. Klabin, 25, said sheepishly. But his Mini-guilt is quickly displaced by Mini-anger: “Nobody respects you in the street. They just cross over you because you're small.”

…Delivery trucks and cantankerous cabs did not deter Mr. Klabin and more than 500 other drivers from buying Mini Coopers in Manhattan since March of last year, when BMW's revamped version of the British classic made a debut in New York.

In fact, the New York market ranks first in sales among the 48 markets in the United States. So New York Mini sightings are increasingly common, even outside the early Mini enclaves of the West Village and Park Slope.