At the height of yesterday’s lunch hour, a New York Sun reporter went to the Manhattan Business Center at 66 John St. to test the Department of Finance’s claim that parking tickets can be adjudicated in the span of a lunch hour by pleading guilty and getting a reduced fine.

A spokesman from the Department of Finance said the city wants to shorten the time it takes to process tickets so that people can get back to work quickly.

Armed with a copy of Judge Emmanuel Amofah’s book “How to Fight and Beat Your New York City Parking Tickets,” the reporter arrived at the second-floor office at 12:40 p.m. to respond to a ticket for failing to move a vehicle during street cleaning.

After checking the ticket for defects and cross-referencing against possible loopholes, it was clear the 465-page book was not going to help in this case.

By 12:45, Administrative Judge Ellie Rand had reduced the fine to $43 from $65 and waived the $10 fee for not paying the ticket in the first 30 days. By 12:48, a clerk at Window 32 said this piece of business with the city was complete.

Meanwhile, about 30 people who did not know about the new policy had been waiting in line. At about 1:15, another administrative judge arrived and addressed the waiting crowd. One person in line, Carl Brown, said he had been waiting for an hour to fight a $65 ticket.

“Hello my name is Ms. Powers – Judge Powers to my friends and enemies alike,” the administrative judge, Pat Powers, said. “Today is a holiday, and we are short of judges and there’s a longer wait than normal.”

She then explained the new system, whereby a guilty plea will reduce $45 tickets to $26 fines, $65 tickets to $43 and $115 tickets to $90.

By 1:20, a new line had formed – comprised of those who wanted to plead guilty and reduce their fines.