The crotchety “Seinfeld” character George Costanza once compared paying for parking in Manhattan to visiting a prostitute. “Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?” he asked.

While on-street parking is virtually free in Manhattan, the costs of garages can be exorbitant.

The most expensive parking spot — located at 2 E. 60th St. between Fifth and Madison avenues — now costs at least $1,183 a month, and more than $1,300 a month for an “exotic” car such as a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, or an Alfa Romeo.

With many garages in that neighborhood charging more than $1,000 a month for oversize vehicles, the garage next to Mayor Bloomberg’s mansion on East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue suddenly seems a bargain at $829 a month. Compare that with the town of Bakersfield, Calif., where the most expensive parking lot charges about $50 a month.

Midtown Manhattan has for years been the most expensive neighborhood in America to park, according to the annual Colliers International North America Parking Rate Survey, which rates London’s parking the world’s most expensive. With most of the city’s priciest lots functioning near capacity, it seems that many Manhattan residents are willing to pay any price for the luxury of keeping a car in the city to allow for a spur-of-the-moment getaway. Some garages are even charging $200 for the right to reserve a spot.

New York City is also the only American city where parking lots discriminate against luxury cars by ratcheting up their parking rates, parking experts said.

New York City parkers are slapped with some of the highest taxes in the city — about 17.5% for cars with non-Manhattan registrations. For many in Manhattan, parking has become the most expensive cost associated with owning a car, higher even than the cost of gas or repairs. Some pay for parking about the same price as renting a small studio apartment.

In fact, a parking space could contribute between $75,000 and $200,000 to the value of an apartment, a real estate appraiser, Jonathan Miller, said.

At 200 Eleventh Ave., a new luxury condominium near 24th Street, most of the 15 units come with a parking spot on the same floor as the residential unit. “We haven’t quantified how much you’re paying for the parking, but it’s a big part of the picture,” the marketing director for the building, Leonard Steinberg, said. The apartments in the building are selling for about $5.75 million apiece for three-bedroom units.

The large gap between on-street and off-street parking rates means that Manhattan car owners lucky enough to find curbside parking spots often rearrange their schedules to hold onto the valuable assets.

Rising early with the city’s street cleaners, cost-cutting New York drivers are often seen sipping coffee in their cars as they pull out into the road during street-cleanings and then immediately reclaim their spaces. Some drivers commuting into the city have even paid homeowners in Yonkers and the far reaches of Queens to park in their driveways near train stops in order to avoid paying Manhattan’s sky-high parking rates.

Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion tax is emerging as a terrifying business proposition for parking operators, who fear their market will be slashed to pieces.

“Parking is supply and demand economics in its purest form,” a parking consultant with Walker Parking Consultants, Andrew Hill, said. “You have to weigh the availability of transit options against the percentage of folks coming into the city with the appeal of driving, as well as local real estate conditions.”

Leasing a parking garage in Manhattan has long been a gold mine. “You had a set, fixed demand, and you’d fetch a good dollar for the service you were providing,” Mr. Hill said. “If Bloomberg caps access, it just cuts the market off at its knees.”

The Metropolitan Parking Association has been pouring big dollars into a newly formed anti-congestion pricing advocacy group, the Coalition to Keep NYC Congestion-Tax Free.

In an effort to bring curbside parking rates closer to market rates, one business improvement district on the Upper West Side is seeking city support to raise meter rates and create more curbside parking spots. The additional revenue from the meters would be split between the city and the business improvement district, as part of a pilot project under consideration at the city’s transportation department.

“Everything in New York is overpriced,” a tourist visiting from San Francisco, Robert Johnson, said. “New Yorkers on any sort of budget just shouldn’t own cars at all.”