I remember parking a car in Manhattan for a few days one time.  It cost as much per night as the hotel I'd had in North Carolina the week before.  And pick-up was by appointment only - they packed the cars in tight and had to pre-plan the shuffle to get vehicles out when desired.  It's like Tetris with Tahoes.

A few fancy places have elevators and even robotic handlers that place vehicles in slots for direct retrieval.  But these are expensive.  So, when at a less-expensive garage, be careful when asking for the "express" retrieval option.

"A lucky parking attendant survived a harrowing three-story plunge out an East Village car garage window Monday, but his customer's new luxury ride was totaled."
http://www.nydailynews.com/
"The valet, whose name was not immediately released, walked away from the bizarre 3:30 p.m. accident at the Hertz garage on E. 13th St. at Fifth Ave., witnesses said.
...
Yedid said the attendant accidently put the car in reverse, crashed through a 15-foot-by-12-foot plate-glass window at the rear of the six-story garage and went for an unexpected 25-foot drop.

The silver, $70,000 SUV, which Yedid began leasing last month, landed atop a second-story courtyard of an adjacent New York University administration building, which had to be evacuated. "

Ouch.  The truck itself doesn't look too bad, but then it is overbuilt, overweight, overpriced, and overly difficult to use (obviously!).

News video here:
http://www.myfoxny.com/
"The car features buttons on the wheel that change the gears. The car's owner thinks the attendant may have made a mistake, and backed out of the window."

Also, we might expect the garage's insurer is on scene now asking where there's nothing more than full-length windows for a barrier on the sixth floor!