I’ve walked by here at least once a day over the last 14 years and I can’t remember it being open as a regular business for much of that time. Mostly it’s been a small storehouse for enormous and heavy old printing machines that the owner exports to Central America. It’s also a place where older men sometimes gather at night to visit and play cards or instruments. I love the sign, its connection to the past and the space’s comfort with the present.
I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
As founder and an editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.
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