Listen Local host Laura in action at the board. Photo by Daniel Hirsch.

Listen Local is Mission Local in audio form. We record live on a biweekly podcast at BFF.fm every other Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.

In this week’s episode we discuss Dolores Park and its various follies. We ask the essential Mission District question: how can we keep that darn park clean? Also, who’s getting the park messed up in the first place and why?

In the second half of our show, we’ll dive into the issues surrounding the recent break up of Hapa Ramen. We discuss the perils young chefs can fall into when working with big money and generally how hard it is to run and open a restaurant in San Francisco.

Listen here:

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Daniel Hirsch is a freelance writer who has been living in the Mission since 2009. When he's not contributing to Mission Local, he's writing plays, working as an extra for HBO, and/or walking to the top of Bernal Hill.

Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. 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 there.

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.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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4 Comments

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  1. Bridge and Tunnels are the main culprits of the litter. Finally something that can’t be blamed on the techies!

    Reply

  2. Yes, more garbage cans are definitely needed but how freaking hard is it to clean up after yourself? Such spoiled, entitled, lazy kids. Need to be told to not litter? Isn’t it a given that you should take your sh*t out with you? This interview is really insipid. Outsiders? People who live out of the neighborhood or the newcomers? I’ve lived around the corner for 30 years but can no longer go to the park because the new kids have messed it up.

    Reply

    1. Elsa, your condescension does nothing to help the problem. You sit there, talking shit on the people who visit the park with your “get off my lawn” attitude, and do nothing to help the problem. Most of the people in Dolores Park do their part and keep it clean, and these people that come to Dolores Park aren’t lazy or entitled or spoiled – they’re some of the most respectful and beautiful people I’ve met. Sure there are bad apples – but don’t generalize and stereotype a whole park full of people because of them. I invite you to come out to the park on Saturday and help pass out trash bags and bring awareness of the problems to people.

      Reply

  3. The renovated Dolores Park will have triple the restroom facilities, and add a ton of garbage cans. Until then though, construction has dramatically decreased the available facilities. The Friends of Dolores Park Facebook group is lobbying the Recs and Park department and the city to add enough bathroom facilities and garbage cans during construction.

    What will fix this problem is education and more resources: bringing awareness of these problems to the people in Dolores Park. Most of these people are respectful people, and want to do their part and help clean up the park. But the city is responsible for its obligation to provide adequate facilities for public who enjoy the park, and the current level of facilities do not even come close to the 5,000 – 10,000 people who visit the park every weekend.

    Reply