A worker in a reflective jacket stands near a utility truck on a city street, holding a folded sign and jacket. Another person wearing a hood is visible in the foreground.
8:46 a.m 6/09, east side of Mission Street. One DPW worker collected the large items and one picked up the smaller pieces of garbage. Photo by Lydia Chávez

Read all of our 16th Street posts here.

A friend took a few photos of Mission Street just after 8 a.m. today and sent them in. They were grim: The west side of Mission Street looked like a dump.

But here’s the good news; by the time I rounded the corner of Mission and 16th streets at 8:38 a.m., the Department of Public Works had arrived in force, and crews were busy scooping up and clearing out the trash. 

There were the regular DPW workers with their trucks, and at least four workers on foot with trash pickers and bags. All were diligently at work and the stretch between 16th and 15th streets, on both sides of the streets, and they already looked better. 

At the northeast 16th Street BART Plaza, two BART employees were cleaning up after a fire broke out around 8 a.m, said Willie Ng, a foreworker with BART. Someone had set a pair of skis on fire, and then rammed one into the outside framing of the elevator, he said. A chunk of the framing was gone and the skis will never again see snow. 

Nearby, one vendor on Mission Street was selling two half-dozen cartons of eggs for $4 a carton.

Nearby, Fredisha, a homeless resident who said she often overnights at the plaza, was pushing a broom and gathering other debris. “It’s just a mess, and someone has to clean it up,” she said. 

Southwest 16th Street Plaza and west side of Mission Street

  • A city sidewalk is littered with trash, including cardboard, plastic, and paper, with buildings and trees lining the street.
    8:03 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street.
  • Trash and litter scattered across a city sidewalk and street near parked cars, a bus, and buildings lined with palm trees.
    8:03 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street.
  • A person in a reflective vest stands by a parked bicycle and a red car on a city street lined with buildings, trees, and parked vehicles.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city sidewalk with palm trees, colorful buildings on the left, cars parked on the right, and trash bins near the curb on a cloudy day.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person in a safety vest uses a trash grabber to pick up litter from the street near parked cars and a rental bike on an urban sidewalk.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city sidewalk with mosaic tile patterns, a few people standing and working, parked cars, and buildings in the background.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • Two workers in safety vests collect trash from the sidewalk next to parked cars on an urban street lined with buildings and trees.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person crosses a city street while workers in safety vests clean the sidewalk near a closed storefront and a parked bicycle.
    8:43 a.m 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city sidewalk with scattered trash, cardboard boxes, and barriers near a street with a fire hydrant, palm trees, and parked cars.
    8:38 a.m. 6/09, west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city street intersection with people crossing, a white SUV and a large white truck stopped, and buildings with colorful murals in the background under an overcast sky.
    8:36 a.m 6/09, southwest plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Northeast Plaza and east side of Mission Street

  • Charred debris and white powder scattered in front of a damaged brick and tile wall on a city sidewalk, with a nearby metal fence and parked cars in the background.
    8:51 a.m.. 6/09, northeast plaza, where a fire occurred around 8 a.m. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person in a safety vest collects trash with a grabber and large bag on a city sidewalk lined with buildings and parked cars.
    8:42 a.m 6/09, east side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • People walk and stand on a city sidewalk near a bus stop and an elevator entrance; a red city bus is parked on the street.
    8:59 a.m.. 6/09, east side of. Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person in an orange vest stands on the sidewalk near a tree, while another person rides an electric scooter past a parked white vehicle on a city street.
    8:59 a.m.. 6/09, east side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city worker in a safety vest walks on a sidewalk scattered with debris, while a parked utility truck and an electric scooter are visible nearby on an urban street.
    8:43 a.m 6/09, east side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A mostly empty urban plaza with scattered belongings, a bicycle, and graffiti on nearby walls. Two people sit on the ground near street lamps and a tree.
    8:47 a.m.. 6/09, northeast plaza, Fredisha cleaning up. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person sweeps litter from a paved urban plaza with scattered trash, a tree, and graffiti on the walls in the background.
    8:59 a.m.. 6/09, east side of. Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A person standing on a sidewalk holding a carton of eggs and a food item, with bandaged legs and another person nearby with blue knee pads.
    8:59 a.m 6/09, east side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Caledonia Street

A narrow urban alley with cracked pavement, a tan building on the left, graffiti-covered wall on the right, and trees in the distance under a cloudy sky.
8:34 p.m. 6/09, Caledonia Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Julian Avenue

  • A person walks on a wide, gray sidewalk beside parked cars and a row of buildings on a cloudy day.
    8:35 p.m. 6/09, Julian Avenue. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
  • A city sidewalk next to parked cars and a yellow-tiled building, with a hotel sign in the background and trees lining the street.
    8:35 p.m. 6/09, Julian Avenue. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Wiese Street

Two people with luggage stand in a graffiti-covered alley lined with metal barricades on both sides.
8:35 a.m. 6/09, Wiese Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

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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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4 Comments

  1. Thanks for reporting

    Appreciate the ongoing reports
    Surely to keep exposing the situation helps
    It appears there is a more rapid response
    Yet the daily issues keep happening

    Changing peoples behavior and habits is hard

    Hopefully, with your help other neglected areas of the city can be focused on and helped

    There are solutions

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  2. Reply

    1. Out of precaution presumably. Poor thing wouldn’t have fared much better than Manny’s or some Waymo the last couple of nights.

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  3. What about the command van? I hear it was moved off the plaza this day but haven’t seen any coverage of that yet.

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