Vendors, artists and family activities took over the 16th Street BART plazas today. The event, organized by the city and neighborhood groups, was a pilot to activate an area that has long struggled with open drug use, dealing and illegal fencing.
Seven vendors offering everything from handmade jewelry to bath salts participated in the event. There was also a photo booth and family activities such as face painting, chalk drawing and a piñata making workshop.
“This is good for the community. It’s good for the vendors. It’s good for our kids. It’s good for people using public transit,” said mayor Daniel Lurie, who made an appearance around 11 a.m. “Much better than what we see other times of the week,” he added.
The event was a collaboration between BART, the mayor’s office, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the SFPD, Department of Public Works, the Department of Emergency Management, the American Indian Cultural District, the city’s ambassador program and Mission Loteria. The latter coordinated the selection of all vendors.
“We need more of this. You can see it’s working,” said Lurie, who wants to see more of the same. “We got to build this muscle. We gotta activate not only 16th Street, but 24th Street with positive interactions and solutions.”
Diana Ponce De Leon, the director of community economic development at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, agreed. “We’re going to be looking and working with the community to come up with more of these activities throughout the year on a more regular basis,” she said.
The pop-up serves as an opportunity for the community to reclaim these spaces, said Rafael Moreno, the senior program manager at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
On Saturday morning, that is precisely what Maria Itza and her family did. Itza said a friend told her mom about Saturday’s event and she decided to come by with her three siblings and her mom to check out the vendors and the family activities.
“Everything looks really pretty. I like it,” said Itza in Spanish, looking at the multi-colored arch balloons at both plazas, the chuck drawings and the shiny piñata at Mission Loteria’s stall. “I see that everyone is helping each other. Everyone is like a family.”
Her family then rushed to the photo booth to take a portrait.
Jacelyn Guzman, a local Mission vendor who sells her own handmade jewelry and lip oil under the brand of Burbujitas & Bling (soon to be Baudelia) said she felt excited for the opportunity to share her creations with a wider audience.
“I just really want to get more exposure, especially since I started doing the permanent jewelry (a piece with no clasps with its ends welded together),” said Guzman, who hopes to one day open her own brick and mortar store.
Rosting Arguello, a co-owner of Ometepe company, also looked forward to connecting with more customers.
“Something really nice not only the city, but Mission Loteria, is offering is the opportunity to create that connection with our people,” said Arguello in Spanish.
Ometepe Company sells Nicaraguan coffee beans, reed diffusers, candles, room sprays and bath salts amongst other products.
District 9 BART board member Edward Wright was also there to celebrate the event and said that these activities will be part of the agency’s efforts to renovate the 16th Street station.
“This is one of my biggest priorities, and I think these spaces belong to the public. They should be serving the public,” said Wright.
See, these are actual vendors. Not the “vendors” who are junkies from out of town selling stolen detergent and diapers.
“Vending” means selling things, in English. Just FYI.
Explains why the drug market was at 24th Street tonight.
Amazing. THANK YOU Mayor Daniel Lurie & everyone who is trying to make a post impact to 16th & Mission. No more drugs and stolen goods taking over public spaces. We need to send a clear message that unlawful behavior is no longer tolerated. You cannot come to S.F. to get free money to hang out and do drugs.
TY Mission local for reporting.
If anything dismays me about SF’s future it’s the censorship on this website.
You don’t have to agree. Censoring people is wrong and authoritarian.
Sir or madam —
Couple things:
First of all, comments are approved in real time and you’re not going to believe this, but nobody is hovering over a keyboard on the weekend waiting for you to submit something.
Second: Your First Amendment rights protect your ability to speak on public street corners or, say, a public park. You are not entitled to post whatever you want in the comments section any more than you are entitled to walk into any business and start behaving erratically. Not posting everything any random person says is *our* First Amendment right.
Your contention that this is “authoritarian” is a hell of a thing to say in an era when federal agents are shooting people with impunity. Respectfully, get a grip.
Yours,
JE
I see you responding more to the a-word than the substantive anti-censorship point being made, but that’s par for the course. I used it because there is a single author to the moderation and no strict transparent rules for same. That’s not the end-all definition of authoritarianism, but it is authoritarian.
Best,
NDP
Sir or madam —
We do not approve comments that require fact-checking we cannot provide, are obscene or inflammatory or, for lack of a better word, have no redeeming value. Juvenile back-and-forth comments are not necessary. If you’re not seeing your comments approved, this may be a reason. Hope that helps.
Your definition of “authoritarian” is absurd on its face and trivializes actual authoritarianism. You are more than welcome to start your own website and lurk in its comments section.
Best,
JE
Great to see community-led events creating positive energy in a space that’s needed it for a long time. Hope this becomes a regular thing at 16th Street and beyond.
Hope and Change and photo-ops y’all.
Great job, Mr. Mayor !!
Now, bring back the Police Kobans Feinstein had at the BART stops and add some dedicated Vendor slots along the 800 or so linear feet surrounding the Armory and the Vendors and their friends and family can have a calming effect.
Put a Salsa band out there Saturdays !
That’s me and my neighbors too.
We care about Safety and assigning spaces for 50 or so Old and New vendors and their families will add security to the neighborhood …
and, …
“We’ll pick up your trash before you put it out.”
(a Jens Nielsen line from the movie ‘Cheap Rent’)
go Niners !!
h.
So shortly after this Potemkin Village folded tent, as Katherine The Great passed by on her barge on the Dnieper River, three people were stabbed right across 16th Street.
This activation is all nice and good, but the model of nonprofits activating public space cannot scale. We need for the City to bring permanent street food vendors to the plazas to have a permanent activating presence.
At the rate things are going, Trump might very well declare Sections 501(c)3 and 4 of the Revenue Code null and void by the end of the year.
Amazing. THANK YOU Mayor Daniel Lurie & everyone who is trying to make a post impact to 16th & Mission. No more drugs and stolen goods taking over public spaces. We need to send a clear message that unlawful behavior is no longer tolerated. You cannot come to S.F. to get free money to hang out and do drugs.
TY Mission local for reporting.
The city just shuffled the junkie thieves to 24th St. This is not a win.