Jeff from Spots Unknown found this vintage image which maybe reminds us about the way things never change. Or just that we’ve always been messy. Or that they didn’t know what was coming. Or about farmers who moved to the big city and found a new herd to tend to. Or whatever.
Here’s what I know: For years I’ve watched the street cleaning trucks rip along Oak and Fell at 30 MPH, leaving behind everything they swept into a swivet in their dusty wake.
This guy, half a century ago, no doubt actually cared about cleaning the streets. These days his inheritors could care less.
And they get paid a lot more.
Tip to the tots: do a great job, and the virgins will follow.
“This guy, half a century ago, no doubt actually cared about cleaning the streets. These days his inheritors could care less.”
I’ll bite, what exactly in the picture has lead you to that conclusion? Is it the awesome vintage styling on that street sweeper? Or the fact that it is a black and white photograph, and everyone knows things were “better back then” (particularly when someone took the time to take one of those vintage b&w photographs).
Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that street sweepers rip along through nopa and apparently do a poor job at it (well, according to you, completely ineffective (try seeclickfix.com/san-francisco for that one).
But what makes you so sure a vintage street sweeper was even half as capable of street sweeping as the ones we have today, or that the guy driving it back then cared so much more than the drivers of today? (who do in fact get paid more, just like, well, all of us, even the [f]unemployed, thanks to ever-increasing inflation and money supply).
For all you really know, the guy was just posing for a picture to be used in the advertisement and some other guy who couldn’t care less was the one who actually drove it every day.
I”ve lived by Dolores Park half my life. It’s about to become seedy again with the influx of outsiders. Please go to Glen Park!
You know that none of us lived in the mission. Our grandparents never lived here.