One of the last remaining public housing buildings in San Francisco is coming down.

The World War II-era buildings, formerly run by the San Francisco Housing Authority, will be torn down over the course of at least nine months, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

Plans to demolish the buildings were announced in 2017, and repeatedly delayed. Over the course of several years, the troubled buildings have been subject to lethal fires, squatting, and mismanagement.

Over the past nine weeks, photographer Thomas Hunter II documented the beginning of Potrero Hill Terrace and Annex’s demolition.

“It started with AT&T marking telecom equipment and PG&E performing gas shutoffs,” said Hunter. “After that crews visit each building in waves: First, an asbestos abatement crew goes through a building wearing hazmat suits and fills up bags. Next, firefighters climb to the roof and practice vertical ventilation where they cut holes with big saws. Finally, a demolition crew knocks the building down with an excavator.”

“Despite all this the neighborhood remained alive. Squatters sleep in a building at night and leave signs of their passing like a mattress, a scrawled message, a hole in a fence. Commuters walk down the main street and rubber-neck. Autonomous Waymos drive in, get discouraged, and make U-Turns. It's quiet now that most buildings have been reduced to concrete foundations,” said Hunter.