As Sommer Mathis reported yesterday, the city gave the few people still living on the contested space at 7th and R Streets NW a 15-day warning period to pack up and go elsewhere. This morning is the 16th day, and a reader sends in pictoral proof that the Man has made good on his word.

The whole episode has brought out some really ugly sentiments on both sides: On the one hand, campers who accuse neighbors and the administration of not caring about poor people, and on the other, a few neighbors who claim to speak for the community in saying the “squatters” and “trespassers” should be kicked out.

However you feel about people camping out on city-owned land where a planned residential development has stalled, it’s sad to see a space simply become empty and unused again. Here’s hoping that Shaw can figure out some kind of public interim use on that gravelly desert while the credit markets keep sorting themselves out.