Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

I was eight years old and most of a continent away, but even I heard about Mt. St. Helens blowing her top in mid May of 1980. And still today, she is the subject of one of the first questions anyone from back home asks me about living in this place. Any news about the volcano? Aren't you worried about the mountain blowing up again? I think my grandmother has apocalyptic visions of life on the West Coast; I only hope my gruesome death doesn't haunt her dreams.

But I have to admit, as slim as the chance might be, the threat of a major eruption adds something to the mystique of living in the Portland area. To me, that juxtaposition of urban/suburban living with the uncontrollable brutality of natural fury produces a welcome reminder of our impermanence. I'm not making light of the dozens of deaths which resulted from the 1980 eruption. I quoted the last recorded words of David Johnston, USGS vulcanologist who lost his life in the blast, in the title of this post because they haunt me. At one of the video exhibits tourists now flock to on the mountain, a recording of his voice opens a stark display of the havoc wreaked by this mountain those thirty years ago. I've heard that brief recording maybe half a dozen times now, and I can't get the sounds of Johnston's voice out of my head when I look at the mountain. It's there every time I commute north on a sunny day; it was there but louder a few years ago when St. Helens was letting off that dome-building steam.

For me, I guess, in all of this paradise in which we live here in Oregon, we're confronted with our mortality. It's only appropriate, after all. This city we've built is stunning and well considered and a wonderful place to live, but it's not permanent. And I rather like having the awesome beauty of St. Helens and her mythological suitors Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood standing around as sentinels to that very important truth. I'm just sorry it worries Mamaw so.

US 30 ramp off of I-405

It seems so much more graceful from this angle.

Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center remnant wall

Much has been made of the Ecotrust renovation/re-imagination of this building--and its impressive 98% reuse of construction debris--in urban design and sustainability circles. This is the north wall/facade of the former McCracken warehouse, which once upon a time housed piles of sand and stone awaiting use.

Even our news boxes weep with coolness

Harlow Block/Park Hotel/Muckle Building

It is the structure of a thousand names. Or, well, at least three. And, oddly, in spite of being so thoroughly monikered, the building doesn't seem to have a lot of easily available trivia scattered around the web. There is, however, a fascinating look at the inside via a UO student project here.

Economist Article

Found on Lost Oregon's FB page:

Portland and "elite cities"

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral

There's an amusing line on the cathedral's web site about how, in the early years of the 20th century, when life in the Northwest neighborhoods of Portland was booming, "a young architect arrived from the East and asked how he could make his way in Portland society, he was advised to 'join Trinity parish and marry a Couch.' (He did both.)" If publishing that little quip on their history page wasn't already enough to endear them to me, some web scanning also tells me they have a labyrinth modeled on the one at Chartres inside the building. It warms my little medieval-art-history-loving heart. And makes me think I'll be returning to knock on the red doors sometime soon.

Temple Beth Israel

It's hard to capture the sheer sense of size and weight of this building on screen. It's massive; it's monumental; it sits like a stern father awaiting the midnight return of his child.

Theodore B. Wilcox Memorial Hospital

Today it seems an anachronism, this 1920s building in the midst of the modern Good Samaritan campus. But this building was named after a man who was considered "one of Portland's first great industrialists, one of the first to systematically develop a market for American products in China, and a leading factor in the early expansion of transpacific steamship service."

Tryon Creek

Lately, I've been spending more of my time on sidewalks and asphalt, but perhaps the most vital aspect of Portland which made me long to return during my intermittent years on the East Coast was the easy access to wilderness--not necessarily in the literal definition, but the psychological one. It's hard to explain to someone from here what it is like to have to drive three to four hours to get into a decent stand of woods, or to live in a state where the only public beaches are tiny, trash-strewn, and riddled with used needles.

It's been a while now since I've gone to hike the mountains or sleep in the real wilderness. The thing is, although I do miss that experience, in this town I never feel the same separation from that part of my life as I have in other areas. We manage a balance here: through it all, through the growing pains and the land use debates and the urban design, Portland keeps it all in perspective better than any place I've ever known. Tryon Creek is an important part of that. Portlanders know this, and non-Portlanders mythologize the way we live in the world. Maybe a little mythmaking isn't a bad thing.

First Church Christ Scientist

The building is now occupied by the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center and the Northwest Children's Theatre. Like a kind grandmother struggling against her dotage, the structure is visibly slipping into urban decay; the broken crown was what caught my eye.

Jacobberger strikes again

St. Mary's Cathedral in NW Portland is perhaps one of the best known of Jacobberger's public buildings. It's as serene and balanced as one would expect from a Jacobberger construction. The trees which have grown up since the foundations were laid give a sense of shelter and welcome, dappling the brick and mortar arches with shadows. As someone who thinks of sprawling gothic spires of stone when I hear the word "cathedral," I was surprisingly pleased by this site's soothing qualities. Granted, I visited on a Tuesday morning when there was precious little foot or auto traffic--just one other woman, also snapping a photo or two, passed me by.

In what must have been a splendid moment of generations coming full circle, Jacobberger's grandson (and namesake) became a noted pastor here in the last years of the 20th century.

I only strolled around two sides of the cathedral, but here are two links which allows you a virtual tour of some of the artwork and spaces inside.

Old meets new (Firefighters' Park/The Civic)

And a very amusing conspiracy-theory spin on the odd iconography of the park in this blog post.

"The most celebrated Skidroad in Oregon or on Earth"?

Well, so says the shiny cube (which, rumor has it, actually opens up into a hot dog stand) in TriMet's Civic Plaza. More precisely, so says one breathless sketch of Portland history as it wraps in staggered paragraphs around the four visible sides of the cube.

But in the familiar westward view there's not a salacious boarding house to be seen. And, lest you out-of-towners think I'm trying to be clever by looking away from this den of iniquity, let me just mention that there is a Jaguar dealership about the same distance in the other direction as the Volvo dealership is in this one.

Ah, sweet gentrification. You do measure the waxings and wanings of a city.

On a nearly unrelated note: one of my favorite business names ever belonged to a now-departed antique store on antique row in Sellwood. It was, yes, the Den of Antiquity.

Commodore Hotel, SW 16th & Morrison

Built in 1927, this Art deco beauty once housed one of Portland's earliest radio stations in a four room suite.

To see the difference forty or so years and a thoughtful paint job can make, take a look here.

PGE Park

There are two terrific tidbits about the ball park in City Walks: first, that two giant tanning vats left over from the 19th century are still buried beneath the field, and second, that the owners employ a battalion of feral cats as their first front against a vermin problem. The cats played ninja yesterday, but I'm sure they were watching my every move around the perimeter.