Portland Outdoor Store

Well, I have spent far too much time trying to scour the internet for information on the Portland Outdoor Store for what I've got. It's nearing its hundredth birthday, and is held by the third generation of a family of owners. It's been in the news a few times over the past couple of years as a hotspot for law enforcement/homeless persons interaction. And it's known for its commitment to traditional American western wear, its saddle commission sales program, and its extraordinary stock of cowboy boots, as well as its sign. That's more or less all I've got. Well, that, and a decade of driving by, romanticizing the story of this place in my head according to its soot stained walls and ragged windows. There should be brawls. And Van Zandt films. And maybe a sad country song or two.

A bridge is mathematics brought to life

Everybody, it seems, loves the elegant St. Johns Bridge. The pictures you can find of it online are so gorgeous and sensual as to be almost pornographic--they put my little snapshots to shame. Its soaring Gothic spires (possibly the most overused phrase ever attached to this particular landmark) are moody in the nighttime and fog and rain, and resplendent in the sun. Aesthetically, there's little not to like.



It was built in 1931 as a replacement for the last ferry in Portland, which ran between St. Johns and Linnton, the two anchor points for the bridge today, and was originated by the man whose name is given to the neighborhood and bridge both. David Steinman was the designer--emphatically NOT the designer of the Golden Gate, several sources assure me, contrary to popular myth. Steinman did, however, publicly say that the St. Johns was his favorite of over 400 bridges he designed--and that's got to count for something, right? In any case, his tastes are shared by many. The quote heading this post is attributed to Steinman, by the way.


Here is a terrific 1930 shot of the bridge under construction, sans road platform. At the time of its construction, it was the longest suspension bridge west of Detroit (I've seen "west of the Mississippi" stated several places, but this is The Historic American Engineering Record's take, and besides being less of a cliche, it gives us several hundred extra miles of superiority). Also, they say that pier 10 was the largest reinforced concrete pier of its time.








An attentive Google search reveals two major roles of Cathedral Park, under the east end of the bridge and where these photos were taken, in the Portland consciousness: as a favorite site for engagement photos, and as a place haunted by the ghost of a 15 yr old girl. I'm not sure if the groups of people who find value in the park in these respective ways are aware of each other--or, well, maybe they are. It is Portland, after all.


The ghost is said to be that of Thelma Taylor, a Roosevelt High student who was abducted while walking to her friend's house in North Portland, where she was to be picked up for a day of berry picking. Her abductor was one Leland Morris, a 22 yr. old who had abducted and raped women before. This time, he took Taylor to a remote area under the bridge--now the much more welcoming Cathedral Park-- where he held her captive and brutalized her over a series of days. A longer, speculative version of the story can be found here. While I don't want to vouch for that account, and could actually write a pretty extensive response to the details and tone and purpose of that telling in a different forum, the basics are true. And Cathedral Park has thus become a favorite haunted spot of Portland ghost hunters, seeking the mysterious screams that were said to call out in the area for years after Taylor's brutal attack and death.








Well, that's a heck of a note on which to end an entry on Portland's fairy tale bridge. And everyone lived happily...ever...etc., etc.

Movin' on up

One of only two commuter trams in the US, our little Marquam Hill tram was originally sold to the public with a price tag of a little more than $15 million. By the time it was opened, the project had racked up a cost of $57 million, according to KATU. People were not happy. Is it too soon to recall the Lair Hill protests as a matter of historic curiosity? The vehement rooftop banners, the more vehement lawsuits... To be fair, the bloated costs, the confusing tangle of OHSU and city funds, and the imposition into a historic neighborhood all seem like pretty valid reasons for public conversation, if not outrage.







Let's just take a moment to look at the visual design, though (not that it negates any of the above concerns). Those sleek silver pods, the gigantic, exposed machinery in the upper station: it's like a tiny bit of an early 20th-century idea of technological utopia (or would it be a dystopia?) has landed in South Portland. There's a terrific and detailed discussion of the tram's design and possible roles in the public consciousness here.






















Wikipedia tells us that funiculars were considered an early alternative option to the tram. Don't you kind of wish we had those in our fair town as well, be it trotting up and down Pill Hill or elsewhere?

Floodwaters

Not blogging for several months gives me a backlog, but not as much of one as I would like. I do have a lot of material from a walk I took in January, though, the week that the waters were high and homes were washing away into the Sandy River. You can see in the photo here that downtown Portland was feeling a little pressure as well.







The detritus was the most striking. Huge, mostly submerged logs sped with the current, bumping along bridges and fledging their small bits to eddy at the banks.






Of course, if you've lived here very long at all, these are fairly familiar sights. I was here in my first go around with PDX in 1996, when the city's floodwall was sandbagged by hundreds of volunteers called back day after day, and the bridges were left raised at night so as to protect their electrical systems. Although both pages have some trademark mid-90's design, here are two sites which pretty thoroughly cover that near miss. Well, near miss for downtown, anyway--let's not forget all the outlying towns which the high waters didn't at all pass by.

And, of course, there's Vanport, which is almost mythical for us first generation transplants. The largest public housing development in the nation in its time, Vanport was originally constructed as worker housing for the Kaiser shipyards. Home to nearly 20,000 people at the time of the flood, Vanport was a complete loss. Cue the tired racetrack at Delta Park, and a floodlight on decades of difficult race relations in the city.

Really, though, we have our reputation as a city where the sun seldom shines for a reason. Let's keep our lovely blue spring days a secret for just a bit longer, shall we? About 60% of our annual 40 inches of rain falls between November and March, and the average rainfall in Portland for January is about 6 inches, so these sights shouldn't be too surprising.
















After all, we've kept monuments to such high waters. They're part of the city, without a doubt. I tried to take this picture of a stone marking the high water point at eye level, so as to give a real sense of how high the water was back in 1894. Granted, things have shifted around a bit since then, but I'm guessing we can all get the idea. No streets, no steps, no doors untouched. Add into that mix a general lack of pavement, and visions of desperate folks carrying as much as possible upstairs before themselves heading for the hills--or at least a sturdy rowboat--come to mind. In true Portland style, however, the citizens did the best they could--duck for dinner, anyone? (The original page for the duck hunting photo also makes mention that one saloon owner moved his establishment atop a barge so he could remain in business...)















All this really is just to say: bring it on, Mother Nature. We love you, we worship you more than most any other urban populace around, but when push comes to shove, we'll find a way to work around you. Folks around here always have.

Intermission

Yes, it's been quiet in this last month of computer problems and work overload. There's a post brewing, though. In the meantime, however, I want to link to the Portland Architectural Blog, which has a fascinating entry today on the oldest known commercial building still extant in town, as well as some insights into its upcoming renovation. Thanks, Architectural Heritage Center, for the heads up!

SE Hawthorne, between 37th & 38th

First it was land held by the erstwhile John McLoughlin of the Hudson Bay Trading Company, next by Mt. Tabor farmers taking advantage of the valley land, then by John Stephens, who donated land to the first Oregon Hospital for the insane in the lower blocks, inspiring the boulevard's original name, "Asylum Avenue." Hawthorne gained its current name, after the man who inspired Stephens to build that asylum, once the institution had moved and the residents wanted their street to be known by something a little more respectable. The area didn't begin to develop the character we know it by today until the streetcars of the early 20th century reshaped the area with business and, seemingly, a series of groceries. This page provides a detailed history compiled for the city's transportation officials almost a decade ago.

The major landmark, the Bagdad, another of the McMenamins jewels, is an opulent symbol of the headiness of that time. From the angle of this photo you can't quite sense the grandeur, but according to this page of Bagdad history put out by its current owners, the theater was built for $100,000 in 1927 by Universal Studios, and featured everything from an orchestra conductor trained by Tchiakovsky himself to usherettes dressed in "Arabian-style uniforms."

Oh yes, and of course there should be a mention of the Oregon premieres of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and My Own Private Idaho, both of which took place here.