Ship ahoy

My new year started with the flu, which came over me somewhere between the Christmas celebrations and my dear friend's birthday/New Year's party.  Then, in that same interval, my grandmother died, as unexpectedly as one can die when one is 86 years old.  I flew home to Kentucky on a couple of days' notice, with a confabulation of the normal aggravations and misunderstandings of a hastily booked cross-country trip, to spend one of the coldest weeks in recent memory at that sad family reunion.  I returned to Oregon sooner than I wanted, lost the more stable of my two jobs within a couple of weeks, and started a new one a week after that in an office in one of the buildings in this photograph.

It's been a rough start.  It's too easy to say that, like the winter weather, my year so far has been full of unpredictable storms and treacherous conditions.

One of the things the new job affords me is a lunch break walk along the waterfront, if I so choose.  So here's this shot, early afternoon, with that peculiar kind of polarized clear light that settles in just after a storm, while the clouds are still dark and low and you can taste the rain in the air if not feel it drizzling on your skin.  The oldest building in Portland, of course, is there on the left, shackled in one or more of its mid-century remodels, and clumsy in its somewhat modern shell.  And that mast, almost like a land-bound lighthouse standing against the heavy sky.

Even the casual passerby knows it's the mast of the USS Oregon.  That's easy enough with a quick look at the signage, and it makes sense that we would have the mast of a ship with such a name in a public park in Portland.  The spiffy paint almost makes it look new, or at least no older than many of the ships sailing even now under the US flag.  This mast, however, dates back to when the Oregon was built by a San Francisco company in the early 1890s, and was launched in 1893, with Daisy Ainsworth of the Portland Ainsworth clan as its sponsor (interesting side note: as the daughter of a steamboat magnate, Miss Ainsworth had a riverboat that was named after her as well).  The two accompanying stacks are in storage elsewhere in town.

The ship's story gets interesting almost from the moment she left the dry docks.  She spent a little time at first in the Pacific, but the Spanish-American War was calling almost even before she felt the water on her hull, and within two years of her commission the infamous explosion of the Maine occurred in the Havana harbor.  The Oregon was needed, but she was needed on the other side of the continent.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h79000/h79900k.jpg

The shortest route, even just 100 years ago, was around the tip of South America and through the Straits of Magellan.  And if you learned anything about the Straits of Magellan in your history classes, you probably learned just how treacherous a route that is.  It was no different for the Oregon.  Witness a small excerpt from the diary of G. W. Robinson, a fireman aboard the ship:

Apr 8th; Still bucking head seas that come clear over the turrets. I never saw a ship take such seas before, if she was any thing else but a battle ship a sea like some of these would crush her like an egg.  Came near losing two of our men today, the Carpenter and Blacksmith, as it was they were washed into the Scuppers and badly injured. All boats have been thoroughly secured long ago, and man who falls overboard now is gone beyond all hope. A life boat couldn’t live in the weather we have had any way.
Have had fire in the bunkers nearly all the way. Its just Purgatory.

In fact, at one point, the needs of the ship were so dire that the boilers were given the only fresh water remaining on the ship, and the crew was asked to drink the warm processed water that was left over.  The crew consented, and pushed on.

A slightly less romanticized image, from the day she left for the Atlantic. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h79000/h79900k.jpg 

The Oregon gained some fame for making the trip from California to Florida in just 66 days, a good bit shorter than the average tour route tracing the tip of Argentina, which, not too many years before, was considered speedy if it was twice as long.  14,000 miles.  It's nothing to sneeze at in the world before airplanes, before interstate highways, before the diesel engine, and even before most gasoline-powered engines.  Heck; it's nothing to sneeze at now.

The Oregon became symbolic in the war-driven public mind of the possible successes of modern industry because of this journey.  Simultaneously, she also became a reminder that even our best, even our best which far exceeded our expectations, wasn't good enough.   It was the realization that even two months of sea time was too long to wait when assembling a navy which helped gain some of the last much-needed support for the completion of the Panama Canal, which shortened the coast-to-coast travel demands to less than a third of the distance it had been before, and perhaps a quarter of the time.

Think about this for a second: how many of us have gone jetting across the country on a day's notice, for personal reasons?  How many times has there been a situation outside of our immediate reach which demanded our presence, not next month, not next week, but as soon as possible?  Sure, the cost may hurt those of us without an excess of savings.  The flights may be delayed, the car rentals canceled, the accommodations uncertain.  But the point is, it's possible.  It's within our grasp.  The USS Oregon is remembered by this monument not just because of its name, but because of the role it played in making such trips even thinkable...before they were possible.

Flashback

Ugh.  One post in the past year.  It's not that I don't think about this blog; it's just that I'm...well, out of practice in many senses of the words.

So, here's something to break the mundanity of the gray weather we've been having here this winter so far: the sunny front of KBOO headquarters on SE 8th, complete with last spring's lovely blossoms.

Named after a kind of pot associated with Berkley, California, in the mid 60s (and how appropriate is that?), KBOO has adhered to its mission for over 40 years now.  That's a lot of rabble rousing and community activating.  How many other organizations have given up, given in, or dramatically shifted their mission in the same amount of time?  But the KBOO charter calls for providing "programming to diverse communities and unserved groups" and " a forum for unpopular, controversial, or neglected perspectives on important local, national, and international issues, reflecting KBOO's calues of peace, justice, democracy, human rights, muticulturalism, environmentalism, freedom of expression, and social change."  Indeed, if you were to look at their schedule for the day I'm writing this, you'd see an array of programs from "Astral Traveling" to "Islamic Point of View," and with focal points ranging from Conjunto music to Italian music from the 60s.

Sure, they have their controversies, and the to-be-expected accusations of hypocrisy.  You can't be a political-commercial endeavor that exists for this long and please everyone.  But there's something so very Portland about this station, with its open-armed policy of social equality.  If nothing else, no matter what our politics,  we should give props to the KBOO community for the constant commitment to both the various peoples of Portland and to their original vision.

Maybe it's best to think about KBOO in a larger perspective--perhaps balance an hour of it with a certain amount of time given over to conservative talk radio.  At the very least, you'll be hearing voices in your head for days.

It's a colorful life.

It's an Up thing

It's a funny thing: I come back from a winter hiatus, I take a few walks, get a few good pictures, and, of all things, my research skills fail me.  I'm trying to pull some things together, bit by little bit.

This photo wasn't even taken on a walk, but out out my car window.  With my phone camera.  While sitting at a red light.  The colors at dusk were so striking that I really couldn't resist the temptation (I've often said that if  I die in a car crash it will be because I'm saying "tree pretty").  In fact, for whatever reason, a couple of months ago I was driving the Burnside-Couch couplet regularly at this time of day, and did indeed say no to the shot several times.  I'm glad I finally succumbed to that yummy blue sky.

It's the Portland Bottling Company/7Up Bottling Company building on NE Couch, of course.  That 7Up sign glowing moon-bright in the sky is as iconic in this town as they come, especially on the East side.  Its coverings and unveilings have made the news several times in the last decade, and there have been repeated speculations about the amount of time that's passed since the sign last spun (20 years?  after the Columbus Day storm?  some recent time after they replaced the ball bearings as mentioned in the KATU article linked above?).

The Portland Bottling Company itself has been in Portland for just shy of a century, though it's had its ups and downs according to the economy just like everyone else in the manufacturing industry--thus the attempt at harnessing the market on a trendy new health/energy drink which caused the most recent changes in the sign's appearance, before 7Up regained top billing.  I have to admit, though, even if it's the sign which first catches my attention, it's the building itself which always turns my head so dangerously in traffic.  I know I'm not the only sucker in this town for the sinewy beauty of an art deco line.  As Bart King puts it, "the aerodynamic building gleams with the prospect of a brighter future through bottling soft drinks in fashionable digs." If the company has had fluctuating success, the building itself seems to hold tightly to a sense of optimism--that concern for public elegance and style which almost always only comes when more dramatic pressures are not at hand.  In fact, this was the last building erected in Portland before WWII austerity demanded a temporary moratorium on such construction. Even the folks whom you can thank for the recently opened Burnside-Couch couplet realize the significance of the building, calling it a landmark and making its restoration and redevelopment a part of their development plans for the area.

A fun bit of trivia for us children of the 80s: according to the Inside Portland page linked above, Portland Bottling Company was also responsible for the production of later versions of Teddy Ruxpin.  I have no idea how to fit this in smoothly with the discussion of this building, but it must be noted.

"A goodly place to 'bide a wee' "

What is it with me, downtown Portland, and historic hotels?

This time, it's the Sovereign on SW Madison and Broadway.  It was another late afternoon of being entranced by the light moving across building facades while I was out for a walk.  I mean, look at this, the lowering sun reflected off the more modern surrounding glass towers:

It's just stunning.  I could sense the undulating warmth of the bricks from a block and a half away.  I must have stood there agog for a bit too long, because I had not one but two people ask me what I was looking at.  When I pointed out the side of the hotel, they each looked up, smiled a bit , and walked away.  Of of them shook his head a little and muttered something more or less friendly about an artistic eye.

I'm going to ignore for a moment that the Oregon Historical Society has long had an affiliation with this building, as well as the stunning Richard Haas trompe l'oeil murals on the south side (admittedly, this is mostly because I was so caught up in the light that afternoon that I didn't think to try to photograph them), and follow my own rabbit trails through the wilds of the internet.  Because, really, they're fun and sometimes charming.

The earliest documentation I can find on the building is in, of all things, what appears to be a plumber's trade journal, Valve World.  Apparently the pipes and ceramics in this for this Carl Linde structure were something to behold in 1923, the year the building was erected.  The writeup given the hotel in the journal is interesting for its photos of the exterior (including a shot of the rooftop sign long gone these days) and its glimpses into the apartments therein.   Calling the hotel a "goodly place to 'bide a wee'," the writers of the piece focus on, understandably, the fixtures which the tidy little rooms offered: "Seventy-four five-foot Crane "Modus" one-piece enameled iron recessed bath tubs, fitted with concealed combination compression top bell supply and waste fixtures with indexed all-china handles and china escutcheons, built-in china soap holders with drains and grab rods, concealed showers with Crane temperature regulating valves, special pressure control stops, curtain rods, and white duck curtains", etc.

Whew.  I've heard of food porn, but bath fixture porn?  These descriptions go on for page after loving page. The rooms, by the way, were turned into apartments a little over a decade after the hotel was built, so someone must have liked these fixtures enough to stay a while.

The application to have the Sovereign added to the National Register of Historic Places was submitted in 1980, when the building was under the ownership of Bruce Kegg, who apparently later gained a bit of national fame for renovating a fire station in NW and having the resulting home featured on HGTV.  The application notes that the only significant exterior changes between 1923 and 1980 were the addition of an entry on Madison and the removal of both the aforementioned rooftop sign and a glass canopy over the Broadway entrance (which can also be seen in The Valve).  It also gives a good amount of attention to the fact that one of the original tenants of the ground floor was a restaurant called Henry Theile's, which seems to have been quite a mid-century landmark after it moved northwest a few blocks to Burnside and 23rd.  Theile seems to have come to the Sovereign after being a chef at the Benson, but the later iteration of his restaurant was decidedly family-friendly.  In fact, Henry Theile's on Burnside was so popular that many folks taken with nostalgia (and, it seems, memories of time spent with their grandparents) seek out the recipe for its trademark dish, the German pancake.

Maybe I'll end this on a quasi-gastronomical note as well, since I'm circling the topic.  Linde, the architect, worked with Whidden & Lewis and A.C. Doyle while in Portland, but had a background that was curiously prescient of the city we would become: he began his career designing breweries in Wisconsin.  I'm not sure just how in demand that niche would have been in the 1920s, but just imagine the cache he would have here today.

Plenty of room at the Hotel Cornelius

I can't help it.  When I see a place like this, my curiosity gets going.  I was taking a walk through downtown the other night and trying out a few blocks on Park along which I very rarely travel.  That's when I saw this wall in its state of curious half-repair (or half-disrepair).  I know some people would recognize it immediately, but I'm still learning the ins and outs of this town, and that's enough lack of knowledge to keep me running to research the things that grab my attention.


So, what you're looking at is the northeast corner of the old Hotel Cornelius, on the corner of Alder and Park.  I actually first noticed it because of the gorgeous copper Mansard roof, and the quirky graffiti just above the Southwest corner of it.  The graffiti didn't keep my attention for long, though.  As I continued up Park, this palimpsest of a wall called me to stop and try for several pictures, fighting against the waning light.  The seven story building had obviously not been used for a while; many of the upper windows show signs of dereliction.  However, as you can see below in a photo taken a day later and in better light, it's really only the street level of the building which seems to be strongly affected by the incomplete renovation.  Looking up, you can see many clear signs of an older elegance.  Maybe this is because the P:ear Gallery moved out of the ground floor a few years back, or maybe it was an unfinished project of the folks at TMT Development who until fairly recently were planning to renovate the building to use as another downtown boutique hotel.

The proposed Alder Park hotel was to be a modern interpretation of this historical structure rather than a true restoration, because, as reported in the Daily Journal of Commerce in 2008, there wasn't a whole lot of data on the original appearance of the hotel other than a few pretty postcards. And, by all accounts, the passing decades had not been kind to the interior.  Alas, last year our favorite recession got the better of the plans, and TMT backed out of the project, putting the building up for sale.

What were these postcards, though, which provided the inspiration?  You can see reproductions about midway down this page on pdxhistory.com.  In the article linked above, it said that the coffered ceilings in the lobby were the only major original feature which could be salvaged.  Certainly, the postcard makes them look worth saving.  Today, though, they're hidden from public view.  The original entryway has been covered, and today's main entrance is topped by those ubiquitous dropped ceilings of 20th century renovations.  This is what the area currently looks like--please forgive the glare, as I took the photo with my iPhone though the plate glass of the door.

Still, though, it's lovely to think about the early history of the structure.  Built in 1908, the Cornelius was part of a string of hotels erected to address the growing demands of the entertainment district.  The architect was John Bennes, known locally for his rococo Hollywood Theatre.  The hotel was marketed by its proprietor, W. C. Culbertson, as "The House of Welcome," and its sister hotel, the Hotel Seward, was  "The House of Cheer."  According to the Official Hotel Red Book, rooms were $1.25 a day (or $2.00 with a bath), and a major selling point was the hotel's proximity to the trolley lines and the new Elks Temple.  The 2004 Portland Midtown Blocks Historic Assessment notes that the structure was one of the earliest skyscrapers in the area, and exemplifies many of the new building technologies (fire-resistant concrete!  terra cotta!) of the early 20th century..

Speaking of baths, European or otherwise, one thing a lot of long-timers around here like to note is that in the 70s and 80s, the building's basement was the site of Continental Baths, the gay bathouse mentioned in the Tribune article linked above.  According to the 1999 Gay Portland Walking Tour, the Continental Baths featured "erotic black-light drawings on the walls, an orgy room, jacuzzi, and a number of individual rooms for private assignations."  An ad reproduced on the same site promises that there was "always a hot time" to be had.

Oh, and that black covering and tantalizing peek of brick which originally got my attention?  According to the DJC article linked above, it turns out that, when moving the original entrance, someone covered the east-facing wall with stucco, damaging the brick underneath to the point where it all needed to be replaced.  Minor mystery solved.  I'd like to think that, someday, someone will finish the repairs.

Following up on an older post

Remember the unicycling bagpiper from a while back?  Well, here the legend is revealed: http://www.koinlocal6.com/news/local/story/Meet-the-Unipiper-Life-at-Large-Tim-Becker/QohjHoeqmkqkYIpQ7XqrNA.cspx

Shining a light on the Myler Building

Lately I've been taken by the quality of the light shining on this block, the SE corner of SW 9th and Oak, as I walk from work to the bus mall in the late afternoon (thus this photo). There's something about the light at transitional times of day in the PNW, especially at this time of year--it's at the same time more translucent and more substantial than in any other place I've ever lived.

 So, of course, when I determined to write a blog post here, I though of this photo and did a little sleuthing on the internet. I figured there's a lot of attention given to The Benson Hotel, looming nearby to the east, the former Federal Reserve building to the south with its gun turret, and maybe even the AT&T building to the north. Maybe there will even be future blog posts about these. But the homely little building in the middle of the shot here is mostly overshadowed, literally and figuratively, by those structures, and being the sympathizer of the underdog that I am, my attention was drawn to the slightly odd two story building stuck right in the middle of these other drama kings and queens.

 Interestingly, the original aspirations for the building far exceeded today's presentation. According to the city's 2004 Midtown Blocks Historic Assessment, the proposal was for a five story office building, to be constructed in stages. In fact, even though the majority of the building was left unfinished, the extant structure contains the foundations and engineering necessary by 1921 standards to support those final three stories. Sweetly, the "Myler" in Myler Building (the historically correct name)seems to be the maiden name of the mother of the cannery magnate for whom it was built. Here is a photo which appears to have been taken while the building was still quite young.


You can't quite make out the name in the newer photo, but the building is currently occupied by New Directions for Youth, a non-profit program for supporting homeless youth in Portland. As best as I can gather, its chosen location is at least in part due to the structure's proximity to O'Bryant Square, which has in recent history been linked to homeless culture in the area. I might be revealing my PDX vintage here with my relative ignorance of the park's tenure as Paranoid Park, but thus sayeth the internet, and as we all know, if it's on Wikipedia it MUST be true. Besides, there are plenty of you out there (among the seven generous faithful readers I apparently have!)who can say yay or nay to this assessment.

Years before that, however, the building apparently housed another socailly progressive organization, the Federal Writers' Project, part of the WPA in the Great Depression (oh, would the Great Recession also choose to have a Writers' Project, but I digress...). Amongst other things, the Oregon chapter of the FWP produced educational pamphlets such as this (on Oregon place names and their origins) and this (on "freak laws," but which contains an especially revealing survey of the changing laws regarding women's rights).

Balconies from which Susan could wave, kindly, if not regally

I have a good friend, Susan, who has a secret passion: identifying balconies on which it would be fun to stand and wave regally at random groups of people who might be passing by. Out of my love for Susan, and because of the fact that I am in the middle of grading finals and ridiculously pressed for time but still feel like posting something here today, I give you the following photos of balconies, fire escapes, and the like. Now, I don't usually take photos of private homes because of the privacy issues involved, so everything here is more or less public--but I just like to think of it as offering maximum exposure. I've noted the locations when I can remember them, though some are definitely approximate at best.

This first one is the third story of Waldo Block on the corner of SW Second and Washington. The recessed balcony was a modification of the original plan, implemented when the building was at the heart of turn-of-the-century Chinatown.



















Candidate #2, the New Market Annex, is also on Second, but a few blocks north on Ash. The delicate swirls of cast iron always stand out for me against the Romanesque heft of the building.


















Believe Art and Antiques (NW Flanders between 8th & 9th) has a questionable but somehow charming fire escape, though I don't know that I could in good conscience encourage a friend to climb up there.

















The Flanders Street Lofts on NW 8th & Flanders offer a sleeker, more modern approach--but with a nice classical nod or two.

















On NW 5th and Flanders is this filigree beauty. However, as of 3/9, a 750 square foot one bedroom there was going for $1795/mo, so Susan and I may want to make our visit quick before it gets pro-rated.



















The West Hills humbly offer the understated stairwell of Pittock Mansion...

















For the days when she's feeling hip and happening, SE Burnside is always a good choice.












Or, on the whimsical days, there's this treehouse near Laurelhurst park.



















I'm thinking my friend will be able to find one place or another to grace her loyal followers.

Busted?

From The Federal Reporter, vol 162, pg 621-622, which discusses a legal case concerning both homesteading obligations and perjury:



and



So... if I'm to understand correctly, Charles Watson, the man whose fulfillment of his legal homesteading claim obligations were in question, was given an alibi of someone seeing him at the Merchant's Hotel in Portland. Now, the Merchant Hotel block today might seem all lovely and respectable, what with its housing of the Nikkei Center, the Grassy Knoll Gallery, Old Town Pizza, etc., but back at the turn of the 20th century? Let's just say that the same things that are said about most all of the public establishments in what we now call Old Town are said about the Merchant Hotel: it was a villainous hive of iniquity and vice. A cat house. A cozy little hostel for ladies of the night.

Now, I know that Portland was a rollicking place a hundred years ago or so. But what I wonder is: was this kind of going on the record as far as one's presence at a whorehouse considered a public shaming, or was it just a matter of course? Maybe I have the timeline a little wrong here. The dates on these things tend to be a little fuzzy without some extensive time spent in the stacks (read: not while sitting on my couch exercising all the powers given to me by Google).

What I really wonder is whether someone has done a guidebook for all the houses of ill repute. I'm aware of the vice map of 1913, which can be accessed here (Score another thousand points to Vintage Portland!). I can only hope that someone runs with it.

Because, really, what self-respecting Portlander wouldn't pay good money to go on THAT tour?

Brief Interlude (a.k.a. Holy Biplanes, Batman!)

Because it's time to write a post, and because I don't have time to write a real post right now, and because this image has been on my mind all day, I now happily direct your eyes towards one of my favorite local blogs, Vintage Portland.

Cornices and capitals, dentils and dormers, pilasters and pediments

This is the second of two blogs, the second of two posts in a week. Maybe I really am going to get back into the discipline of posting. Let's just say it was an eight month sabbatical.

Yes, that's it. A sabbatical.

In any case, here are the photos I took at the end of last May with every intention of creating this post then. These first few shots were all taken while looking out in various directions from the top level of the parking garage on Yamhill and 10th. In my mind and history, this will always be the Finnegan's Toy Store garage (ah...she's seventeen this week. Sigh...), even though they have apparently moved to a new location on Washington without consulting me even once. I am clearly more loyal than they, however, so let's start with the building next to the one Finnegan's used to occupy. And if that logic convinced you, I have some cheap property in Manhattan you might be interested in...

In all seriousness, though, this is the Pythian Building:


Built in 1907, this building apparently used to be a Masonic lodge (hmmm...anyone ever notice how many of those there seem to be around here?). These days, aside from the nifty art supply store housed on the street level corner of 9th and Yamhill, there are also not one but TWO ballrooms, one housed on the second floor (the Adrianna Hill Grand Ballroom, stunning commercial photos of which can be seen here) and one on the fifth (the Crown Ballroom, also gorgeous if the websites are to be believed) as well the studios of organizations like the Conduit Dance Company. Bart King, author of An Architectural Guidebook to Portland, notes a comment that this building has some of the "most dramatic brickwork in this city." Maybe so, but it sounds like there's a lot going on inside the walls as well.


A bit to the west rise the familiar finishings of the Multnomah County Central Library.


Sooner or later, I'll dedicate an entire post to this building, mostly because it still entrances the imagination of this girl from small-town Kentucky as a shining example of what a "real" library should be. It's enough for now to say that it's an A.C. Doyle design (which may itself be enough to make me predisposed to love the building). Also, I find it curious that, with all of the lovely smaller Carnegie libraries scattered around the outer reaches of Portland, the city refused assistance from the Carnegies for this building, apparently feeling too much civic pride to look anywhere other than its own coffers for such an undertaking (again I attribute this bit to King). This was, of course, after significant public debate over whether a public source of free access to books would cause said public to value said books less.

And then, to the north, there is the Gov'ner (if only you could hear the bad, bad Cockney accent coming through your screen right now):

The Governor Hotel was known as the Seward Hotel for the first twenty-five years or so of its existence. Several sources describe the style as art-nouveau-meets-native-American, and this is probably fairly accurate when considering the cornice shot I offer here. Really, the gargoyles (the official website calls them that, so I guess I will, too)have always made me think of a strand of dangling robots (and the extended history tells me I'm not alone in that). That is, a strand of elegant and refined dangling robots, of course.

Last in my rooftop tour of the Yamhill Smart Park is a building which has always caught my eye (as well as, I'm certain, the eyes of thousands of others): the Oregon Journal building, aka Jackson Tower. Really, I'm not sure there is a prettier building in downtown Portland, at this time of year (the winter holidays, not May when the photo was taken) in particular, when the "wedding-cake" top and festive nighttime lighting seem quite appropriate.

What's really interesting is that the very thing which draws our eyes to the tower was part of the original design: the architects incorporated 1800 bulbs right into the facade--they wanted this clock to be SEEN. King (again) also notes that fear of nightime raids caused the lights to be turned off during WWII, and relit only after 30 years had passed. I'm glad we got over that phobia. Wikipedia tells me the clock stopped working last summer, but I'm having a little trouble telling if this is still true. Too bad I didn't know to check the time when I was in Pioneer Square today.

For the fun of it, I'm going to end with a 1915 photo taken at the base of the Jackson Tower (copied and pasted from the historical photo archive) . I mean, who doesn't love a man on a Harley?

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.

I didn't know too many people like this in the 90s...

...but I think I can pretty easily relate to what they're getting at in this video:

Everyone gets in the holiday spirit around here

Portland bagpiping unicyclist dresses for Christmas

No, it's not my camerawork, though I have seen this guy unicycling around Crystal Springs before. I mean, surely there can't be more than one bagpiping unicyclist in Portland, right?

Ghosts and rails in old Albina

I’ve always lived in river and railroad towns. When I was old enough to drive around at night on my own, at home in Ashland, KY, my destination after dark was more often than not the boat docks on the Ohio River. I’d park on the steeply sloped, grooved concrete lot, cradled between the barges which were silent but for the slapping of their wakes and the trains. Both were ferrying coal from the bowels of the nearby mountains to wherever it is the coal goes. Sometimes my friends and I would hop a train for a few hundred yards, never quite brave enough to go much further than that. The bridges towered overhead. Everything was moving someplace else. All of us in that group felt the pull of such motion; three of us live on the West Coast now, and none of us in Ashland.


Even before I was old enough to drive, though, I listened to the sounds of the trains at night—as Paul Simon says, “everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance; everybody believes it’s true.” Then the trains were punctuated by the occasional deep whoosh of pouring steel, both swelling up beneath the cicadas in the distant dark.


Old habits die hard. Here, I keep my bedroom window cracked at night even in winter because I so crave the white noise that assures me someone, somewhere, is up as late as I am. Of course, it’s not coal being ferried here; the closest equivalent is timber, torn, skinned, and neatly stacked on its various modes of transport.



And we know Portland has always been a town of water and steel. The water never fades from view; we wear our bridges like banners, or boutonnieres. Of course, the rails are still there too, but a bit more like a corset underneath the fineries of our downtown. In some spots this is more evident than others. The first few blocks on the east side were literally built up around the train tracks; many streets there (like elsewhere in the downtown area) were initially wooden platforms built up to make the bottomlands navigable and the trains accessible.
















A recent walk through the old Albina neighborhoods—my last from Laura Foster’s treasure, Portland Hill Walks—took me through many of the blocks near the Union rail yards, underneath the arches of the Fremont Bridge. It’s not the most graceful neighborhood, but there’s a great sense of the past reigns of rails and river. And there’s plenty to love, even in the buildings that seem ready to bow to the weight of time. This one, at 733 N Russell, bears a scarlet letter, a “U” letting firefighters know that it’s unsafe for them to work in.























































There’s also, of course, the White Eagle Saloon, owned by McMenamins and sometimes called one of the most haunted sites in Portland. Most of those ghosts are said to date from the time when the saloon served the hundreds of rail workers housed nearby, providing food, drinks, gambling, and sex.


















Across the street is one of the more recognizable ghost signs of the area, an advertisement for Headlight Overalls, a pre-shrunk overall from a denim line designed specifically for the demands of a life on the rails. Here is a link to a blog post showcasing one of Headlight's promotional pay calculator and time books for rail workers.


















On the other side of the block is a fragment of another sign, promising credit, gladly given. Back then, you didn’t need credit unless you were living the life of a working man. Today, well, we know how normal it’s become. On my walk, I ran into a man, slightly disheveled but mostly clean, asking me for directions. He said he was from out of town, and wanted to know where to find a convenience store. The man took to my dog, petting him, welcoming the affection my dog gives away so freely; he had the distinct look of someone who had just stumbled into town and could use some conversation. Without even realizing it until I wrote this blog post, I assumed the man had just recently jumped off a boxcar. I don’t know if people still travel that way. A small part of me, though, even knowing the perils of that mode of travel, hopes they do.