Category: Structures

Walk to the Alberta Rose Theater

The plan was for me to meet Matt at the Alberta Rose Theater at 6:45 so we could see Live Wire. It was a warm day, still light outside and not raining. When will I have that combination again? I decided to walk the 4-ish miles to the theater. Here is what I saw along the way.

I’ve always loved that the homeowners left this tidy snag standing in their yard. Snags are an important part of the ecosystem that do not often appear in cities. Their yard is also filled with interesting yard art, of the “real art” kind, as opposed to the “old lady bending over showing her bloomers” kind.

I liked how this simple porch and house numbers in a nice font dress up this house.

“Shhh. Stay quiet and no one will have any idea there’s a house back here.” I can’t imagine how dark this house must be. There are no windows in the front, and both sides of the house are in shadow from trees and bushes.

This cute house seems to have a cute garage to go with it.

Until you look closer and see that it is a separate residence, complete with house number.

This was a bummer find. I’ve been keeping my eye on this empty lot for years, but now it seems it will be turned into surface parking for a nearby church. Permeable surface parking, but still kind of a bummer.

I like how this church sort of looms over the freeway. The cross is illuminated and makes a nice contrast to the “going home” traffic headlights.

A very fun art car.

With great fish actually leaping out of its sides.

At that point it really did get dark. I enjoyed the rest of the walk. Alberta has a lot of fun shops that look very warm and inviting.

Wind eddies and leaves

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I take two buses to far North Portland to volunteer at a Middle School. My bus stop is right next to “Big Pink” which is the tallest building in Portland. I think Big Pink messes with the air currents a bit, because today the wind was swirling all the leaves into a tidy pile.

Rankles me.

If you don’t want a yard, move into a condominium. Don’t cover all your existing yard with black tar paper and ugly rock, which will eventually sprout weeds anyway. There are a million ways to have a low-maintenance yard and this is perhaps one of the worst. There are two tiny fat dogs who live at this house. I see them on the porch sometimes. They probably wouldn’t be so fat if they had a place to run.

AM Mystery

A bad picture due to early morning light, but the car on the right was left running, with its lights and windshield wipers on (although it wasn’t raining.) The trunk was open and the driver and passenger seats were flung forward. It looked like it had run into something, though nothing around it looked as though it had been hit. I approached cautiously, but there was nothing to see, so I walked away. There was a gentleman outside a business and he told me that one of his employees had seen the car roll to a stop and a guy jump out, grab something from the back and drive off. Someone had called 911, so I continued on my way to work. I could hear the sirens approaching while I was at the Max stop, but I will never know exactly what happened here.

Probably the last place I would want to eat breakfast.

The Dancin‘ Bare is what I see when I stand at my Max stop. It’s one of those neighborhood institutions that I don’t want to get all huffy and protest-y and start petitions and force it to close, but I would be quite happy if it ceased to exist. (Portland International Raceway is the other one.) I can tell you, though that I will not be eating any meal there, even if they are offering a plate of eggs and hash browns to go along with their strippers.

An important notice from Director Park.

I checked in with Director Park back in a cold month. Now, of course, I can’t find that post to link to. Suffice to say, I wasn’t thrilled with the scale of the architecture or the sterile nature of the park. The Oregonian had an article about the park on 9/9/10 “A year after Director Park opens in Portland, visitors consider it a hit” which coincided with this picture I snapped the day before.

According to the article, “as many as 500 [people] visit on a nice day during lunch” with July’s total tally being 30,000 people. The article goes on to say that this park is the only park which has a full time event programmer and it also has part-time hosts who staff the plaza twelve hours per day.

Well. I’m sure if the much-neglected O’Bryant Square a few blocks north had someone scheduling festivals, art shows, lectures and classes, it too would be a popular park. The article closes with the following:
“Though Director has been popular in balmy weather, what happens in the rainy months ahead is uncertain.

But Rouse is so proud of the way the park has been embraced that she’s convinced Portlanders will enjoy it in winter.

“Come back in January,” she said, “and I bet you there’ll be someone sitting under the awning with a latte.”

I’m sure if the full time event planner is still planning things, there will be people about. I don’t begrudge Portland a successful park. However, I still think the scale of the park is “off” and I’m wondering why focus so much money and attention on just one block when there are other parks in the vicinity without such resources.