Category: Structures

End of two trees

This tree and another one like it live down the street from me. They are old and clearly planted in a time when people didn’t plan for where the power lines would go. So today seems to be their last day. I stood outside the Indian grocery watched the man in the tree remove a few limbs. It was rather hypnotic.

I felt a little sad for the trees, but not knowing anything about the situation, I didn’t get too worked up. It must have been an interesting task to cut them down without also taking down the power lines.

Director Park. Eh.

The beautiful Portland Park Blocks are split into two sections: the North Park Blocks and the South Park Blocks. The South Park Blocks start at PSU and run North past a number of churches, the PCPA, and the Schnitz where they run smack in to the Arlington Club. From there, there is a run of blocks of normal commercial development before the park picks up again just North of Burnside. Some people dream of demolishing all of those buildings and connecting the park blocks, which will most likely not happen in my lifetime. The park blocks don’t really connect anyway, as the North Park Blocks are one block East of the South Park Blocks.

At any rate, awhile ago there was an open block that was being used as a parking lot and the powers that be got together and suddenly (actually it took a long time and was delayed for seemingly ever) there is a park where there once was a parking lot. So I bring you my review of Simon and Helen Director Park.

It looks better than a parking lot. But I think the scale is weird. The Southwest corner has a large awning type thing that is very very high and I think it makes the rest of the park look small. It looks like it is looming over the tiny people, ready to stomp on them. Interestingly, the picture of the artists rendering in the link above cuts off this structure almost entirely.

I do like the granite color they have chosen. However, I’m still distracted by the large sheet of glass, ready to cause mayhem above me. Aside from the height of the roof, the supporting beams seem too thin and thus out of scale.

Unlike Pioneer Courthouse Square, which really is Portland’s Living Room, there also seem to be few places to sit. I think this makes the chances of the park becoming a cold, windswept plaza even more likely.

Here’s the Teacher’s Fountain in recognition of teachers “selfless and untiring efforts to inspire the hearts and minds of their students.” Right now it looks like a granite ball. Yay. A ball. But perhaps that water in the artists rendering has something to do with it.

Here is a closer look at the out of proportion glass cover, with actual human people so you can get a sense of scale. The building on the left will be a restaurant of some sort.

In conclusion, I’m not immediately charmed by Director Park. We shall see if my view changes over time.

Noam

So, you have to work with me here. Nearly halfway down the picture is a piano.  And a tiny bit below the edge of the piano is a white blotch.  And that white blotch!  It’s Noam Chomsky’s hair!  Which is attached to the rest of Noam Chomsky, whom I heard speak!  I volunteered at First Unitarian where they were having some sort of social justice conference.  My job was to take tickets at the door, which was sort of easy, sort of hard.  The people in charge were expecting trouble, which wasn’t there at all. People were very chilled out.  Except the organizers.  One of them ended up screaming at me, which wasn’t so cool.  I hope she remembers that moment with shame for years. I was just a volunteer, for chrissake, trying to do my job as best I could under the circumstances.  At any rate, after I took all the tickets, I climbed up into the balcony and heard Noam speak.  Great fun!

Sunflowers shading the walk

The house where I pick up my milk planted rows of sunflowers along their walkway and I’ve been watching them grow all summer long. They are very tall now, with huge heads and they have totally overwhelmed the walk.


My sunflowers are about three feet high, with heads one-eighth the size of these. I think mine don’t get enough sun or water.

This family will be eating sunflowers all winter long!

Wrath.

“Public Employees Get Free Ride” is the supposedly clever headline in the Metro section today, and the rest of the article isn’t much better. The gist: taxpayers are paying for some downtown public employees transit passes.

You know what? Taxpayers pay not only for that, but the public employee’s dental insurance, medical insurance and I would guess, life insurance and disability policies. Taxpayers are paying for public employees entire salaries! You know why? They are public employees.

I happen to be one taxpayer happy to contribute my probably three cents per year towards Joe Public Employee’s All-Zone Trimet pass. As far as I’m concerned, 80% of the people working downtown should have their employers subsidize the full price of their TriMet passes. Our downtown was purposely designed to be gotten to easily by public transportation. Why shouldn’t government lead the way by adding the benefit of a bus pass to the benefits available to the average public employee?

What gets me about articles like this, is that you never see its obverse about the business world. How about this sample headline: “WalMart customers subsidize WalMart executives’ five billion dollar fleet of corporate jets.” Businesses waste all kinds of money on things that I find unnecessary. The redecoration of executive offices being right up there with the inability by said executives to take commercial flights. But when business spends money wantonly, it is okay, because they need to spend the money to run their businesses efficiently, and besides, it is none of “the public’s” business because we don’t subsidize it.

But we do. We buy their product. You can’t tell me that some amount of pennies per item at WalMart doesn’t go to support WalMart executives’ travel habits. And you can’t tell me that business doesn’t receive public money. They do. From tax breaks, to zoning changes to build their business, to out-and-out bailouts for failing “essential” companies, we all pay.

The view in the US seems to be the following: taxes are squandered on superfluous items requested by overpaid employees who do nothing for their bloated salaries and taxpayer subsidized medical insurance. There is a huge disconnect, it is as if no one can see that the minuscule amount they pay in taxes actually gives them back amazing things, like infrastructure, social services police and fire departments and yes, transit.

A few years ago, unable to find a job, I took a “public employee” position in Washington County. I made just over $9.00 per hour and took transit an hour each way to get to my job. I paid for my transit pass myself, which was just over 5% of my monthly budget. My office was less than a mile from the Max line, serviced by three buses and I was the only employee in my sixteen person office who took public transportation to work. Every morning and evening I walked across a vast expanse of empty parking lot that was available for free to all employees, but cost visitors to park. Often, I wondered how much of a benefit this free parking cost, and why no one was throwing me any money for not taking up a space. I know why, of course, but it still made me mad.

Including TriMet passes in downtown public employees benefits package is a good deal for the employees and a good deal for the taxpayers. It’s not a free ride.

Sunday Parkways.

This happened in June, but somehow got missed in the blogging queue.

Sunday parkways which took place on one Sunday last year, expanded to three Sundays in three locations this year. I volunteered at the North Portland one, for which I got to spend a lovely morning moving barriers for cars to go by, waving at people walking and on bikes and taking pictures.

Mid-shift, these two crazy runners came by.

As they got closer, I could see that they were Matt and Jeff, clowning around.

The day started a bit cold and overcast, but then the sun came out.

Kenton Park had food and some fun activities such as this bike obstacle course.