Category: Structures

Scenes from a bike ride

I meandered a bit on my way to Garden Fever this morning and caught these pictures.

My favorite kind of North Portland house: set back from the road, colorful paint, huge garden, and artistic touch.
The gate had these great trees sculpted on it. Notice also the cinder blocks keeping the gate from falling open. That would be a sign that the artist lives in residence and made this him/herself.
This is one of my favorite houses on N. Williams St. It looks very farm house-y and has a productive front yard with a great chicken run.
Taking a closer look, you can see that these hens are partisan.

Bands

The location of my work is near several live music venues, with one of them large enough to get moderately famous acts able to have a painted truck and a fancy tour bus. Sometimes when walking to work from the train I see the various tour buses and vans that make up the gypsy train that is modern music touring. Once in awhile, when I am on recess duty in the park across the street from my school, a van with a tow-trailer will pull up and park and out will tumble a pack of grungy musician-looking people. I once saw someone brushing his teeth right there at the edge of the park.

I’m guessing I will always remember that guy brushing his teeth. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, back in the day I wanted to be one of those modern-day minstrels. I knew I wasn’t good enough to actually be a band member, but I had hopes of moving equipment in fifty different states and around the world. In my current life, the roadie lifestyle is my idea of hell. Charles Cross’s Heavier Than Heaven painted a very clear picture of life on the road: selling enough t-shirts to get to the next town, choosing between food and gas, sleeping in horrible motels and no time to yourself. The kind of things that would make brushing your teeth at a city park in the middle of the day an entirely normal act.

Though I will never experience that lifestyle, I love that I wander by it during my daily routine.

Watching a block in N. Portland. April.

So we last checked in with our block in September and not much has happened. Construction projects always interest me that way. Something must have happened to have not much happen, but I don’t have the research skills to figure out what. At this point, this block has been sitting boarded up for at least nine months. Is the project on hold? I wish that if it was, they would let people grow things in the abandoned yards. There is a particularly nice empty lot that I have had my eye on since before the houses were emptied.

So one house has been moved. I know it was moved, rather than torn down because it was jacked up for about a month or so before it disappeared completely. That is another thing I don’t understand. When moving houses, why do they leave them up in the air for such a long time? I would think it would be essential for the house to spend very little time in the air, but it seems to be standard practice to let everything settle on its temporary foundations, even if those foundations are eight feet in the air. And where did the house go? Again, my research skills fail me. I’m sure there is a permit on file somewhere where I can see, but I don’t know how to find it.

At any rate, we have no “in the air” pictures because I haven’t been Ms. Carpe Diem when it comes to taking pictures of late. The problem is that the camera is in the zippered pocket of the bag, which is on the back of the bike so taking a picture means not only stopping the bike, but getting off the bike, unhooking the bungee that keeps the bag attached to the rack and I just never got around to it. I have plans to make a cute canvas camera holder for the front basket which will provide easy access, but so far it only exists in my mind.

Here was the house before:
And here is what you see now:
The smashed steps are a nice effect.

Your Bank Americard welcome here.

This is an iconic store downtown, straight out of 1953. I’m sure every tourist and plenty of locals have a picture of it. This time when I was walking by, the BankAmericard sign caught my eye. I can see someone accidentally time traveling here from 1968 and feeling relieved to see the sign. “My BankAmerica card is welcome here? What a relief!” I’m not sure a card of the same vintage as the sign would be accepted, but, you never know. I mean, did they have the magnetic strip then? I think not. And would our time-traveler benefit from the purchase of Western Wear? I’ll leave it to you to decide.

President’s Day Walk

Kelly and I took a President’s Day walk. This was also from Portland City Walk. It is walk 3, the Fernhill Park to Alberta Street Loop. It was a nice stretch of the legs and there was a lot of nice architectural details and yard art.

Like this. Isn’t the stonework on this chimney fantabulous?
And if you can’t afford custom stonework, perhaps you can customize with records in the window.
Or buy or make a whirlygig for your yard.
Or paint a masterpiece on your door.
This was a fun side trip. On the side yard of a house, you can see the variety of rain barrels the Rainbarrel Man has for sale.
In that small space he had several different styles along with a price list. You could even get a do-it-yourself kit.
Even the trees were artful.
This house used a lot of river rock in its construction. A lot. I would love to hear how it was hauled there.
This cactus didn’t fare well in the snow. I’m not sure if it will recover.
The little yard art raccoon had red reflectors for eyes and looked quite evil.
We stopped to teeter totter. Earlier, at a different park we went on the most excellent merry-go-round and I found out that merry-go-rounds make me a little sick now. Plus, it is difficult to jump off of them and stay upright. The teeter totter is more my current style.
And these were awesome teeter-totters. They were adjustable! So excellent for the parent and the child who weighs a small fraction of the adult’s weight.

Where that building used to be.

Remember my capturing the destruction of this block? You can see the posts here, here and here.

This is what it looks like now. This picture is taken from the opposite side of the block, but it affords the best view of the large hole in the ground.

The picture is a bit blurry, because I took it from the Max. I love that they dug such a vertical hole. Did you ever dig holes in your back yard as a kid? Mine were never anywhere near this neat and tidy. I also like looking at temporary infrastructure that has to be built so the building can be built. Like those stairs on the the left. What happens to them after they are no longer needed? Are they disassembled and moved to another job site?

Mayor Adams,

I follow city politics fairly closely and I’ve always admired you as a politician. When people ask me what I like about you, my standard answer has been “I think he is a politician for all the right reasons.” Namely, I think you love this city as much as me, and want to work to make it a great city not just for people in power, but all of us in the middle and working classes.

I’m a fan of government. I think it can do wonderful things such as provide roads for us to get from place to place, educate children, encourage development, help us to recycle and so many other important things. I’m not one of those citizens who think that people in government make too much money, or are lazy or greedy, or don’t know what it is like to run a business. I want good people making comparable wages running our city. Until Monday, I thought you were one of those people.

What I require most in my life is for people to tell the truth. I work in a school and say it over and over again, “If you had come to me and told me what happened, we wouldn’t be dealing with this situation right now.” It is fine for me to say this to elementary aged students, it’s even great. Because each time they don’t tell the whole story, or outright lie, that gives me another opportunity to help them understand that coming clean, though it seems to be hard at the time, is the better option. My hope is that as they grow older, they will embrace this fact of life and their adolescent and adult lives will be better for it.

I can’t know the thought process that got you into the mess you are in, but I do know that had you admitted then what you are admitting now, we all would have been much better off. You may have lost the election, or you may have won. But either way, the people of Portland would have the whole story from the beginning. Now you look stupid, the people that defended you look naive and there are calls for your resignation. Speaking for myself, the trust I had in you as a politician and a person is gone and I’m not sure what you are going to do to earn it back.

It hasn’t escaped my notice that this story broke over the two days we celebrate the birth of a civil rights pioneer and the historic day we all watched Barak Obama inaugurated. That historic day which should have been full of joy and jubilation, is a dark one for you. You, too are a pioneer. I’m just sorry that you made the choice you did and I’m sorry you asked another person to lie.

Sincerely,
Patricia Collins

MLK Day Walk.

What better way to celebrate MLK Day than to take a walk? Actually, I can think of a few better ways, like doing service, or going to an MLK celebration, but I did neither of those, so a walk was my better way. Kelly and I cracked open the new City Walks book I got for Christmas and began a walk that took us from the Kenton Neighborhood to the bluffs above Swan Island, to Swan Island itself. It was a pretty long walk (6.2 miles) and so we got a lot of talking done, too. New Mayor Sam Adams came up in conversation as he does from time to time. (This will be important a few blog posts from now.)

This is Kenton School. Or it was. Now it is a branch of the De La Salle North campus. Very near the school is the Lombard Transit Center and it is always fun to contrast the neat appearance of the De La Salle students with many of the other riders waiting for transit. I don’t think the early 21st century will be remembered fondly for its grooming.

Anyway, Eagle Eye Kelly asked, “What’s that, way up there?”
And then, Eagle Eye Kelly, who was been doing a lot of walks and learning about architecture identified it as most likely where the flag pole used to be. I was pretty impressed. Both with the old flag pole and with Eagle Eye Kelly.
Outside the Historic Kenton Hotel, now apartments, is this hitching post-themed bike rack.
It was a beautiful day, with a wind, but the wind brings clear blue skies, giving us this view of the Portland Skyline with Swan Island in the foreground.
A beautiful view of Mt. Hood.
“What the heck is this square thing?” we both wanted to know. The book refers to it as a “maw” and apparently, it is Freightliner’s Wind Tunnel. Although I’m not sure what will become of it once Freightliners closes their plant on Swan Island.
After that there were some lovely walks along the Willamette. It was interesting to contrast the river setting with the heavy industrial that is Swan Island. But then, Swan Island was built when the river was used almost exclusively for industry. Now that the industry is leaving, more and more the percentage of recreation increases. I just hope that we can afford to recreate, that is, that something is replacing those industry jobs.

The last leg of the walk is up Greeley Avenue. That’s a pretty busy road with a lot of truck traffic and it was an uphill walk. Still, Kelly and I planned our inauguration festivities if we were elected president, namely who the poets, ministers and performers would be. Mine were poet: Marge Piercy, minister: Tom Disrud. (although since I get two, I would also have Robert Fulghum). For performers I picked women, The Indigo Girls were mentioned. Then we were brainstorming other women. I wanted a figure of longevity. Kelly was explaining one of her picks I hadn’t heard of and she said, “she’s on that Dolly Parton cover album…” and both at the same time we exclaimed, “Dolly Parton!” So Ms. Parton would definately be at our inauguration.