Holgate Slough, Corbett and California

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Most of the photos I've been exploiting over the last few instalments have been from the picture-taking expedition to the wilds of South Portland. The ideal viewpoint we located was the intersection of SW Corbett Avenue and California Street ... that's where the big downhill grade begins.

It offers gifts in more than one direction, though, it must be said. As witness:

What you can see from there is the Willamette, where it widens out to encompass Ross Island and Hardtack Island, two large gravel bars that would eventually be tied together at the south end to provide a lagoon for Ross Island Sand & Gravel to quarry for all those years. That charming floating home community is lined along the side that becomes what is called Holgate Slough. Of particular note is the blue building perched on the bluff overlooking the river, in the upper right of the frame. The mural on it is famous and the target of many a fellow amateur photog and blogger, and it's on the back side of Wilhelm's Portland Memorial Funeral home. It's reputedly the largest mural in the United States of America.

We journeyed to this corner of town to find street blades with the new South directional; we found none (though those odd brown blades in the South Waterfront continue to annoy in more ways than one). We expected something since the City o'Portland is apparently locked and loaded to run out and slap a decal on all suitable blades and then replace those that need replacing, but nothing. Nada one. So despite the City insisting this be a problem and fixing it nonetheless, we can still go out there and pretend to the preferable reality that it didn't happen. However, looking at the weathered blades at the corner, it's still a known thing that they went from merely worn to instant antiques. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Retro Future, The Way It Used To Be

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A little bit of delightful architecture along Corbett Avenue, this one near Hamilton Street:

A little bit of the future the way we thought it would be. I love this architecture; it dates itself as being the sort of futuristic style we thought would be all over the place now, instead of whatever it is we have. And that makes it terribly terribly charming.

I see this and remember that, back in that day, I thought the future would look like that too. So it goes.

OK, City Of Portland, If You Insist

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A bit of wry humor from the City O'Portland as far as describing the feature Corbett Avenue goes into from California Avenue north through the Johns Landing area.

Oh, it goes down at about a four or five percent grade about a hundred and fifty feet and then up a little over the course of about half a mile, but, OK, we call it a 'dip' for now.

Heh, heh, heh.

That 10MPH advisory? I'd take that seriously.

The Ziggurats From Three Miles Out

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This is an edit of the picture previous, that points out three great buildings in Oregon and suggests the grandeur ... human, certainly, but grand nevertheless ... of the cityscape of Portland:

Mostly blocked by the rise that the Lair Hill neighborhood perches upon, you have the Wells Fargo Tower (or one I still think of as the First National Tower), built in the 1970s and still the tallest building on Oregon; in the middle, the KOIN Tower (which still contains the TV station ... you can't count on that sort of thing anymore) and on the right, the US Bancorp Tower (which no longer houses US Bancorp, thus proving the previous parenthetical point).

The views I get are a great amount of the reason I love my hometown as much as I do.

Via Southwest Corbett Avenue

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Two days ago we went in search of South Portland. We found that Southwest was still where South was supposed to be, but we did rediscover Corbett Avenue.

Corbett Avenue runs north and south and parallels Naito Parkway and View Point Terrace; it's the fifth street east of that line, but still west of the Willamette River. As of the First of May, 2020, it's South Corbett Avenue, but all the street signs say SW Corbett Avenue. Maybe it's pandemic rules, but all those decals that were supposed to have changed the signs from SW to S haven't appeared yet, not even in the toney-a-la-toney South Waterfront.

As far as we were concerned, we were still in Southwest Portland.

My route for viewpoints intended to take us via SW Macadam Avenue outward then inward via SW Corbett Avenue. I should have indicated a right onto SW Nevada Street but we went up Taylors Ferry Rd to LaView Drive, a narrow, winding way that fairly drips poshness, just like everything on the prosperous west side does, in the way that it does.  LaView winds and corners up hills that goats should be so lucky to climb, then we get to Corbett Avenue.

I love Corbett Avenue. It goes up and down some pretty steep hills, and as some interesting touches to it you won't find in any other town. And here is one reason, one big reason, why I love my hometown so much. You just don't get sight-lines like this in any other city in Oregon:

From the intersection at California Street, Corbett fairly falls down a steep hill down to a low point at Boundary Street, where you can hang a quick ralph for a block and get back over to Macadam, or ascend another hill and go into the thick of the Lair Hill nabe. That hill can be seen in the distance; right up there, above and to the left of where the road disappears again, one sees the bright green of a freeway exit sign, and that's the Corbett Avenue offramp from I-5 northbound (Exit 298, if that helps). But for the fact that I-5 here is below grade, you'd see that, too.

This was a major landmark for traffic reporters during radio's local drive time, back in the day.

Over the top of the hill in the distance, three of Oregon's tallest buildings; that's downtown, and the ziggurat on the right, Big Pink, is at Burnside Street. California Street is the 6900 block south; at 20 blocks to the mile, we're about three and a half miles from that.

The zipline would be insane.

One other unique thing worth noting is how the street splits there. One upper half, one lower half. Two way traffic may or may not be how it's sanctioned, but that's how they locals do it. And all down these streets are the kind of houses George Orr, in The Lathe Of Heaven, survived the destruction and rebirth of the world in. This is the Portland you couldn't have anywhere else.