Kʰunamokwst Park: A Cully Place To Be Together

3735

I was drawn here by a couple of firsts. But it was the type that beckoned me.

If the constant reader had noted the quizzical bit about the title ... because where do you usually see a super-scripted 'h' in any normal parlance ... I'm glad. There's a story there. Seeing it on a map sure caught my eye, and a gradually burgeoning interest in the indigenous culture of what we now call Oregon and Washington, got me and Olivia to the corner of NE 52nd Avenue and Alberta Street here, during the August 2020 heatwave, at a clement hour in the morning.

This is where you'll find Kʰunamokwst Park.

The arrival of Kʰunamokwst Park (since 2015, so, really, new to me) signifies two geographic breakthroughs which deserve to be noted. In no particular order:

First.

 It's the first developed park in the Cully neighborhood. That's big and dissonant news for Portland, which has a reputation for public green spaces and plenty of 'em: in some areas it seems as though you're never more than a few minutes away from even the most modest Portland park. But there are areas of the city which were just outside of it for a great long time, and Cully is one of them. The area was annexed into Portland back in the 1980s, when Portland and Gresham finally began to devour the land between them, but it wasn't until 2015 before Cully got its first honest-to-goodness city park. 

It's a lovely place. Here's the ingress at 52nd and Alberta, with Olivia striking a pose:

And another thing.

This is the very first Portland city park commissioned with an indigenous name. The word kʰunamokwst (pronounced KAHN-uh-mockst) comes to us from the Chinuk Wawa, the language that started as a trade jargon then evolved into a pidgin then matured into a creole that first peoples all along the lower Columbia, from Celilo on down, and through the area we now call Portland, where the Multnomahs once lived, spoke amongst each other.

And speaking of speaking, if the constant reader is wondering about that supered 'h' next to the k, here's the thing about that: Most of our words that we annexed from the first peoples have been anglicised into English, and the sounds of English are not wholly congruent with that of the Wawa. We do, however, have the International Phonetic Alphabet at our disposal, and it allows for a more precise written representation, and, briefly, in this cast, the sound 'k' makes is still 'k', but adding the ʰ like a diacritical mark to create the kʰ glyph makes it an aspriated k sound, which more approximates the way the sound was actually made by a speaker of the Wawa. Sort of saying "k" but breathing out like you're saying "h" at the same time.

And what's the meaning of all this? Well, kʰunamokwst means "together", which is a great thing for a lovely park to make happen. This continues an evolution I'm seeing in which we make a collective effort to honor and acknowledge the peoples that our ancestors displaced by keeping some shred of their intellectual tradition alive and in front of us. 

We can see it beginning to happen here, in these modest ways. I'm hoping they catch on.

The foliage at Kʰunamokwst Park is mighty lovely, as well. It's a park that's been too long in coming. Cully got a real gem.

And here's a link to the Portland Parks and Rec press release that has a lot of good background.

And so it goes skookum.

Wy'east With A Side of Sunbeam

3734

After that last photo, seeing how the clouds were bunching close to the horizon and seeing the orange-red to the shadows beneath, I got over to NE 122nd and Shaver, by the Rossi place, to get what had to be a memorable shot of Wy'east.

It wasn't as grand as I'd hoped, not much detail. The sunlight at this time of year, especially during the hot days, is overpowering and gets that way very early. The glaring sun washes out everything on the horizon, and if it's been more than one or two days of hot, there's that subjective bleaching out of the sky that I always see. But I was able to get this shot of the mountain in silhouette, with some of those amazing clouds and some sunbeams coming in from the left upper part.

An Epic Show of Sunbeams

3733

We see in the forecast that it's going to be Hell-degrees-fahrenheit today, but the morning was pleasant enough.

The sky, however, was poetically beautiful. The morning sun rising through the low clouds on the horizon at the low angle it was at about 7 AM gave you one of those skies that get you thinking cosmically.

One of them one-in-a-million views, really

Sunset At Gateway Discovery Park

3732

As park-crazy as most of Portland is, we find that, out in Outer East Portlandia, especially in the NE area, there is a suspicious shortage of them sometimes. During the last five years, the City o'Portland has taken steps.

One of those steps can be found on the block bounded by NE Clackamas and Halsey Street along NE 106th Avenue. Gateway Discovery Park is what they call it, and it's a bit of a quizzical name but it's a lovely place to be, especially if you have burgers and fries to eat and it's about sundown.

This sort of sundown, to be exact.

I like taking pictures like the above. They're both pointed and unpointed: they're pointed, because the sunset's the thing, and they're unpointed, because that sort of skyline and sky combo makes a great framing element for text or perhaps other pictures you can put within. Also the rich color of that night was minorly incomparable.

They're building a six-story apartment/retail block besides. As centrally-located, in an outer-eastside way, as it is, this would be ideal for small families and others. And who wouldn't want to overlook a park?

The draped lights over the walkway on the east side of the park actually made it kind of cozy. There's a number of oval picnic tables down that side of the park, giving you a lot of POVs to choose from. And all during this time, small families would come and let the kids go about on skateboards and bikes and such.

And, speaking of skating, at the corner of 106th and Clackamas there's a facility called a 'skate dot'. That's a trendy thing, like a skate park only much smaller, and it was a big draw this warm evening.

The Burkle Address System: A Unified Statewide Address Grid

3731

I'm kind of hoping that at least part of that title was provocative, at least on the Address Nerd level, because many of us don't live in, and indeed probably can't picture, a unified system for rural addresses stretching across an entire state.

But then, most of us don't live in North or South Dakota. I'll explain.

In my virtual peramulations across the globe, one thing for which Google has made me grateful (there are downsides, but more on that some other time), I was, one fine day, scanning the wide open spaces of North Dakota, when a detail caught my eye. 

I found ordinally-numbered streets, suffixed with binomial directionals (96th Ave SW, for example) in truly out-of-the-way rural areas. Such is the form of my inquisitiveness that I began panning, following the decreasing numbers in the direction of what I'd hoped would be the origin point of that system. I quickly saw that these numbered streets and avenues were one section ... one full surveyed mile ... apart. Before I knew it I had panned across a significant section of the state. And still, I had not located the origin, it seemed not to be near any of the larger towns (and some of those had their own county grids superseding the statewide pattern I was seeing. 

I poked about via Google now and again hoping to find some defining document but was unsuccessful (amazing how often that is true for many of these address systems). I was unsuccessful for a very long time but then, a few days ago, I stumbled on what I was looking for.

According to this article (https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=4428) at a site called Farm Show News Magazine, back in 1988, when Enhanced 911 was coming to North Dakota, the emergency coordinator in Stark County, was wondering how to solve the problem of establishing findable addresses in a state where the geography is kind of unrelentingly flat. From the article:

Anyone who has tried to find a farm in a rural area knows how difficult it can be. One hill looks like the next. The same with shelter belts and mile lanes, especially at night.

Thinking on it, he hit on the idea of not just his county but the entire state of North Dakota is though it were one town. The flat, rectilinear geography of the Public Land Surveyed North Dakotan landscape fairly gave itself to the approach.

Simply put, an intersection of section lines as close to the geographic center of the state as practical was chosen. (As it would happen, it can be found at 47°24'52.2"N 100°32'42.6"W, a spot about 20 miles NNE of the state capital, Near a place called McCluskey) The section line extending east and west from this, from the east boundary to the west boundary was designated a baseline and whenever it sported a road that road would be Main Street; the section line extending north and south, from the top of state to the bottom, was the other baseline and when it sported a road that road would be called Center Avenue, numbered streets and avenues corresponding to section lines radiating out from there. This divides the state up into more-or-less equal quadrants and each quarter would be suffixed with the appropriate directional: NW, NE, SW, and SE. A notional intersection of an otherwise-nondescript pair of rural roads, one being 29 miles south of Main Street and 45 miles west of Center Avenue would be the corner of 29th St SW with 45th Ave SW. 

This system bears the name of its inventor, of course, it is known as the Burkle Address System, and, except for its three most populous counties, is used across the entire state of North Dakota.

Not just there, either. Neighboring South Dakota though it so ideal that they use a modified version of it too (the baselines being the northern and western boundaries of the state itself, avoiding the requirement for having directionals at all.

The guidelines for South Dakota rural addressing can be found in a PDF hosted by the State of SD at https://dps.sd.gov/resource-library/South-Dakota-Rural-Addressing-Procedural-Handbook.pdf-782. 

Not all states can approach rural addresses this way, of course. But the Dakotas seem uniquely qualified to go it that way, and it's interesting how it worked out.

Rose City Park Storefronts

3730

No agenda with this one. Just a line of storefronts on NE Fremont Street just as it arrives at its plenary corner with NE 72nd Avenue and NE Sandy Blvd. 

Kinda bland, kinda ordinary, nothing special ... but everything special because of it, somehow.

The neighborhood around this intersection is called Rose City Park. It was laid out in 1907, the inaugural year of the Portland Rose Festival, for what that's worth.

NE 82nd And Sandy: The End is Nye

3729

I'm not sure if this is some sort of inscrutable prophecy or just an apt play on words, but I love it.

Taken through the front window of Olivia at the corner of NE 82nd and Sandy in front of the used tire store there. I've seen this in a number of locations in NE Portland.

Little visual treats like this? Yeah, it's one of the reasons I still love Portland.

The Giant Jug On Sandy Blvd

3728

There's a dive bar of incredibly long staning along Sandy in Northeast Portland. 

On the north side of Sandy, on another one of those flatiron blocks, this one also bounded on the west by NE 74th Avenue and the north by NE Beech Street, is a building with a long history. Lore I've heard recounts it as having been built in 1928 originally as a tire and auto repair joint. I don't know when it became a dive bar, but that it did for years and years and years. 

It's one of those buildings which became a landmark and probably still exists because it is one. 

I give you The Pirate's Cove:

The Pirate's Cove is a dive bar, and one of Portland's many strip joints; it has been named suchly since 2002, and eighteen years is an eternity in Portland cuisine these days. Before that, though, it was an outfit called ... are you sitting down? ... 

The Sandy Jug.

This terra cotta drabness is just one of many dressing changes for the building; at one time, the spherical cork in the jug was painted like an eight-ball.

That's it: just another Portland dive-bar strip-club ... of which there were a dwindling number going into the pandemic time.

The Smallest Triangular Restaurant We Know, and the Street Sign at Mason and Sandy

3727

Sandy Boulevard is one of Portland's signature arterials. Starting from the corner of SE 7th and Washington, it does a curl up that hill then shifts from SE to NE at Burnside (and is now made discontinuous by the Burnside-Couch couplet). It then strikes out diagonally across east-side Portland, creating complex intersections and small flatiron-shaped blocks in its relentless drive to Parkrose, many of those blocks containing almost absurdly-small flatiron-shaped buildings.

One of those is on the block bounded by Sandy, NE 81st Avenue, and NE Mason Street. This is directly to the west of the major intersection of NE 82nd and Sandy. This block is scarcely 100 feet long on the hypotenuse, and it is absolutely full of a very charming little breakfast and lunch place: the Cameo. It's directly across Mason Street from the Cameo Motel to which, we surmise, it was once organizationally-attached to as the motel's cafe. There seems no such affiliation now, but it's retained its old sign and name as it's become rather a landmark.

This is it, looking west from where Mason splits from Sandy:

We were there a few times before the Covid hammer came down, and found it most delightful. It's the kind of place, you know the kind, where the breakfasts and omelettes come at a price but you get what you pay for, satisfying and filling or, at least, you'll be taking some home to eat later.

The Korean ownership inflected the menu as one might expect. Kimchi is available in a few dishes, and there was even an omelette having that as its principal ingredient. One of the the times we were there they had a live guitar player in for the brunch crowd. Everything was very nice there.

The practice of Portland's street blades identifying the address block of the street one's travelling on by telling one how the intersecting street defines it has created, over time, spots on Sandy Blvd that tend to be bewildering, hampered by an inconsistent approach on the part of PBOT's signing. I have a few examples that will follow this. But here is a good introduction to this issue.

Please direct your attention to the street blade set there.

NE Mason Street is the 4100 block north of Burnside, so you see the 4100 there on the corner of its blade. The 4100 doesn't apply to Sandy, though: it's a diagonal road which addresses as an east-west street. The 4100 does, however, apply to NE 82nd Avenue, which runs perpendicularly to Mason and is about thirty feet behind me as I was standing to take that picture.

The 8200 on the Sandy blade might just be straight-up weird to anyone who comes from a town where the block number refers to the block face rather than the intersecting street. Look at it this way, though: You're on Mason Street, coming east out of that neighborhood. You come to the stop sign. This street opens into the intersection of 82nd and Sandy but this corner is just short of a solid intersection with 82nd. Sandy isn't the 8200 block east of the river and Williams, but it does cut across Mason at the 8200 block, or at least close enough that it would apply. 

Now, you could argue that the block number on the Mason blade should also read 8200 by this logic, since Sandy cuts Mason at the same place, but as potentially confusing as that might be for the out-of-towner, it does provide the North-South block for those passing by on 82nd (for which the position of this sign might make it a little hard to see, but the logic does work out).

Actually, I love this system despite its pitfalls. Once I got tuned into it, I find it makes a solid bit of sense: it tells me what I need to know about the cross street. I already know the name of the street I'm already on. 

But explaining it makes for some prolix profundity, that's for sure.

We'll Always Have Northeast Glisan

3726Not to get into too much profundity about it, but the pandemic has made us re-think the idea of the burger-restaurant dining experience sans lobby.

We do miss those things in general, the former 122nd and Glisan Burgerville notwithstanding. But when we do get BV, the question highest on our minds is, of course, where do we go to enjoy it?

This last weekend we had come out of Gresham and had gotten our burgers at the BV at 162nd and Division. Brown Eyed Girl at the conn, we proceeded north on 162nd and then west on NE Glisan St. I had no clue. She has learned her geographical lessons well, however, and knows where to get an unexpected viewpoint.

Portland's 'flat east side' is something of a myth. We just don't have a junior mountain range like the west side does; there's plenty of hills, slopes, dropoffs, defiles, what have you. And just as you past the entry to the legendary Glendoveer Golf Course, just west of 148th on Glisan, the road drops and you get kind of a nifty urban view, and that's where we parked and ate (it's Walla Walla Sweet onion-ring season, for those who care ... they were superb, of course) and contemplated life.

At sunset. Which also made it kind of poetic.

There isn't a thing in that shot that doesn't mean something to us: from the slabby width of Glisan to the radio towers on the ridge of the West Hills, some fifteen miles away.

AND NOW, IN BOKEH!!!

... which was kind of accidental, because the camera wasn't sure what to focus on, but the blur and the view please us so much that we'll pretend we meant to do that.

This German Card Game Sponsored By Lake Titicaca and The Planet Uranus

3725A great long time ago, when the Brown Eyed Girl and myself fancied we'd someday visit Germany (let's get real now, yeah?) we'd avail ourselves of German products. There are still several that we like. Few, sadly, have hung around (I miss my Shoko-Kola, let's just say).

But we still do have this. It's a deck of cards for a simple game called Quartett. If you've played Authors, you know how it goes: you can two other chums deal this deck out between you, then you form your hand into melds and start asking each other for the cards you don't have. Once a meld is complete, you lay it down, and the first to run out of cards wins.

This, Verkehrszeichen Quartett, (Road-sign Quartett) is based on German traffic signs. The four cards making up each meld are lined up at the top of the card, a big lush photo of the sign in the middle and a description of what the sign accomplishes auf Deutsch caption it. There are 36 cards total, which divide into 9 melds, which makes it so that nobody can get a tie, or at least that makes it rather difficult.

But, I say, Herr Kartenspieler ... was ist das on der bach side?

"ASS Altenburger indeed" we giggle to our inner grade-schooler as we both enjoy the joke.

Sure, "ass" doesn't necessarily mean the same in English and that seems to be an initialism anyway.

But ... so what? If the whole internet can giggle whenever some space science reporter makes another creaky joke including the name of the seventh planet, then we can laugh at this.

So it goes.

Westbound on the Ross Island Bridge.

3724Returning to the Ross Island Bridge, I give you the look out our car's front window as we proceed toward the west side of the Willamette.

Ahead of this, the road devolves into a number of ramps connecting to streets leading into downtown (S Kelly Avenue, SW Naito Parkway northbound, SW Arthur leading to SW 4th) and to the great Southwest (SW Naito Parkway southbound to Barbur Blvd). These are very charming old ramps and, judging by the curve radii and the tightness of the roadways, were clearly designed for much slower traffic. But, we deal.

Off to the left, if you could look, are the condo towers of South Waterfront ... and my history here goes back far enough that I knew a time when none of them were there. Off to the right, views of downtown that are, unfortunately, obscured by the safety railings.

Straight ahead, tho ...

... th e eastern face of Portland's posh West Hills. The buildings most in evidence surmount a massif known as Marquam Hill, our medical mountain, our "Pill Hill". Not only is there the massive research joint known as OHSU, but there's also the Doernbecher's Children's Hospital, a Shriners' Hospital, and a VA Medical Center.

If I caught a case of Andromeda Strain, that's where I'd want to be. You're never more than one insurance plan away from any doctor.

The cables up the hill are the OHSU tram, of course, another thing I knew Portland before it had. It's a fun ride, surprisingly low-key as a tourist attraction, and connects the OHSU buildings down by the river with the ones up on the hill.

And, of course, the lush green. Surfeit of trees? This is Portland. We haz dem.

Tilikum Crossing From Terwilliger Blvd

3723This, the full name of which is Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People, is the newest and most unique of Portland's signature bridges, a cable-stayed design that opened to the transit- and bicycle-using public in 2015. It is not a general traffic bridge, but is restricted and designed for buses, light rail and streetcar, and bicycle and pedestrian access only. It connects from the west at a point off South Moody Avenue just south of the Riverplace district and ties into the east via a access called SE Tilikum Way which bends to become a block of SE 7th Avenue feeding into SE Division Place. It opened in 2015.

A public naming contest was conducted; Tilikum Crossing wasn't the popular choice but the choice TriMet went with. The popular choice was honoring the legendary street performer "Working" Kirk Reeves, may he long live in our hearts, but that just didn't have the gravitas that they were looking for, we guess. That said, the word tilikum is Chinuk Wawa meaning people in the sense of family or tribe and meant to pay homage to the indigenous inhabitants ... the Multnomahs, the Clackamas, and others who lived here before we white people go there, and if they weren't going to go with the people's choice, at least they went with something with a lot of heart and Native soul.

Interesting Fun Fact!: The bridge, as mentioned earlier, is transit and pedestrian/bike only. So, as you sit comfortably (and properly socially-distanced) in a TriMet motor coach or a MAX train, you can grin smugly at the people crossing in cars just to the north via the Marquam Bridge or to the south on the Ross Island Bridge. Of course, they're too far away to see you; the victory is a Pyrrhic one. It is, never the less, real, and yours.

The Ross Island Bridge From Terwilliger Blvd

3722The Ross Island Bridge the span that carries US Hwy 26 across the Willamette and from Southwest Portland (Well, it starts in South, now) to Southeast Portland. For a time in the 90s, me and the Brown Eyed Girl lived in a 4-plex down SE 8th Avenue in the Brooklyn section of town and coming home from work over the bridge (and, sometimes, going to work) I got to see a lot of Wy'east in morning and evening light. That, indeed, was its own reward.

The foliage on the parkway provides its own framing. That tower on the right there is for the OHSU Tram. It opened in 1926 and was named for nearby Ross Island, who itself was named for the early Portlander who had a donation land claim on that island, Sherry Ross. It is a cantilever deck truss bridge, supposedly quite rare in Oregon.

Interesting Fun Fact!: Ross Island Bridge actually crosses the river just north of the island and doesn't go to the island itself. As a youth I love bridges and islands and islands that have bridges go to them, so when I finally figured out that the Ross Island Bridge doesn't actually go there, I harbored a bitter petty existential resentment that endures to this very day.

The Lloyd District from Terwilliger Blvd

3721There is an area of town called the Lloyd District, and it's undergone some changes over the years.

Generally speaking, this area of town centers along NE Broadway and Weidler, and goes from Williams Avenue on the west to about 15th Avenue on the east. It's spiritual heart is the Lloyd Center Mall, which has gone through many evolutions over the years and is now in what seems to be an accelerated metamorphosis into sort of a second downtown for Portland. More high-rises, more business, fewer shops and whatnot. Even the seminal Lloyd Center itself seems to be on the decline despite some passionate rebranding over the last few years.

But this is what it looks like, today, from one of the viewpoints on Terwilliger:

That would amount to a respectable downtown in any medium-sized city anywhere else. In Portland, that's our back-up downtown in case we ever have to send the usual one in for service.

In the washed out horizon blue of the oppressively clear day, Luuit keeps its own counsel.

The Viewpoint, The Restaurant, And The Totem Pole

3720Let's return to Terwilliger Blvd.

At 5700 SW Terwilliger Blvd in Portland there is an upscale restaurant with panoramic views of Portland and dinner prices to match; it's unit of the Chart House chain of fine dining establishments (If you have to ask, you can't afford it™). The Brown Eyed Girl and me ate there just once, a very long time ago, on a gift certificate. I had a pepper steak. It was superb.

It is the only address that's obvious, commercial or residential, along the whole of the Terwilliger parkway.

The restaurant in question.

There is a small parking lot in front but, oddly, even though it looks like it should be, is not strictly speaking, the restaurants. The Chart House exists at a public viewpoint called the Elk Point viewpoint, and you can park there (provided you can find a spot) for two hours no matter who you are, what your vehicle looks like, and take in the view. It's quite a lovely look.

Wy'east, from this vantage, seems far off and just a blip on the horizon, or maybe it was the overwhelming blue of the sky diminishing things (this is one reason I dislike clear bright blue days. They're actually quite dreary. The great leveller.) but I had to play a trick or two after downloading this to make it look anything like good.

But the majesty shows through.

... because it's Wy'east, and that's the way Wy'east be.

The real revelatory treat of the Elk Point viewpoint is the totem pole, however. dulled by age, it's none the less impressive for stature, about 50 feet tall, and if the story of the carvings are somewhat inscrutable to those without indigenous roots, it commands respect, and has a rather legendary creator: Chief Leelooska.

Chief Leelooska's Totem Pole at Elk Point

I had heard little of Leelooska but education was quickly to be found to hand electronically. The Chief was Cherokee, but was a great storehouse of cultural knowledge of many Native tribes, and had an especial love for the art of the Pacific Northwest coast. He was, in course, adopted by a branch of a Northwest tribe living in southwest Washington (the Leelooska Foundation, an educational organization and indigenous museum, is located in Ariel, a community on the Clark-Cowlitz county border). A page at Friends of Terwilliger has it thus:

Born Cherokee, Chief Lelooska (1933-1996) was adopted into the Kwakwaka’wakw, and was known for his mastery of storytelling and carving. As a scholar and educator, Chief Lelooska was recognized as significant resource on Native Americans in North America with a particular emphasis on the tribes of the Northwest coastal region. He was known for his versatility in wood sculpting, creating artwork that ranged in size from hand-held rattles and feast bowls to large-scale totem poles. The “Totem Pole” at Elk Point Viewpoint serves as an excellent example of Chief Lelooska’s work and is a prized part of Portland’s public art collection.

The pole lived at the Oregon Zoo for years and was apparently moved to Elk Point in 2014. It shows its age, and they're looking to restore it. But even as weathered as it is, its still magnificent in its dignity.

The Marquam Bridge From Terwilliger Blvd

3719SW Terwilliger Blvd, which extends in a parkway from its origin at the intersection of SW 6th Avenue and Sheridan Street at the north end of Duniway Park to George Himes Park in the Hillsdale area, offers quite a few of Portland's surfeit of gorgeous viewpoint opportunities, which is a natural, as at some points along that throughfare are over 500 feet in elevation and face the city on the east face of Portland's posh West Hills - as well as welcome shade and about 15 degress Fahrenheit off the seasonably, distastefully warm mid-July Oregon weather.

And here is just one.

This is an angle on the Marquam Bridge, the span that combines I-5 and I-405 at the west end (the one closest to our viewpoint) and takes them over the Willamette to access points north via I-5 and east via I-84. Close by those soaring ramps over the river on the opposite side of the Willamette is the southern part of the central east side's business area; notable immediately above and to the left of the center of the shot is the Weatherly Building, at the corner of SE Morrison St and Grand Avenue. Immediately to the right of that is a building with a red brick exterior that only existed since about this time last year; indeed, the practiced visual Portlander should immedately see a number of buildings that have fundamentally changed the nature of the area.

In the upper left distance there is the tower of The Fontaine Apartements, a high-rise which stakes out the eastern extent of the Lloyd District.

Beyond these, blending to urban forest, the inner east side of Portland. Beyond that, Cascade foothills.

A view they can't charge you for ... not yet, anyway.

Women of Power Mural Activity At The Phoenix Pharmacy Building, July 15th 2020

3718We've visited this corner before. It got our attention today because of the new decor being installed.

The building, on the northwest corner of SE 67th Avenue and Foster Road, was built on 1922 by a pharmacist named John Leach to house his business. The Phoenix Pharmacy remained a going business at one corner or the other at 67th and Foster until the early 2000s, and the building itself, with its unique architecture, has ascended to hallowed landmark status.

Its latter-day history is a bit checkered and tarnished, as the vicissitudes of progress will provide. After the pharmacy vacated the building, a variety of businesses tenanted there, including a cheap phone and VHS video store which is what most people probably remember there, if they remember anything there at all.

In '99, according to the history published online by the preservationist group Foster The Phoenix, a neighborhood businessman purchased the property in hopes of rehabbing it into a stove museum and community center - plans which were destined to remain unrealized. So it remains standing, unoccupied, as Foster The Phoenix works diligently to forward their own plans.

The balks of plywood shielding the first-floor glass are by no means new nor a response to the protests that are ubiquitous in the news. They've been there for a long time, and up to recently, were decorated with an abstract party scene. Our route through the neighborhood was in via Holgate from Outer East Portlandia, then a side-jink via 67th in quest of some much-needed coffee at the Dutch Bros at 67th and Foster. My eye was caught by a young man covering up an ugly red graffito with a rather stylish street-art phoenix. And then it was east to see the new art. While the Brown Eyed Girl fixed us up with lattes, I jumped out and started clicking.

This is some timely art, a tetraptych (I was today years old when I found out that this is a word) of four women.

This first panel, still incomplete ... I'll cop to not recognizing her.

The second panel, also incomplete, but not recognize Frida Kahlo? How could you not do that?

The third panel, I see Angela Davis here.

I'm getting a heavy Marsha P. Johnson vibe on this last one, if only for the unfinished adornments.

This is a strong improvement over the artwork that graced these panels up until now. I hope to get back there after it's finished and get a look at how powerful this will be when complete.

A lot of spirit here!

Wy'east From Elk Point, July 15th 2020

3717We went on a long ol' drive today, spanning the city to bring you the constant variety of sports. Only there was no sports. So I took shots of other things.

I learned there was a place in the West Hills of Portland called Elk Point, and that it has luscious views. Here's a bit of one, run through the posterizing filter on the Canon to bring out some detail.

Wy'east, a perennial favorite of mine, from a viewpoint I don't usually aspire to. But more on that later.

The Dinosaur Of Maywood Park Is Wise In The Ways Of Mask

3716At the corner of NE 102nd Avenue and Failing Street, on the side of NE 102nd that is actually outside of Portland and inside the small, triangle-shaped City of Maywood Park, there is a house and that house has a multicolored fence made of those slatted window blinds and behind it, there's a bonsai T. Rex, in skeletal form.

You can see it in the below, head above the blue and rose colored ones, and right in front of the chimney.

And maybe it's because the dino has seen some stuff, but they wear that mask with a certain dash.

Take it from someone who knows from extinction.

Wear your damn' mask, Portland.

Wy'east from Aloha, By Mike Warner

3715Here's a photo that I didn't take, that I wish I had, and that I've fallen rather in love with. It's also unusual for this blog's remit in as much it's a photo from the Heavy Westside rather than my beloved Heavy Eastside.

It's made in a place called Aloha, Oregon, which is a place lodged between (and, latterly, divided between) Hillsboro and Beaverton (and which we pronounce uh-LOW-uh, not as they do in the Hawai'ian Islands). It is as far west of the Portland City Center as the western half of Gresham is east. The north-south axis of this area is NW and SW 185th Avenue. And, by road, that's about a 75-mile trip, if you take the starting point as 185th and SW Tualatin Valley Highway, and the destination as Timberline Lodge ... at least, that's what Google Maps thinks.

All the more astounding then that Mike Warner, local news photographer (KATU) brought all this considerable skill to bear to make majestic Mt Hood ... Wy'east ... look as though it was right across the street from the middle of whereever you are in downtown Aloha, Oregon, during an alpenglow evening recently.

Mount Hood from TV Hwy in Aloha
Photo by Mike Warner, used with permission

This is the kind of photo that I've always wanted to take. I both envy ... and admire the skill.

Thank you to Mike Warner for simply being, and for his kind permission in using this photo. His Facebook page, where he posts a great deal of similar wonderfulness, is https://www.facebook.com/photosbymikewarner/

Stop And Go Market, SE 122nd and Lincoln

3714Nothing profound to say about this, except it's just a charming quick-shop that's been along SE 122nd Avenue at Lincoln since, chee, I donno, Pontius was a pilot, or something. They've recently replaced the big sign on top, and that caught my eye, I suppose.

It has a little open-air tacqueria along the left side of the building, because that's how we roll out here in DavidDouglaslandia.

Echoes of Country Along Citified Division Street

3713Outer East Portlandia is still studded with hints of an authentic past that goes beyond the lamented demise of "Old Portland". Out here, in The Numbers, they come in glimpses obscured by trees embedded in the polyglot proletarian atmosphere one only seems to find these days east of I-205, and, as opposed to the old urban areas west of I-205, they tend to carry a decidedly rural aura to them.

On SE Division Street, just west of the light at SE 130th Avenue on the north side of the street, are two such glimpses. I'll not publicize the addresses, but if you were here and driving down Division and just looked, you'd see them, sure enough. Their unforgettability etches them indelibly on the memory.

This house is particularly remarkable for its architectural touch, which I shouldn't have to point out:

I've long admired this house, and how could you not, with that askew corner and the pointed peak? The detail over the front porch is nifty enough on its own and then it gives you this visual jackpot.

It's quite a semi-hidden gem.

This other one, above, is the next-door neighbor. Modest and unremarkable when framed this way, just a small cottage located in a remote wood ... though, of course, it's on one of Portland's most thronging arterials, the road between Oregon's largest city and its fourth-largest, both of which hold more than 100,000 people.

And it's this aspect of it that really lodges in the mind and memory. All this suburban urbanity around it, and here are these two small places that haven't forgotten that they were once outside of town and solidly in the country, the country that once filled the space between Portland and Gresham.

Back when there was space between Portland and Gresham.

Farms Preserved In Amber On Shaver Street

3712I go on about Rossi Farms a lot, but it's really a nifty place. I've never been to an event there, but I know it's a true working farm, now deep in the middle of a major American metropolitan area.

Portland is a city of size, sprawling in its compact, Oregon way, with a population which may well close on 700,000 in the next few years (and close on one million within the city limits by the time I meet my own demise). But here, along 122nd Avenue, is a snippet of the way it was at one time; small farms from 82nd Avenue all the way out past Gresham, instead of unrelenting miles of housing tracts and traffic speedways. Driving the bit of 122nd that passes through the property is always a treat, for more reasons than one.

This last weekend, the Brown Eyed Girl and myself enjoyed a bit of Burgerville while parked on NE Shaver St, the road that bounds the Rossi place on the north, taking in the view of our favorite volcanic mountain. We hadn't been down it very far for a while and, after our mobile meal was finished, she took us farther east down Shaver, interested in the houses down that way, and we were treated to these little bits of time warp.

Because who would ever think to find this sort of thing in the middle of a city like Portland in the year 2020 ...

A working barn, paint peeling but sill in use ...

... and ancient, rusting farm implements of astoundingly, delightfully antique vintage.

They called back, as things do to men my age, a time of youth. I was born and spent my early life, up until just about puberty, in Silverton. I wouldn't call myself a farm boy, not quite, but my early homes were decidedly rural and featured at least one barn. Grandparents on my Mom's side? They were hard-core farm life until my Grandfather passed and Grandma Bitterman had to move to a modest place. Driving down a road and past rusting, parked farm equipment resonates hard.

And not any less so when you drive past the same thing on a suburban street.

Portland Street Blades: Old and Older

3711A picture snapped from the corner of NE 121st Place and Prescott St, near 122nd and a stone's throw from Parkrose High School.

It's interesting to me the way that tattered old sign directing the sojourner down Prescott St ... a local collector into the Parkrose nabe south of Sandy between 102nd and 122nd ... which is duplicated by the not-quite-equally-but-still-obviously-worn, obsolescent 2nd generation Portland street blade atop the corner post, was allowed to stay.

It's seen a lot of depredation.

NE 121st Place holds a place of import locally because, since Sandy Boulevard and NE 122nd Avenue are grade-separated, it forms he connection between Sandy east and west and 122nd's southbound side. The northbound side is accessed to and from Sandy by a jug handle ramp enclosing he Powell Grove Cemetery, a highly unique bit of street geography which I've explored in the past.

Also, there's more than one way to skin that cat; proceeding south past the access ramp to 122nd southbound leads to a connection to a one-block bit of Skidmore at a traffic signal that one can go north or south at.

The I-205 Electronic Sign is Trending

3710Recall that, some weeks back, in the midst of the Great Shutdown, the electronic wayfaring signs over I-205 here in great Outer East Portlandia were suitably attired with efficently-terse warnings about staying home and saving lives.

Well, since we've decided to gradually re-open the world, the signs have gone back to their original duty; displaying the next two exits and the travel-times thereunto. Well, it'll also be noted that, since we've decided to gradually re-open, Covid-19 was patiently standing by and is now having a grand old time getting re-acquainted with everyone. Cases are up, cases per day are up, deaths are trending upwards. The public conversations about re-closing the economy, to some degree or another, have resumed. And the messages on the e-boards have changed, similarly to the way they did in April, just before the doors rang shut.

Only today, the message cycles. The following, captured on I-205 southbound, just past the onramp from Exit 23, as the super slab cruises along behind Rocky Butte.

Part One:

Part Two:

Even in Oregon, I fear, this message is pearls before swine for some.

Wy'East in Surrogate on Division

3709The last several days here in my beloved PDX Metro have been gray and cloudy. And I do like this; I've always preferred the cloudy days to the agressively clear, horizon-to-horizon blue.

However, it does prevent me from seeing my mountain muse, Wy'east. But a billboard company has kind of come to the rescue. Looking down on SE 98th and Division, from above a dodgy quick-shop and gas station, and within sight of the big Division/I-205 mixing bowl, we have a beatific place-holder design on a billboard, which has benevolence designed in.

So, if I can't get my Wy'east fix from 122nd, at least I got it from here, this day.

The lighthouse on the cupola of the Public Storage next door gives a dash of visual simultaneously ironic and romantic, in that commercial suburban business district sort of way.

Bonobo Mart Seems Always Out Of Stock

3708Another place we are habitues of, Discounts Plus provides us with much variety, spice 'o' life, and cheap soda pop and the occasional container of Osem kosher croutons and container of Bisto.

But there is one thing that they've never carried, despite what the sign over the window says. See if you can spot it.

If you haven't seen it yet, let's zoom in. Look between the sign that says TOOLS and the one that says TARPS.

That's right. MONKEYS.

And you know what? They're always out of stock. So aggravating.

One Of The Most Oregon Things You'll Still Ever See

3707There is a thing called dimethlyl sulfoxide. It is, as I learned when I was but a neat thing, is a "solvent degreaser". It was a byproduct of paper manufacture, and we had a paper plant on just about every corner through the 1970s, so it was all over the place. It also has alleged medical properties, and is or maybe was-has-been touted as an 'alternative' treatment for cancer.

Sort of an Oregonized laetrile, if you will.

And there was a time, back in the 1970s, when stores from the drug to the hardware variety, all thoughout northwestern Oregon, would sell it to you. But they couldn't sell it as a drug, because that was illegal. So they solid it as that 'solvent degreaser' that the average home just couldn't do without and it's-a-suppressed-miracle-drug-but-you-didn't-hear-that-from-the-person-behind-the-counter-at-the-Coast-to-Coast-if-you-catch-our-meaning-here.

But, back then, you could find DMSO just about everywhere because, well, power to the people, I guess.

It's hard to find now, not so much because the nanny-state suppressed it but because, just like anything, it's fallen out of style. We've moved on. But there are some places you can find it:

The sign on the top of a local mailbox somewhere around the corner of SE 117th and Market is similar in shape and format to the signs peering out of store windows back in the day beckoning you in for some of that sweet, sweet, DMSO anodyne. Actually, DMSO has some very interesting properties: it is absorbed readily into the skin, and can become thereby a transdermal transport vehicle for some other pharmaceuticals. Also, when you apply it, you taste garlic at the back of your throat because of science science neural transport biochemistry science (hand wave). But it hasn't changed medicine or liberated the peoples thereupon, and, as I've said, we've moved on. Mostly.

The sigh of a The Oregonian paper tube, in this era of a light tabloid daily that isn't even delivered seven days a week any more, just ups the poignancy of years gone by.

A Tarnished Angel On A Side Street

3706This I saw over the last week along the street leading up to the Chez ZehnKatzen...

It is unclear what this Type I's destiny is to be. I've the feeling she's on teh way to some restoration. But she's looking good in her somewhat-rusty glory (and unless you're a real maintenance freak there is no such thing as a vintage VeeDub without rust).

There is this: the house it's parked beside loves VW's as much as I do but has the spare funds to restore them to the glory Gott intended: they have a Type II, split windscreen, and that baby is immaculate. So, certainly good things are in store for this one.

A couple of technical points: the windscreen is curved out, not flat, marking this as 1974 or after (and judging by the obvious wear and tear, which is equivalent to that of Olivia, my '72, it's proabably right around '74 or '75) and the tail light gems are what they call the 'elephant's foot' style, which was '73 and onwards.

Olivia's taillights are the cheerfully-nicknamed "tombstone" style, for what that's worth.