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Well, we've had about two years now to get our psyches into the idea of a sixth address 'quadrant' (the CoP loves the word sextant but we do not) called South encompassing that long shim of land between a line made up of SW Naito Parkway and SW View Point Terrace on the west and the Willamette River on the east, and we must admit ... we're still not entirely there.
We loved the zero-hundreds, the city-termed leading zero addresses. Of all the quirks a city could come up with to deal with the reality that their west-east division south of the north-south baseline not behaving itself and dawdling off to the east, this was the most charming and the most local. We also, with all charity and no necessary malice, don't entirely buy the reasons the city had for making this change.
But all that's as may be. The decision was decided and the thing has taken its course. Personally, while I like it not, go along with it I will (I mean, it's not as though I have a choice), and have made my peace with it by watching the process and consoling myself with the knowledge that I'm watching the most consequential city address rationale change since the very Great Renaming itself. That was 1931. Almost 90 years is a long run.
In honor of this suspicious occasion, my online friend Michael Long, every bit as much of an Address Nerd as I am, has dubbed this "Asbury Barbur Day", in honor of the man who gave us an unbroken thing that the City o'Portland, in the way cities are time and oft wont to do, strove to fix.
If the name sounds familiar, it should; that great southwestern gateway to Portland, SW Barbur Boulevard, is eponymous of him. Ironically, the easternmost curl of Barbur, that part east of View Point Terrace and generally between SW Hamilton St and the ramp that sends northbound traffic down Naito Parkway will be ... South Barbur Blvd.
Because if there's anything we Portlanders are, it's consistent as hell.
And so it goes.
We loved the zero-hundreds, the city-termed leading zero addresses. Of all the quirks a city could come up with to deal with the reality that their west-east division south of the north-south baseline not behaving itself and dawdling off to the east, this was the most charming and the most local. We also, with all charity and no necessary malice, don't entirely buy the reasons the city had for making this change.
But all that's as may be. The decision was decided and the thing has taken its course. Personally, while I like it not, go along with it I will (I mean, it's not as though I have a choice), and have made my peace with it by watching the process and consoling myself with the knowledge that I'm watching the most consequential city address rationale change since the very Great Renaming itself. That was 1931. Almost 90 years is a long run.
In honor of this suspicious occasion, my online friend Michael Long, every bit as much of an Address Nerd as I am, has dubbed this "Asbury Barbur Day", in honor of the man who gave us an unbroken thing that the City o'Portland, in the way cities are time and oft wont to do, strove to fix.
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| Photo courtesy of Michael Long; used with permission |
If the name sounds familiar, it should; that great southwestern gateway to Portland, SW Barbur Boulevard, is eponymous of him. Ironically, the easternmost curl of Barbur, that part east of View Point Terrace and generally between SW Hamilton St and the ramp that sends northbound traffic down Naito Parkway will be ... South Barbur Blvd.
Because if there's anything we Portlanders are, it's consistent as hell.
And so it goes.
- Michael Long is a smart fella of much ilk and geographical knowledge and Portland history, and his Facebook feed is hither and hence.
- My long-time PDX blogging colleague Isaac Laquedem has a nice thumbnail of Asbury Barbur and his life the original Portland address nerd here: https://www.isaaclaquedem.com/2016/12/asbury-barbur-1861-1941-who-told-you-where-you-are.html.
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