3854
I can't stop taking pictures of Downtown Portland's skyline like I can't stop taking pictures of Wy'east. It's one of my favorite things and every time I do it it's like writing a quick love note to my hometown.
I will say without reservation, still, the Wells Fargo tower ... which I still think of as the First National Bank Tower ... is amongst the most beautiful. I can see beauty in the minimalism, the stark, no-nonsense thrust for the sky. To see so many newjack towers bunch up against it is a strangeness, though. Even though I was born in Silverton and didn't settle in Portland until '85, achieving a long-sought dream, there's been enough new stuff and I've been in town long enough that I'm feeling that sense of displacement that people in a certain age cohort feel at a certain time in the collective history.
Downtown no longer has the things in it ... the cheap eats, the art stores (save Blick) and the book stores (save Powell's, and with the current demise of the Coffee Room as a place to burn some hours on a bookstore night) that used to call us. The pandemic is a big factor, but as the money moved it, it seems the good stuff has moved on.
I shouldn't get too distracted there; I still see elements of the downtown me and the Brown Eyed Girl so adored in there, and she keeps saying how we should go down, walk around, and see what we can discover. What can I say - I'm game. And when things aren't so panedmic-y, we shall.
As the title of this episode suggests, I have more to say. It involves zooming out on this frame, taken on NE Lloyd Blvd just a block or so east of NE Grand Ave, in the shadow of Metro's headquarters, and we'll explore that in the very next episode, so away shall we go.
3855 or bust, campers!
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