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... and no, its not a brand new thing. But it is a thing which struck me of having some big-town weight all of a sudden, when I stood back to look at it, this day.
Once upon a time, both 25 years ago but also a hundred million, the area where the east end of the Burnside Bridge tied into the street grid ... the corner of MLK and E Burnside ... there was homeless men's service center called Baloney Joe's. And there was a building that was famous for being in a state of semi-renovation, the Bridgeport Hotel; about five floors of disused building and three or four more floors of just steel girder frame, and the big question was, would anything ever come of that.
Well, come forward a quarter-century and hundreds of millions of developer dollars, and we have our answer. Fashionable renovations, if-you-have-to-ask-you-cant-afford-it apartment high-rises, and a complete obliteration of what-was-once-was in favor of what-it-now-is. And now, in a place where we once fretted there'd be a Home Depot (seriously, that's what they once had envisioned for the block bounded by MLK/Couch/Burnside/NE 3rd) we have been bowled over by what now looks like a second downtown, or a shiny new business district any town of 75,000 to 100,000 would be thrilled to call their own (even with the Fair-Haired Dumbell).
Once, just a homeless shelter and a handful of old buildings with furniture stores. Now, same planet ... but a different world.
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