You Down With OCC? Yeah, You Know Me

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The Oregon Convention Center is a remarkable structure, memorable for the two glass spires which pierce the center of the structure. Built in 1989 and opened in 1990 (yes, it's now more than thirty years old ... one supposes that makes it a Millennial) for about 15 years it was the only remarkable landmark in that area and was so visually pleasing that small square signs iconized it for the purposes of semantic guidance.

If one stands at the east end of the Steel Bridge, where eastbound vehicle traffic debouches onto about two and a half blocks of NE Oregon Street, you can frame things just so, and come up with this view ...

If one looks at the directional sign above and on the right, one will see a washed-out square, and that is one of those iconized directional signs mentioned earlier. They, like the signs on the gantry themselves, have been neglected as this is not really that important a through-route anymore. If you want to get to the Lloyd District and its surrounds from inner NW Portland, you're more than likely going to be using the Broadway Bridge, the next one north. However, it does serve as a somewhat forlorn monument to a past that had this as a major connection to North Interstate Avenue ... and a time when the major destination in the area was the Memorial Coliseum, because there was no Rose Garden Arena/Moda Center yet. 

That colorful building on the left there? That's a TriMet facility that I'll use a number of blog entries to explore the artwork on ... but not yet. Soon though, very soon.