News Lane, Seattle, 2010

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Another thing that leapt to the fore as I was reviewing (and, it must be said, pining a bit) over the photos I took in Seattle in 2010 on me and the Brown Eyed Girl's 20th marriage anniversary.

I was, of course, out for interesting street names and signage. That should go without saying by now but it ups my logorrheic quotient so here I am for you.

Here, in August of 2010, was a sign that struck my fancy on more than one level.

This was taken at, as near as I can determine, where News Lane crosses Pike Street. The named alley (that's all it is really) runs between 1st an 2nd Avenues. It's quite close to the famous Public Market. 

Any connection to any news, organization or otherwise, had left the Lane long ago. While the old P-I building is in the area, that might have been a coincidence, for all I knew. Or know.

Here's an angle on the street itself, looking south from Pike:

I could have a fugitive-drama or hard-boiled story set here. I'm getting heavy Harry In Your Pocket vibes. I'm charmed by the toy-camera fade out on the margins, which is a thing of mystery because I took this with the legendary ViviCam 3705, which wasn't that sophisticated.

This is a view looking north.

The only question on my mind about this photo is which cross street I was at when I took it. The angle on the building at the far end of the way indicates it's at Stewart Street, where the grid pivots to follow the bay short, and with only about block's distance, this should be at Pine Street. I also recall begnning to be very tired from walking all over Seattle's downtown, enjoying the views, but in terribly inappropriate shoes. An additional block, even going from Pike to Pine, would have been intimidating at that point. Yet the visual information leaves me no other reasonable alternative to assume.

We're planning on seeing the Oregon Coast later this year and making up for the fact that our 30th anniversary came during a pandemic year with about a dozen other centrifugal forces messing everything up. But do I want to be with her in Seattle at least one more time? Yes, Yes I do.

Current searches of the area on Google Street View show no evidence of the blade, though it is still noted as such on Google Maps.

Seattle From The Space Needle, August 2010

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I accidentally took a detour into a certain folder for reasons only my psyche knows right now. 

It's August 2010, and me and the Brown Eyed Girl were in Seattle. It was our 20th wedding anniversary. It was the kind of adventure that we have far too infrequently, and we wanted to do something similar for last year - our 30th - but last year was shit on more than one level, for the world and for us personally.

But then, in August 2010, the world was still pretty bright and shiny, and she wanted, amongst other things, to show me what it was like travelling to Seattle on rail, something she did as a child to see relatives. And, me, well, I've always been kind of fond of Seattle ... well, as much as a Portland chauvinist can be.

The old ViviCam 3705, in all its 3.2 MPx glory, recorded some stuff. Ought to go back with the camera I have now, we ought. Hell, we ought to just go back. I owe her that much.

This is the ol' Plastic Fantastic recording a much-recorded view: downtown Seattle, dusk encroaching, Tahoma/Mt Rainier dominating the horizon in that dominating way it dominates. It's a brute of a mountain, broad-shouldered, blunt, and massive where Wy'east is delicately drawn and modestly-positioned. I will say I prefer my home volcano, but Tahoma is certainly nothing to scoff at (as is true with its potential lahars)

Seattle is an improbable city to me. Skyscrapers that are much too tall stand rocksolid on downtown hills that are far too steep to hold them, but somehow they do; a massive city on a narrow neck of land. To this simple provincial, it's a place that's bewildering as it is pretty.

I'd like to go back and visit again. We have a deferred celebration to think of.

Downtown Portland From The Ross Island Bridge, Then and Now

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In this posting on the 17th I shared a photo I took in April 2010 of downtown Portland from the vantage point of the east end of the Ross Island Bridge, and it struck me how amazing it was to see it without the Tilikum Crossing Bridge there. I figured it was past time to get an updated picture of this, to document the change.

This has been done. And here is the result.

This day it was warm, in the upper 60s, and the high overcast was nacre-like, in contrast to the gray low-overcast of the 2010 pic. It diffused the light a great deal and I was not able to get contrast on many of the buildings that I wanted. But the difference is pretty striking, I think.

I mean, that new bridge there. 

In a book very close to my heart, Ursula K LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, the main character, George Orr is described as living in a Portland that, instead of going the way we did, doubled and tripled down on the growth, had become a moribund city of millions with subways and innumerable bridges across the Willamette. We, as I said, didn't go quite that way, but the multiplying ways to get across the river make me think of the picture of the Portland-yet-to-come that she drew. 

I mean, what a difference 11 years makes. This was just in 11 years, there seems to have been more change and more change more faster than in the thirty years previous. Nearly asymptotic, really.

The Steel Bridge, April, 2010

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This was taken the same day the previous entry's was, too; end of April, 2010, this being Portland's venerable Steel Bridge as seen from the parking structure at NW Naito Parkway between Couch and Davis. Beyond that, the Louis-Dreyfus grain dock. 

The framing of the picture probably means that you could take the same shot and it wouldn't look terribly different.

The Sign of All The Times

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Another throwback edition from the dearly departed Kodak: the landmark Portland, Oregon sign looking down upon the Japanese-American Historical Plaza and the Burnside Bridge of 2010.

For lease, navidad.