Big Pink From The West End Of The Burnside Bridge

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This is a picture that I've taken before and perhaps have even posted versions of before here. This is coming off the Burnside Bridge, effectively over Naito Parkway, so we're about 5 blocks east of Big Pink, approximately only 1/4 mile.

Our skyscraper now dwarfs the surrounds, well exceeding the visual weight of the West Hills just beyond. The coloring that gives it its nickname stands out a little better. Its importance to the Portland skyline is obvious now.

It stands at the north end of Portland's historic downtown core, and, as such, has a lot of older Portland buildings around it, unlike the Wells Fargo tower about three-quarters of a mile south along the same street, which is surrounded by a waist-high forest of newer towers. Big Pink stands out more. 

And coming down into downtown down the gradual slope of the west end of the Burnside Bridge is also a fun feeling. I never tire of it.

That's the third part of the triptych, and thank you for following me downtown. Maybe soon we'll make this trek back to Powells, as we used to do so regularly. Things need to heal up a bit more, though, I guess.

Big Pink from East 32nd Avenue

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This is the view of our objective from where 32nd crosses East Burnside, the eastern gateway to the Laurelhurst neighborhood.

Between the last photo and this, The Burn flattened out from 60th until 47th. At 47th, the road dips and goes into the grove of trees that are a trademark of shady, leafy Laurelhurst, and the Burnside does a little bit of a sway. It straightens out quickly after it crosses César E Chávez, and being at the brow of another slope provides another bit of advantageous topography.

I really hate that car in front of us. Spoilt an otherwise perfect shot. But there it is, hail Eris. Visible also in front of Big Pink there is the newly-built 5MLK building, at the corner of SE Grand and The Burn, which looks immediately adjacent due to foreshortening but is actually on the same side of the Willamette as we are at this point.

Next photo closes the rest of this gap.

Big Pink from East 60th Avenue

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One thing I have never gotten tired of, having come through life from Silverton to Salem to Portland, is the sight of skyscrapers.

I absolutely love them. Besotted, you might say.

And one of the best things about them is the advancing view one gets from a distance. They seem truly majestic. 

Case in point.

I give you the USBancorp tower here in Portland, At 532 feet in height and 42 stories, it's the second-tallest building in Portland (and, thus, Oregon). Its footprint is that of a parallellogram, the west and east fronts being parallel with SW 5th and 6th Avenues and the north and south fronts with West Burnside. It respects its geography. Since Burnside runs a straight line between the east side and west, and the terrain is advantageous in more than one spot west of the shoulder of Mount Tabor, you get to see it get closer and closer as you do.

This, for starters, is the view down East Burnside from its intersection with E. 60th Avenue*

Straight ahead and on the left is our quarry. The color of the building itself has lent the name Big Pink to it, and since USBancorp really isn't much there anymore, it's a better name to call it, anyway.

This was lensed at about three miles out from ground zero (20 blocks to the mile). The next photo will about halve that.

* Since the directional changes at Burnside, there has, in my personal writings, been a convention to use both directionals, e.g. NE/SE 60th, but I've never liked the awkwardness of it. A convention has developed to simplify it to, in this case, "E 60th Ave", and this is one that TriMet has used for its MAX stations along Burnside for years, and it has a schematic simplicity to it as well as harkens back to when numbered streets east of the Willamette were simply referred to, south of the Burn, as "E", so I too will be adopting it from henceforth. This will be in references to intersections with E Burnside only.

Southeast Ash And Grand, 2017

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Just an inner-eastisde street scent, Southeast Grand at Ash, looking west. The big building is, of course, Big Pink; one block away, on the right there, a Salvation Army building; visible along the left side of the frame, that old architecture which gave East Portland (and this is part of the original city of East Portland, when there was such a thing) its charm and continues to inform it in a low, slow tone.

 

Also visible in the picture that you don't see so often now: parked cars and people.