21st Century Man, or: My Future, And Welcome To It

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This missive, and this picture, document (or attempt to) a singular emotion. 

Life moves past you at an odd clip. It's not constant. And it seems gradual, until that moment it's not. 

I'm aging. I don't make an issue of what my exact age is; if you read enough of my rattling, I'm sure you can reason it out. But it's sunk in that I've been around a while, and despite being born in Silverton and spending my teens and twenties around Salem and Corvallis, I've been a Portlander the majority of my life now (the implications vis a vis lifespan I'll not dwell on for the moment, if it's alright with y'all).

I've seen changes, is what I'm saying. The town I fell in love with as a kid and commenced a long process of killing myself to become a local in has become, fulsomely, a fundamentally different place.

Dig, if you will, this picture.

If you go to the riverside esplanade just the other side from Naito Parkway of the Waterfront Pearl condos, you go to the north end of that walk, which is as far as it goes (for now), and you look southwest, you see the above view. 

The street intersection is NW Naito Parkway and NW 9th Av.

I spoke of changes. I used to work in this area at a building that still stands where NW 15th and Thurman merge and cross the railroad tracks, just across from where NW Naito Parkway reverts to its seminal name, NW Front Av. I doubt that anyone living now in the condo tower forest that has spread from the Main Post Office building to that point can even envision that it was once a rather vacant urban wasteland; a big rail yard. I still remember. My office left that area around 2005; from our offices windows we watched the steady encroachment of development. Not even I figured it would get that far but there it is, now.

There were comics when I was a kid, where the protagonist would be projected into the future. They'd look around, gobstopped in wonder, as they viewed great glittering futuristic towers, sided in glass and shining steel, some with curving, sculpted sides and they'd stare agape at architectures they could only just comprehend.

As I looked at those buildings from that point on that day, a certain emotion started in my head and reached down and took hold of my heart, and I realized that I was that guy. This was still Portland. I still grokked the geography. But something that was, within my adult memory, acres of vacant lots and rail yard had become this hulking, crowded thing.

Same planet, but a different world. And I was aware of it, as though it was, for a moment, a palpable thing, a thing that could be held in my hand.

Parents have had this feeling, in their times and ways. Our collective descendants will have the same experience, Anthropogenically-induced environment change-willing. 

And now, I guess, it's my turn.

Northwest Portland, 2021

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Just a picture of the skyline of (mostly, now) residential inner NW Portland taken from the east end of the Steel Bridge. 

Yeah, this is one of those it's a whole new world now maunderings. 

About the only things that remain recognizable from before the year 2000 are the brick red apts down in front there, which date from the 1980s, and the iconic Union Station clock tower with its legendary GO BY TRAIN sign on the right. Thi high rise on the left, the shorter gabled roofs of the apartment silos to the right of that, indeed, all the lower roofs that seem to now cluster around Union Station's tower were, up through most of the 1990s, a rail yard that seemed ... well, eternal. 

The massive development in that area didn't seem so galloping when it was happening. I worked in that area, and it was most gradual. 

Those rearview mirrors really do make things look closer than they appear, don't they?

The Hull Of Norm Thompson

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Throwback for the day, year 2007, number two.

Norm Thompson. An escape from the ordinary. Sold outdoorsy stuff to upscale shoppers; kind of like an L.L. Bean, only Oregonized. Local until the times changed and it got sold to a big company which sold it to a bigger company which relocated it piece by piece to the east coast until now it's just like Henry Wienhard's and Rainier Beer and Steinfield's and Nalley's: historically Oregon brands that are just some nameplate to be sold back and forth. 

At the time the majority of the company was still here in Oregon but its landmark main store, which was for a very long time on NW Thurman between 18th and 19th Avenues, was left behind as Norm consolidated its operations out in the Tanasbourne area of Hillsboro along Aloclek Drive. 

It had been vacant at this point for some years ... remember, the wave of money and building hadn't gotten as far north as Thurman Street yet, in 2007. And when Norm Thompson left for Hillsboro, in 1995 or so, it took the veneer of the old building along with it, revealing the work that it covered.

Now, it's just ordinary. 

NW Thurman Street in 2007

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And now, a few throwback-images. These next three from 2007 ...

In 2007, the place I work for was based in industrial Northwest Portland ... well, it was then. I remember walking around getting a breath of Stadt luft on lunch breaks and such, wandering the edge of the rail yards when they were rail yards and not full of condo silos, and such. Of all the talk of old Portland evolving into new Portland and the Manhattanization of the city center, I must say that from my temporal viewpoint I got to watch development slowly creep that direction like rising sea levels from climate change.

I guess I should have known that the landscape was really about to change when the old tire warehouse across the street became a Montessori school. I wonder if the Dandy Warhol's clubhouse is still in the area and if it is ... congratulations to them. The lease on that thing must be astronomical by now. Courtney Taylor Taylor may have had to sell off one of his Taylors. 

Times are tough all around.

What I lay before you here is a view eastward down NW Thurman Street, looking from NW 19th Avenue. In those days, after hours, nobody went there. Then, eventually some people went there. Now everyone goes there. 

But then? This part of Thurman used to be a through-route with businesses and a tavern or two. In 2007, it was still something of a commercial interregnum.

Just ahead on the right was a place called Premier Gear Works, a commercial machine shop. I understand it's removed to Tualatin or somesuch, maybe Clackamas, I dunno. And it was so deserted that I could stand in the middle of this street pretty much as long as I wanted and compose to my heart's content on that old ViviCam 3705 (3.3 Mpx!) and not be in any danger from any traffic whatsoever. Up and above all this are the ramps tying I-405 and US 30 to the Fremont Bridge.

A thing that was already a relic at that time is just out of shot on the left. And that's something I will exhibit in the next entry.

[pdx_liff] Old Town Portland Sightlines

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Devoted here to my love of looking as far as I can down a street and getting lost in the view.

This one, a look west down NW Glisan Street, from NW 6th Avenue:

And this one, looking south on NW 5th Avenue from NW Glisan Street:

Stage your favorite Leverage scene, fans. Remember, in Seasons 1-4, this was actually Boston, but we all knew it was really New Boston … Portland, I mean. 

[pdx_art] Art Nouveau M.S. Awareness Mural, NW 6th Avenue, Old Town

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Also seen in Old Town last week during our sojourn there, this mural in an awesome dead-on Art Nouveau style:

This is the first and only time I've ever seen Multiple Sclerosis awareness displayed so gorgeously, and with such style. An artist rubricked Lydia Emily painted it in 2015, and I pay all due respect. It's most lovely.

If you're in Portland, you can see it on NW 6th Avenue at Flanders Street. overlooking the small parking lot on the NE corner.

If you're not in Portland, just look at the photograph.

[pdx] Photos on Sunday: Underwater at Powell's Books

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Sunday was for Powell's. I will never doubt how lucky I am to be a Portlander.

Those of you who are, as I am, luckier than most, know something of the nabe it's in. It's as urban as Oregon gets. Vistas of city as far as you can stretch; from the parking garage entry on NW 11th Avenue …

… to the increasingly Manhattan-y views afforded by the streets. This is looking north up NW 11th Avenue:

… a view that, to my perception, reminds me of my idea of what the Upper East Side of Manhattan looks like. These used to be working blocks; Blitz Weinhard used to call this area home. Blitz is gone, most of its brands being made from 2002-2012 out in Hood River by Full Sail Brewing, but since then, brewed … oh, who cares, really?

If you aren't drinking, Widmer, you aren't drinking true Oregon beer, son. That discussion ends here. 

But it is what it is, and it is what we have it, and what we have now at NW 11th and Couch is this:

Which, admittedly, makes for a pretty nifty building shot. So, no complaints about that.

Looking south on this selfsame block of NW 11th you see some authentic Portland.

Up ahead, on the right, is an old building which holds one of Portland's more popular nightspots, the Fez ballroom. Kind of a Crystal Ballroom before the McMenamins got a hold of it. Goth, punk, all sorts of things there. Top floors. Just ahead of that, on the farther right, is one of the last SRO hotels in this part of town: the Joyce Hotel. The kind of place that's still for the down'n'outers and the folks on their last pins.

That whole area of town, between Burnside and Stark, going from about SW 10th Avenue west to where Burnside and Stark met, was a paradox. Some of the seediest territory you ever wanted to avoid but still somehow so compelling you couldn't stay out. Some of the biggest gay clubs in Portland were there; the Club Portland, at SW 12th and Burnside, was legendary, and I'm betting the renovating of that building into the McMenamins' Crystal Hotel was nothing short of harrowing … I imagine it was like Forrest Gump's box 'o' choklits, except that not only did you not know what you were gonna git, you didn't want to see it.

Strange, isn't it, that the most intimidating things are the things that are the most brimming with life and energy and vivre? I think the key is to remember that most of life is really unknown, so, thusly, there's no point in being frightened by the unknown.

Farther ahead the street grid bends, as you see by the angle of that high-rise in the far distance. That's another reason why this corner of town is nifty. This is where the street grid angles. I've always liked travelling down streets that go through changes like that; not only are the street junctions interesting as hell, I've always gotten a kick out of the idea that when I turn, a whole lot of geography has to follow.

A cab unloading a passenger selling boxes of books to Powell's. An Oregonian like me looks at this and sees New York in it somehow. Must have been all those Odd Couple episodes I watched as a kid. Past, as always, is prologue.

Anything promising a dryer Powell's works for me. Hell, anything that promises decades more of Powell's works for me.

Specifically, they're remodelling. If you've been down there any time within the last couple of months, you've seen it. The old entry at 10th and West Burnside has been completely closed and its advanced stage of remodelling is obvious from the street. That corner of the block, the south east quarter, is the oldest part of Powell's. We shouldn't be surprised if it was leaking from the roof, though the idea of leaks in that hallowed place is an atrocity.

And inside, some of the lights in the ceiling are temporary …

… giving one the sense that one is in a submarine … a frigg'n awesome submarine …

… that happens to be the size of a building and full of books and books and books.

Going down, yo.