The Lower Level of Oregon City

4154This is a view of the first city of Oregon, Oregon City, from the balcony of the city elevator. The date is March, 2014.

Oregon City began as a town on a fairly narrow shelf between the Willamette River, just downstream from the great falls, and a cliff. It's a unique geography that constrains the feeling one gets in town, and how that town grew, and provided for one of the more unusual municipal structures in America.

 The unusual municipal structure is that Oregon City Elevator. It's free, it's a dedicated public street, it's a gorgeous design (sort of Art Deco mininalist), and its fun to ride and decorated with much history.

And it gives you a view most people go to the trouble to used a drone for.

For all its history and longevity, Oregon City is a modest place. It's got a population of about 37,000 as of 2020, a modest footprint of about 11 square miles, and a small town feel that's terribly convenient to the big town. And the feeling one gets walking in downtown OC is a cozy, charming feeling.

In the distance, over the Willamette River, one can see the Abernathy Bridge, where I-205 crosses the river. This view looks generally north.

The Big Smoke is Thick In Portland City Center Today, and Wildfire Developments

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Today I had an appointment for a taste test group at the OSU Food Innovation Center down on NW Naito Parkway. I can neither confirm or deny that it was in some way related to seafood though I did find all samples rather tasty.

It was worth $50 for showing up, so there's that as well. It's gotten to be a pretty big draw, but it's fun and interesting and they always pay you money for showing up so I recommend Googling that stuff up and getting on the list if you can.

Camera was ready of course because there is a flood of wildfire smoke images accessing the digital image part of the internet and I would be remiss if I did not contribute. Actually, I'm rather counting my blessings: chance could have made me a resident in an area that had to evacuate. Not a desirable outcome, as thousands of people would certainly tell you right now. 

This is downtown Portland as seen from NE Lloyd Blvd just west of Grand Avenue. Usually a very good view. It is a very good view, but of a rather bad thing right now. Taking in a homeless camp just makes the whole thing of a piece.

The air quality is atrocious, akin to just sticking an unsmoked cigarette in your bronchial tubes.

And this is the Lloyd District as seen from the Banfield Freeway (I-84), on approach to that area from the east:

As scary as yesterday's sky was, I'd prefer it to this.

Developments we've heard since yesterday:

• The town of Detroit was largely burned to the ground
• Mill City got smacked but not as hard as originally thought
• The towns along the Cascade Piedmont in Marion County ... Silverton, Mt. Angel, Sublimity, Stayton, still remain on Level 2 evac status, one move away from having to leave
• More than half of Clackamas County is now on Level 3 status: this includes Molalla and Estacada, and most of the way along Highway 213 down to the Marion County line at the Pudding River. 
• All the major towns in Clackamas County - Canby, Oregon City, Gladstone - are also on Level 2 evac alerts. 

[pdx] 1 Elevator Street, Oregon City, Oregon

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In Oregon City, an elevator is something other than else.

The history of the elevator goes way, way back, and the legend goes something like this: as the city developed, this legend goes, the early OCans made do with the trails that the original inhabitants used to get between the bench and the bluff. That wouldn't fly over the long term, of course. Eventually, funds were raised for a more civilized way up the hill.

The first elevator, which went into operation about 1915, was a water-powered contraption, very business-like, matter-of-fact, practical, and plain. You got up and got down and got about your business. In the mid 1950's, though, the current version - which is done in a combination of what I understand to be Art Deco and a Space-Age style somewhat appropriate to The Jetsons, possibly inspired a little by Metropolis, was built and went into service. And this is what we have now.

The entry is a tunnel leading below the railroad tracks from this nifty façade at the intersection of 7th and Railroad Streets, just one block away from the end of the Arch Bridge (Downtown OC is defined by three N-S streets, and is only two blocks wide).

The crow's-nest observation deck is about 130 feet up, and has the nifty look of a alien spaceship from some 1950s B-monster SF flick.

You can fly me anytime, baby.

The elevator is really a conventional elevator, which is unique because Oregon City employs an elevator operator. He (today it was a he) sits on a small stool behind a plexi partition and works the buttons, is generally a nice host-y presence.

Being a map aficionado, the floor of the deck had a great thing for me to see. That, of course, would be … a map. Quelle suprise.

A plat map (a plat is the term of art of the original town street design on the ground, whether the streets actually get built or not) from the original OC was adapted into a design for the floor of the deck. Brown blocks for the lower level; green blocks for the upper.

The 'wooly-worm' design that denotes the bluff is known by cartographers as a hachure, and in this case is mostly symbolic, but is a rather rustic way of indicating slopes. In more technical representations, the length and width of the hachure indicates the slope and direction of slope; much as you can tell how sheer a hill is by the spacing of the contour lines on a modern relief map, knowing how to read a hachure gives you a graphical glimpse-idea of the terrain.

The crow's nest design of the deck allows historic Oregon City to show herself off at her sexiest.

All about, the deck (and the tunnel below) are lined with an ingenious historical display. Each photo is a layered thing: a modern view, a historic view, and a wide panorama of the falls. Due to the same effect that allowed a kids eye to wink at you in those toys that had the corrugated plastic, that gave a kind of animation effect, the exhibits designers packed a time panorama into a series of well-curated panels.

The below I selected because, well, vintage street signs, and the kind of finger-directional signs we used to grow around here, a style which existed well into the 1960s.

The art-deco touch even extends to the well-chosen typography, which is drawn from the past's idea of what the future would be. Of particular note is the low waistline on the font, which can be noted in the R, E, and G, and the absolute geometric perfection of the forms. The Art-Decoish feel to the facade just reinforces the retro-future feel.

The tunnel leading to the lower entry to the elevator is a great place to play your songs, as this guy working it showed us. He didn't seem to be busking, just playing to hear himself play. He was quite skillful and very much into it.

I love tunnels. They're fun to photograph and the neat thing about it is you can take it for where you are or it can be anywhere. They're great for fantasizing and getting lost in your own visions.

And from this Art Deco treasure, you can see the other.

[pdx] Travelogue: Downtown Oregon City (another photo essay w/words scattered about)

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The perambulations of yesterday, as I may have intimated (and if I didn't, I'm doing so here), included a rather extensive leg up and down Main Street in downtown Oregon City.

The lower levels, as they called 'em back in the day.

Downtown Oregon City is a cozy place.

It's shimmed between the river on one side and the bluff on the other. In this rift is a very cozy neighborhood with some pretty vibrant businesses and lovely architecture. On this mid-Sunday afternoon, typically a sleepy time in Oregon cities of any size, there were a bustling pizzeria and a hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place, both doing good business.

As to the architecture, this building - labelled COMMERCE BANK and hosting and Edward D. Jones stock broker's office on the ground level - has survived a bit more than a century. That space-age thing against the bluff is Oregon City's famed Municipal Elevator, of which more later. This picture was taken at the corner of 7th and Main Streets.

The street fronting onto the river is McLoughlin Blvd, a part of Oregon Highway 99E, the major artery down the east side of the Willamette Valley. At this point it's an arterial taking you past and around the end of downtown. Center here is the old Clackamas County Courthouse, to which we will return.

Like I said, cozy place.

A view downstream on the Willamette from the middle of the Arch Bridge, which one gets on by going to the corner of 7th and Main and heading west. It's hard to miss how narrow the river is at this point, especially if one is used to its full-bore majesty north and south of this place. In the distance is the Abernathy Bridge, the one that carries Interstate 205 over the Willamette as it strikes out for SE Portland.

Now, while we were viewing the above, we couldn't help but notice a distance barking of … seals? Yes, there were seals there. And zooming in to the max with my Canon, this is the best view we could get:

Note the small black pips there more or less at the center of the shot. We could just make out the bobbing of heads.

Seals. Pinnipeds in the Willamette.

A view back down the bridge gives a clear idea of how the bridge leads into the center of downtown …

… and this one from the crow's nest of the elevator looking down at Arch Bridge and the vicinity of the eastern approach. Downtown OC's so snugly packed it gets lost down there. Lovely small-town architecture.

Between the River and the Rails …

There are a great many placards of all sorts in downtown Oregon City. This is a place that's proud of its history and doesn't want you to miss any of it. Tough to get lost there … even if you look down, there's a signpost telling what's nearby.

Singer Falls? We'll get there.

The Clackamas County Courhouse is a thing of muscular beauty. It, along with the rest of downtown, is cozy; Clackamas County is to be admired for maintaining a courthouse which is, by reputation, a bit small for the county's needs (a great deal of county admin happens at the south end of town, an area known by the locals as The Hilltop. In Oregon City, geography is all).

It occupies most of the block on Main Street between 8th and 9th. in the above POV, taken from 8th and Main, the foreground has an obelisk from the Arch Bridge before it was renovated, crediting the visionary who created the bridge's design, as well as many arched bridges along the Oregon coast … Conde B. McCulloch. Think reverently of him whenever you cross the bay at Newport.

The details of the building suggest the sort of project initiated during the Great Depression to get men back to work. The details are Art Deco and very representative of the artistic styles popular at that time as I'm familiar with them. The typography above is worth the price of admission right there.

A couple of photos back I noted a geographic feature I'd not unto then heard of: Singer Falls. I only knew of one falls associated with Oregon City. Well, there are two, and here's the other … Singer Falls:

Singer Falls. According to lore, Singer Creek once flowed from the upper level and came down the face of the bluff as a stream. Like many small streams in Oregon's larger towns, it's been largely culverted. This part, however, has been channeled into this chute, which is Singer Falls. The staircase that climbs the bluff crosses the stream, and it's all landscaped very nicely where the two cross. Worth the climb.

Fear and loathing in The OC? Nah. Just the van belonging to the tattoo shop that's across the street from the courthouse.

Say what you want about Oregon City, if they have tattoo shops near the courthouse, it can't be all that uncool.

It's very walkable down there. Cute little alleys between buildings beckon.

The best angle on the Arch Bridge we can get off main street, and framed by not only by nature but the constructions of man.

And, as a coda, detected at last, evidence of Democrats in Clackamas County. As a fellow Democrat, I feel for them. Judging by the sorts of people who get elected down that way, they have a hard job pretty much all the time.

But, when you can show off a Senator Jeff Merkley-autographed lawns sign, then things can't be all that bad.

This is Merkley Country, yo. Represent.

I was surprised by a lot I found there. Downtown Oregon City really is kind of a spiffy, tidy place (not one, but three hobby stores down there, and two furniture stores, as well as a video production company). It's a real gem, tucked down where you'll miss it if you don't take the time to look.

Maybe they're trying to keep it a secret.