Coming Soon To Powell's: The Sworn Enemy of Florin

4011

One of the biggest, straight-up, sheerest heartbreaking disappointments of the plague time was the total unravelling of the weekly date-night I loved to call Book Church.

The scene, as I've hinted at elsewhen, was the Coffee Room at Powell's City of Books. Such a wonderful thing they had there; coffee, people browsing over the cool books they found, coffee, the occasional visit with and by Arnold Drake World, the paper flower guy, coffee, the weekly "Go" playing crowd, coffee, the Brown Eyed Girl, and coffee. And soooo many books. It was a kind corner of the world and in it we lived our best lives. 

I know Powell's just thought of it as a corner of their building. Sure, Powell's, you do you. 

Anyway, with the coming of the pandemic and the contraction of business everywhere, even Powells closed up tight. No place to go on our date-night. No place to soak up the city life, drink coffee, enjoy good books. Barren? You bet.

The pandemic, in its way, is still with us. Maybe we have, collectively, acclimated (not that it's become less lethal, mind). The commercial world seems to have been evolving back toward some semblance of what it once was, and this last weekend was the closest we had to a Classic Weekend in nearly two years: 

• Time at the library
• Time shopping for art supplies (IBF!)
• ... and time spent in Powells.

Now, at Powell's, even the Pearl Room, one of the many rooms of my personal temple, is open again. I need to browse Aisle 940 even if I don't wind up buying anything. Part of my soul lives there, it must.

And, soon, coffee will be available in the Coffee Room again, for this is what it looks like, now:

The mystery and suspense novels, whose shelves are still there, are separated by a temporary wall from the area being redone.

Did I want to push through that door? You bet. Just to get a glimpse. The exterior windows are papered over too, so no joy to be had there.

A sign on the wall going in, you'll see it if you refer the first picture above, tells you the intended tenant. I've mentioned it before here, I thing. Guilder Cafe. That's Guilder, as in The Princess Bride, as in THE SWORN ENEMY OF FLORIN. They have a website here, and it's purest Portland. At the end of the "About us" page they state "We want you to consider it your second home, and welcome you into our extended family and hope to be welcomed into your family." which bodes well for something we hope to make into a regular destination.

And, at the end of every page on their website, the simple declaration:

It sure seems like a good fit. 

This Picture Really Sucks

3946

This should go amongst one of the Portlandest pictures ever. For reference, this is facing westbound at the corner of NE Grand Avenue and Couch St.

Stark's Vacuums is one of that vanishing breed of quintessential Portland purveyors of commerce that is not only as Portland AF but also has survived through generations; 2022 will mark Stark's 90th year in business. If you wanted a really good Covid-era face mask, you've been there latterly. If you want a great vacuum, you will go there. And if you're not near this one, there are nine locations scattered across the Portland Metro area.

This particular one has been kind of the Home Office of the company. This, NE Grand and Couch, is the location that holds their renowned Vacuum Museum, which once occupied the windows looking out onto Couch you can see in the photo, but has been moved to another part of the building as the Couch side has been made into another leasable space.

Looking at what's been written about that Vacuum Museum, you get an idea that
vacuums aren't just something Stark's is good at selling. This outfit is scary serious about them. But, then again, Portland's always been good at being intense about things long before they're cool; Stark's was rocking vacuums back with 'Dyson sphere' was just something SF writers and astrophysicists talked about. They also have the best damn logo anybody ever came up with for a vacuum cleaner company, and I will fight you on this.

This picture sucks. But totally in the best possible way.

The Portland Immigrant Of The Year Plaque Is A Little Out Of Date

3900

Just pointing this out, not making any judgements. 

In the low retaining wall in front of The Portland Immigrant, there's a few polished granite slabs inset with the title of the work, credits as to who supported it, and, on the far right of this, a part where the Portland Immigrant Of the Year is listed. Here it is.

I imagine the social, political, and pandemical climate of the last three years has made keeping the tradition a bit problematical because, for whatever reason, there are three years that need names.

Notably, 2013's was Sho Dozono, who is a prominent Japanese-American businessman who is famous for owning Azumano Travel and ran for mayor in 2008, losing to Sam Adams, and 2016's was Som Subedi, who is familiar to anyone on Portland Facebook as a fairly fierce advocate for immigrants in the social media sphere.

The Portland Immigrant at Sandy and Killingsworth

3899

It's kind of an inauspicious place to be honored.You can't really pull over to admire this monument.

At the west end of Parkrose's business district, that busy place where NE Killingsworth (or NE Lombard, this time next year) terminates at Sandy Blvd, and where NE Sandy Blvd ceases its diagonal climb out of the Portland's core to align with the historic route of the Columbia River Highway, where traffic to and from I-205 throngs day and night, and where the only neighbors are two hotels and a cemetery, there's a traffic island where the flow parts to go every which way, and there is a landscaped terrace on this island which functions as a plinth of sorts, and on it, a weary-looking fellow casts a tired gaze on the Best Western Pony Soldier Inn.

The Portland Immigrant gazes at the Pony Soldier Inn,
Sandy Blvd dwindling into the background

The Portland Immigrant means to remind of all of us the vitality and spark that those who come from other countries and parts of the world bring to the blend of people and dreams that try to coalesce to form Portland, and that they may come here as weary travellers but with energetic dreams they too want to make real.

The surroundings, as I said, don't lend ones' self the opportunity to pull over and look. Where Sandy Blvd cruises through Parkrose also happens to be the place, once, where most people who came to Portland entered town; at one time, this was Portland's northeast corner, and US 30 the main road into town. There's no real place to pull over to enjoy this spot so, in a certain sort of cosmic sarcasm, motorists tend to race past, not really paying the monument much mind, unconsciously mirroring some of American society's poorer attitudes about the role immigrants play.  

Still he remains, just waiting for you to see him and what he means. It's your move, my friend. 

The Jantzen Building, NE 19th and Sandy

3893

It's been a long time since a swimsuit came out of this building, I don't know how long. Just like Nalley's and Steinfelds and Henry Weinhard's, Jantzen is just a brand name that gets sold about like some corporate trading card.

But when the Jantzen Diving Girl was just a young lady, 411 NE 19th Avenue, corner Sandy Blvd, is where she grew up. 

She was and always will be a Portland girl.

The edifice, complete with iconic Jantzen girl over the main door, still stands, waiting for something au courant to lease it and make it their own.

And so it goes.

The Auto Graveyard of Glisan St

3881

The address appears to be 9025 NE Glisan St. It seems to be something of a boneyard, though a very small one.

I'm not any sort of authority on cars this old. They look like they are from the 1940s, or maybe 1930s. They look like gangster cars. Al Capone would be riding in one of these sweet rides, when he was alive and they were new.

What the owner of the property does with them, or how they're acquired and why they stay here or so very long (these old cars come and go from this lot and have, according to my memory, for years, a decade and longer) is a complete mystery to me. 

That they have done so for so long, in constant state, is a delight just as quirky and mysterious.

Anyone wanting to pass by themselves? This is just west of the I-205 offramp to NE Glisan, on the north side of the street, at the top of the slope. The appropriately-named Top Of The Hill Tavern is across the street from there.

A Scene From The Elephant's Graveyard, 146th and SE Stark

3871

By elephants, of course, I mean trucks. 

There is a boneyard of sorts behind a large yellow building just west of the Franz Bread Thrift Store at SE 146th and Stark. It wasn't always that way; better part of a decade ago, that building was a Hotel/Motel furniture clearance store, and the lot on the left and behind of it were just blacktop.

That store has been closed a long time, and the lot behind and to its right now collects orphaned and wrecked trucks. It's not chaotic; they're stored back there neatly, with some care. Presumably it's a way station enroute to whatever alphabet heaven these spent pachyderms-of-the-road are bound. 

But a truck graveyard it indeed seems to be. 

A month ago we stopped by for our supply of baked, sliced, and wrapped carbohydrates and I spotted this retiree eking out its twilight days. The name caught my eye especially. Peter Corvallis Productions is a event planning and production service that's been powering trade shows, weddings, and just about anything you'll find on a fairground around Portland since 1959. There really was a man named Peter Corvallis, which I enjoy because twice in my life I've lived in a city called Corvallis and it makes a last name which scans, I think, rather pleasantly. A visit to the PCP website tells us what Mr. Corvallis passed away, however, in 2016, and also however, the company soldiers on, helmed by his daughters Maria, Athena, and Demetria.

I don't know from their service, but the Corvallis family has some of the coolest names I think I've ever heard. 

For the sake of curiosity: Here's Peter Corvallis Productions.

The Afterlife Of A Dead Portland Racetrack

3773

This is a thing that exists, now. NE 82nd and Killingsworth. This is a building that's been many things over the years: restaurant, bar, strip joint. The name that comes to mind is Taylor's Viewpoint. But haute cuisine? No.

Here's what it is now:

It's the remains of Portland Meadows, or at least, that's the way it's branded. And there's a lingerie espresso kiosk in the parking lot, which does not seem wholly inappropriate.

The actual horse racing track, the one that stood for more than 50 years just off I-5 near Delta Park, is gone now. It was demolished in February, but had by then largely moved on from horse racing ... a sport, outside of its marquee events, that appears to be trending toward irrelevancy across the United States. But Portland Meadows did do a steady business in off-track betting and poker tables, and that's what we have out here at 8102 NE Killingsworth which is, withal, the sort of intersection you'll be going through for one of only a handful of purposes, all of them adult. 

So it goes.

Goneworth Chevytown

3658

The dive into the past continues. September of 2017. Somewhat happier times.

Along Southeast Grand Avenue, between Ankeny and Ash, there's a car dealership called Subaru of Portland. Back in the day, and up until that day, though, it was known as Wentworth Chevytown (Subaru was a sideline for a long time there though).

Through 2013, there was a big sign with 10-foot tall letters which flashed WENTWORTH CHEVYTOWN to the west side of the river. You can see a picture of that at The Oregonian's article of the demise of the sign here: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/11/wentworth_chevytown_sign_comin.html.  That sign was a casualty of a number of things: the march of time, the development of the Portland Streetcar, et. al. And eventually, in 2013, the sign was retired. Eventually, Wentworth Chevytown removed to Wilsonville, only the Subaru dealership remaining and renaming.

But in 2017 it was still a little bit of Chevytown, and the sign over the used car division's lot across Grand from the main showroom defiantly stood to the last, it's oldjack letters recalling any number of car related business from childhood who had similarly-styled signage.

We went, and it was worth it.

Hey, we got this sweet picture.

The Oregon Convention Center At Night

3502/A.

Before Portland came all stylish and popular and such, and condo silos started sprouting like an invasive species, one of the premier skyline signatures of Portland and perhaps the most memorable was the Oregon Convention Center. Its twin glass spires were as nothing ever seen before in the skyline of the Rose City. It was kind of our Syndey Opera House.

Now, believe it or don't, it has so much competition that it's just another interesting signal lost in a ton of architectural noise, but it still knows how to put on a show. Here, from earlier tonight, is the edifice lit with an indigo-blue light, which looks vibrant here but in person had a quality that doesn't quite make it to the photograph:

The photograph doesn't do full justice to the reality, but the blue in it is kind of otherworldly still. Seein in the distance between the towers is downtown Portland: the tower closest to the right-hand spire is the Wells Fargo Center, and the one smack in the middle is the KOIN Center. Some lights from Marquam Hill, where OHSU is, can also be seen to the right of that.

The construction site on the other side of NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd between the POV and the OCC is the site of the so-called "Headquarters Hotel", which is going to be a high-rise, so we're about to lose this view, too.

Get down there while you can, troops.

Abysinnia, Vera Katz

3539.

Vera Katz, Portland's mayor from 1992-2005, died this week. She was 84 years old and since retiring from government, she had been battling cancer. She eventually succumbed to that cancer, but if you consider how long it's been since she left the Portland mayoralty that she had and, indeed, since about 2000, been fighting some form of cancer (breast, that first time), you have some idea of how much fight there was in the woman.

She had firsts: First woman speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives (1985), first woman mayor of Portland (and possibly the only local politician  who could possibly follow Bud Clark's act) and a good deal of the reason why the City Club of Portland is no longer a men's room.

A bronze statue of her sits on the Eastbank Esplanade, which is named in her honor. It sits right at see-level, that one could walk right up to it. No ceremonial plinth for her; she wouldn't have that. She took TriMet to work. She was Portland that way. She had courage, as when she stood in Tom McCall Waterfront Park with President Clinton during the '96 floods, which were threatening to overtop the Seawall; she was visionary in that Portland way too, dreaming of capping I-405 (a dream that, as of yet, has not come true).

A friend on Facebook, Tim James, did a splendid caricature of her, and it's wonderfully fitting: that smile really did kind of light up the place. It disarmed one no matter what one thought of her.

Vera Katz. Caricature by Tim James, used with permission.

Abysinnia, Vera. She was a character, and that character was Portland.
Oh, yes ... Tim James' website, http://www.timoworld.com/, is full of his inimitable art and redoubtable wit. Give it a visit.

[pdx] Arnold Drake World, Magic Paper Flower Man

3509.

I've written before about Arnold Drake World, the man who does the exquisite paper flowers, lilies and roses, and does his Zen meditations in the Powell's Burnside Coffee Room, time and oft when we too camp out there. Last Saturday we saw him there and he had clearly added another trick to his already-impressive repertoire. Here's him:

Note the little white thing underneath his hands. that's one of those long folds of paper he usually has doing a ballet in the air between his hands before he transmutes it into a part of one of his creations. And that's impressive enough; if I looked up dexterity in the dictionary and didn't see his picture next to the definition, I'd be disappointed.

But he's doing more than that this time. He's got a bit of the old-school prestige going on here. He was totally levitating that piece of paper, hands flashing above and below, one side to the other. Performing, as usual, for nobody, and everybody.

If you don't admire that man's style, man, I gotta check your pulse. You can't be alive and not be moved.

[pdx] In David Douglas Land, The Stranger Abides

3246.

As a matter of fact, The Big Lebowski is one of our favorite movies. But, that's as maybe.

We live in an area of outer east Portlandia where the schools fall under the historic name David Douglas. School geography in Portland is a curious thing. The Portland Public Schools … in, what one would imagine a nominal sense, the school district covering the City of Portland, is not, in fact, the school district ones' kids go to if they live, in the main, east of Interstate 205. You can still be in the City of Portland and not pay property taxes to PPS, a fact which endlessly amuses me when I see them talking about Portland school taxes and strife on the school board and I have to take a moment to remind myself that this does not apply to me out here out 122nd Way. 

Though we don't take part in much of the David Douglas social whirl, being night owls of necessity so long it's become nature, we do take pride in being part of the David Douglas community. It's the kind of place you find yourself in that you realize, after being here a while, that you were meant to be here all along. It's also has the reputation of being the most economically and culturally-diverse community in the city.

Portlandia, as funny as it is, was not written about the Portland I live in, the Portland of eastern-European churchgoers who walk to church and never step out in anything but their best to so much as go to the store; the Portland of Somali housewives who step out dressed int the brightest colors you can imagine; the Portland where all we have to do is walk down the street and around the corner to get authentic Mexican pan dulce from the tienda. 

And there are famous people who come from here too. Last week, we attended the David Douglas Holiday Bazaar, held in the North Campus building in the halls and the cafeteria, and there were the usual throng of convivial people, all very nice, handicrafts and wooden toys and witty artifacts and all, and I don't know why I never noticed it before, but over the main hall past the school offices are photos of the student body presidents gong back more than 60 years. Particularly interesting is the one who graces 1962. He went on to Hollywood; made some good movies and TV, and played the enigmatic center about which Lebowski really revolves (and has hence been abused as a meme to the point of meaninglessness), and even though he was born in Sacramento, he appears to claim the Rose City as his home (and David Douglasville claims him as a homey) and he still came home to visit his then-going-on-97-year-old David Douglas mom (and visit an alternative newsie or two).

It's this "dude":

Sam Elliott. Being rather smug about being a Sam myself, I feel lucky to be a namesake with such a fellah.

The Stranger abides, man. And he's one of us.

[PDX] Joe Vithayathil: The Latter-Day Frank Bonnema

3127.

Old-school Portlandia, pure and simple.

Those of you who have any recollection about Back-in-the-Day around these parts know about Portland Wrestling. You are no doubt aware of modern pro-wrestling, with its flash and gloss and pyrotechnics, and its acknowledgement of kayfabe-as-dramatic-storyline.

I can't really get into it. I remember pro-wrestling as-it-was … regional circuits, a working-man's pastime at the fairground or at the armory, and every week, without fail, on KPTV-12, late at night on Saturday … it was Portland Wrestling. It was the kind of show that your babysitter would let you stay up much later than you should be (and don't tell Mom) to watch. Hailing from the Portland Sports Arena (which was a converted bowling alley, I'm told, up on North Chautauqua Blvd), we got a weekly diet of Tom Peterson Xonix TVs, Playboy Buddy Rose, Rowdy Roddy Piper when he was comin' up … and Frank Bonnema.

He didn't host Portland Wrestling. He was Portland Wrestling.

Joe Vithayathil, a/k/a Joe V, KPTV's feature reporter, is also a wrestling geek from 'way back. He is right now living the dream. He hosted the recent re-incarnation of Portland Wrestling, known as Portland Wrestling Uncut, which has been on hiatus for far too long. And he's still working it … we understand that he's debuted a book about Lynn Denton.

Those of you suitably informed will know this man as THE GRAPPLER:

Yours truly is the author (well, co-author technically) of Grappler: Memoirs of a Masked Madman. It’s the autobiography of my good friend Lynn Denton, better known to the pro wrestling world as “The Grappler”. As I have discussed before on this blog, I was a wrestling nerd for decades, dating all the way back to the mid-80s. In 2012, a childhood dream came true (at the age of 36) when I was given the opportunity to work on a local wrestling show with Lynn- who everyone calls Lenny- and WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper. I became close with both men, and it was clear to me that Lenny had a story to share with the world.

Like I said, livin' the dream.

Joe has a blog posting up about it all here: http://gdojoe.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/look-ma-i-wrote-a-book/.  He's working hard at following in the footsteps of Bonnema, and while they broke the mold when they made that guy. I'd say Joe has the passion to make himself the modern-day image of the man.

As Katherine Dunn proved, writing about warriors in the squared circle can be seen as poetry on its own. I certainly wish the best for this effort.

[pdx] … And A Transit Bridge Runs Through It: An Editorial Comment

3013.

TriMet has, this week, released the list of the finalists for the name they'll be sticking on the new landmark Portland-Milwaukie Transit Bridge. They are:

1. Wy'East
2. Duniway
3. Cascadia Crossing
4. Tillicum Crossing

The four names stand pretty large in the history of the  Salish lands and the history of the American Pacific Northwest. Wy'East is, of course, the name the original locals gave Mount Hood. Duniway is for Abigail Scott Duniway, the suffragette (who already stands tall with a legacy of a park and a school), tillicum is Chinuk wawa for us folks, our people, our tribe, and Cascadia is the emerging name for our regional identity latterly.

A few problems come to mind with these names. All of them are fairly unoffensive, The first two still manage some inspiration, the last two sound like suburban shopping malls. Very historical, very important, very expected.

The real sad part, personally, for me, is who didn't even make the short list:

Kirk Reeves. To most Portlanders, he should need no introduction, but to those who arrived late in the game, here's a Working Kirk primer for you. Kirk Reeves, the white-suited man at the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge (and betimes other places, busking for a living, making bad comedy shows on local access, appearing as himself every OryCon, and basically making the world better by just being. Kirk Reeves, whose struggle with keeping the wolves at bay grew to be so wearing that he gave in, just a few months over a year ago.

TriMet has published the list of suggestions. I haven't the inclination to count myself, but a subjective peruse of the 202-page list of suggestions seems to indicate a sheer preponderance of Kirk (in some variant spellings). Joseph Rose at Soylent News™remarks that a page count comes up with Kirk's name on about 11 pages of the document; by contrast, Duniway got about four, and Wy'East, two.

So, clearly, this wasn't a popularity contest. 

It does make TriMet seem a little out-of-touch with its constituency though. Wouldn't be the first time that has happened over the last few years, we bittersweetly note, not at all.

It has been pointed out to me that perhaps a sort of wide-screen personality could really only support the idea of a bridge name. As far as that goes, Wy'East or Duniway goes just fine with me. And, as T.A. Barnhart pointed out to me, Kirk's name would fit perhaps a little better as a park name or a place where performers could come out to play. I'd picture that as a Oregonized sort of Speaker's Corner, something we really could rock, in a Portland way. Picture people debating in one part, someone playing a public tune in another, and not one of our local over-promoted, over priced you-have-to-pay-to-get-into-Tom McCall-Waterfront-Park dos, either. 

A people's space? Working Kirk Reeves People's Park? I could get behind that.

But, in the meantime, if TriMet wasn't interested in what the people really wanted, why did it bother to ask at all? If there was no possibility of Kirk's name going on the bridge, at least it could have thrown us a bone by putting it on the short list.

And, in my opinion? I think Kirk was big-screen enough for his name to go on that bridge.

I wonder, would his story have turned out any differently if he'd have known how much affection the community had for him?

I know people might disagree with that, and I'm down with it.

You can download the pdf list here, if you wanna.

[pdx] Address Nerd™ Mystery Theatre: The Case of the Henry Thiele Waffle Club

2822.Got sent something that was a real stumper, folks, in a good way … but still inscrutable.

Got an email a couple of days ago from one David Buettner, who had stumbled upon this chronicle in aid of trying to untangle a mystery.

Everyone with a smattering of Portland history (especially of the culinary kind) has probably heard of Henry Thiele. Henry's was a restaurant that was lodged in the point at the five-cornered intersection that was where NW Westover Road met up with West Burnside Street, NW 23rd Avenue, and SW Vista Avenue. It was a landmark in architecture (see this picture) as well as in food (the German-style pancakes were reportedly legend). But the history of Portland has it writ large that Henry's was at NW Westover and West Burnside.

But then David throws me a curveball, looking like this:

photo courtesy David Buettner

This, I'm told by David, is the back of a small mirror, advertising (rather scrumptiously) the Henry Thiele Waffle Club of all things. The history of Henry Thiele is, sadly, something not much written, if at all; the part that says he had a location on SW 10th Avenue or SW 11th Avenue is pretty much invisible.

My particular task was to help David figure out where those address might have been. Remember the old Portland address pattern, on which I've commented oft perforce &c &c, and you'll remember that any numbered street without a directional is south of Ankeny/Burnside/Washington; this would therefore put this in what we would say is the downtown core today; SW 10th Avenue was '10th Street' and SW 11th Avenue was '11th Street' prior to the Great Renaming of 1930.

Moreover, the building numbers amounted to 20-to-the-block, instead of today's 100-to-the-block. So 107 - 10th Street actually winds up, most likely, being between Alder and Washington or between Stark and Washington. So, we have an idea of where that address might lie, down to about a 1-block possibility.

But again, the real thing that's making us grind our teeth here is that we simply cannot find any trace, so far, of the existence of anything called the Henry Thiele Waffle Club. Particularly intriguing is the dual address on adjacent streets which could suggest a business which fronted on two downtown streets.

Anyhow, this is a call for any history-addicted Portlander or Address Nerd to come to the aid of his … country … or something. Does anyone who might stop by here know anything about Henry Thiele Waffle Club? Any information would be gratitudinous, and is meant to be shared. Here's a chance for us to explore a corner of Portland history heretofore unexplored.

Into Henry Thiele With Gun and Camera, as 'twere.

Leave your exploratory notes in the comments, bitte sehr.

TriMet Map Cover Designs: 1993, 1994

2035.We move on to the next two TriMet Map cover designs, this time: 1993 and 1994.

While MAX is still a big hit with the transit fans, it has become part of the landscape. It's now being incorporated in as just another part of one of America's most celebrated transit systems. The designs change to suit.

The 1993 design is a cheery, blocky, fun thing full of primary color and active play. Everything you might use to get round the town is included as part of a great palette of transportation options: bus, bike, light rail, the personal car has a place still, car/vanpooling, and your own two feet can serve to get you about this metro-area-on-a-human-scale.

The 1993 design is joyous and inviting. It reminds one of child's play blocks or a pleasant day spent at preschool. Portland's fun ... and TriMet can be a part of that!

The 1994 edition really dials back and goes for restraint. My guess is that badge down in the lower left: a bit of dignity, please, as we celebrate our 25th Anniversary of The Nation's Best Transit System. I sincerely enjoy the restrained color palette, the violet suggesting a sort of luxury and "having arrived", and the screened-back logos forming a sort of tessellated pattern that wouldn't look half-bad as a wallpaper (on your screen or on your wall).

Technorati Tags: TriMet, Portland Transit, Portland History, Map Design, graphic design, transit graphic design

The Evolution Of The TriMet MAX Map 2: MAE West

2034.Through the middle of the 1990s planning and construction activity actively worked to extend MAX west from its origin to serve Washington County.

Noting that, properly, the initialism was MAE, rather than MAX, a certain wag during the time (it was in Jonathan Nicholas' Oregonian column, if I recall correctly) opined that it should be called MAE West.

Ahh, lost opportunity.

Anyway, after a couple of years work by Bore-Regard and furious track laying to downtown Hillsboro, what we called at the time Westside MAX opened in 1997-1998. Mapping such an extended line to fit within the confines of the typically small paper publications TriMet produced for customer edification required a different approach. A map at the proper proportion, given the meanderings and the spacings between stations, would be difficult if not impossible to straitjacket to within the confines of a pocket schedule. Abstraction was called for ... and what abstraction (clicky to embiggen, or better, go to the Picasa Web album page for this one and use the zoom tool to get a real good look):

The simplification took no prisoners. The meandering route has been straightened, all stations sit in nice intervals, all spaced out evenly, happily. The only concession to scale is in the interval between the Washington Park station and the Goose Hollow/SW Jefferson station.

This is reducing something to its schematic parts and making it work. For instance, as is well known, the distance between the Washington Park station and the Sunset TC station is no short walk. However, on this line, it's enough to show that one follows the other directly to see that it works and works well for the application.

The only concessions to geographic awareness is the North arrow and the position of the Willamette River, and the quadrilateral in the middle which approximates Fareless Square. The line parallels the river before turning sharply to cross it, which, in this simplified way, is as it should be.

Since there was still, effectively, only one line, there were no colored stripes. That was to come later, with the debut of Airport MAX ... to be known as the Red Line.

But I get ahead of myself. Next time.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, MAX Light Rail, Transit Graphic Design, Map Design, Transit Map Design, Graphic Design

TriMet Map Cover Designs: 1986, 1987

2031.Now for the next two in our Series: Tri Met Map cover shots for 1986 and 1987. It was a turning point for TriMet; for the first time in the organization's modern history, rail comes into the mix.

Clicky to embiggen the photo. MAX – The Metropolitan Area EXpress, of course – debuted on 5 Sep 1986, and if you think it's hard to find a seat on the train now, then you don't know – it was murder then! Everyone, but everyone had to be down at Pioneer Square to ride the Metro area's newest toy and everyone loved it.

I know. I was there, man.

TriMet was justifiably proud of pulling this one off and featured it as the centerpiece of both years designs. On the first one it was all about MAX, and on the second one, one of TriMet's old articulateds shared cover space with the MAX at Southwest 6th and Morrison – Portland's cutting-edge transit at the front door of Portland's Living Room.

Those were heady days.

The MAX System has sprouted and grown, now with branches going to Hillsboro, PDX, soon to go to Clackamas Town Center, and WES has been grafted on with commuter rail to Wilsonville. But then, it just got you to and from Gresham, and we loved it.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, Map Design, Trainst Graphic Design, MAX, Portland, Portland Transit

Saving The Memorial Colisuem: The Heart Of the Debate

2026.You may have heard about Saving the Memorial Coliseum elsewhere, but if you want to be wired to the source, follow Portland Architecture:

As Portlanders we can not stand for this horrible plan that is contemptuous of history, sustainability and even the Blazers team itself. We need to start talking right away about petition drives, protests, back-door meetings--anything to prevent this tragedy from happening. Who's with me on the picket line?

Also, if you can show up, you have an appointment:

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
6:00-8:00 p.m.

Agenda:
6:00 PM Public review of proposed redevelopment concepts
6:30 PM Presentation of redevelopment concepts
7:00 PM Community feedback session

Location:
Leftbank Building, 240 N. Broadway

One of the pride points I have about being a Portlander is that friends from other cities (like Phoenix, where they tear down everything once a decade and rebuild it) come and they just feel like this is a city where we give two Arby's French Dips about our history.

This is just the end product of a bad plan that makes us all look foolish.

I read somewhere else today that if you want sustainable, the most sustainable building is the one that never got built, but if you have a building, the most sustainable one is the existing building that didn't get torn down.

This is a bad idea. We should not do this.

Speak up if you can.

Technorati Tags: Memorial Coliseum, Rose Quarter, Portland Architecture, Portland History