Houses With A View Along Sellwood Blvd

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There are a number of southeast-Portlanders who won enough in the lottery of life to afford addresses along SE Sellwood Boulevard. 

They undoubtedly have views I'd conceivably kill for. 

The combination of architecture and square-to-the-compass property orientation and location along a street trending diagonally give the impression of fishermen's houses along a street in a coastal town overlooking the ocean. 

A great deal that happens in Oregon is indirectly related to the ocean, so maybe it's not too far off the beam. 

They don't have a view of the sea, but they do have an awful nice view. 

Just A Bit Of SE Stark Near 30th

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No agenda here, no message, no intended subtext.

Just an angle on SE Stark St from just east of SE 30th Avenue up to about 28th (that's where that little crest is). It's a particularly cozy corner of the universe with an atmosphere that Portland progress still hasn't completely covered over. 

There's a real antique of a building on the SE corner of 28th and Stark that used to be a old-school service station, back in the day when cars were new, you can tell it by the architecture. The Goodfoot lounge is still there; there's a pizza joint next to that and, in a small tin-sided building, an art gallery and a place that used to be the home of an ultra-left alt-media operation called The Portland Alliance, though I understand that has a Beaverton address now, which is ironic. 

Well, clearly I need to get some shots of that corner, if I'm going to rhapsodize so.

I'll never fall out of love with this town.

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.

Goneworth Chevytown

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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.

Movie Posters in a Hawthorne District Mexican Bistro

3581Pepino's is a tidy little Mexican joint down at Hawthorne and 38th. it's been under a couple of names during its long life (it's been there about twenty years) and the food is always simple and good. Street-taco-style tacos and a chipotle and potato burrito that's swell just the way it is, and is only kicked up to the next level by the addition of steak. Horchata ladled out of big glass jugs, five kinds of salsa, it's a fine place to be.

The vintage Mexican movie posters, though, really cast a sort of a spell over the place.

... and they do love them some Cantinflas, don't they? I'm up for that SF feature Santo vs The Invasion of the Martians, myself.

Ukulele Player On Woodstock Blvd

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On Wednesday last week, My Brown-Eyed Girl was down in the hidden southeast part of Portland, taking the car in for a bit of necessary, and while waiting out that process, spotted this genuine human on SE Woodstock Blvd ...

They were exhoriting us to do our homework naked, and eat our cereal with a fork.

Amanda Palmer music, I understand.

Scenes From A Southeast Portland Diner

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Visted Tom's Restaurant and Bar at the corner of SE César E Chávez and Division. This is the third time for me and The Wife™, and this time it was the chili burger for me (which was superb). It's also a great place to simply watch the world go by, as on the CEC side of the building is a busy stop for the TriMet line 75.

The wind was brisk tonight and whipped the awning outside enough to make it feel like it was trying to come into the building. I don't blame it. It's in the 30s out there right now.

Two scenes:

The waitress diva doing her thing as we were cashing out. Tom's, according to the banner, has served Portland in this location from  1975, and it still kinda feels like 1987 in there, but totally in all the good and right ways.

They could totally make a killing with that clock on eBay, tell you what.

We definitely love this place. 13/10, would (and will) eat there again.

[pdx] Signs of the Sellwood Bridge

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There's a bit of information there, on the top of the Sellwood Bridge.

There are signs in the city that we no longer celebrate our history in Bridgetown; it's a struggle documented in the war over housing prices, rents, what gets torn down and what gets built. Portland, thankfully, still looks a lot the way it used to between the new stuff and the strange stuff (I'm looking at you, Burnside Bridgehead - but that's for another time).

At the east end of the Sellwood Bridge, as is true is most public works, there is a brass plaque recording the date, the when, the how, the who. Centered is the list of 2016 county commissioners, five in number, headed by a Kafoury (that's a Portland political verity: if you missed this Kafoury, there's gonna be another one along in about five minutes):

... but, at the bottom there, inset into the parapet? That's the original, now-92-year-old dedication plaque from the original Sellwood Bridge. Portland is conflicted right now about her history, but at least we remember there is one. There is hope in that.

There's a cosmic humor to me in this sign:

... because as everyone in Oregon knows, you have to go LEFT to get to Portland and RIGHT to get to LakeO.

And this is how we tell cyclists that Riverview Cemetery is right across the street, at the west end of the bridge.

Of course, you can take the scenic route, which may take up to 5 minutes. Plan accordingly.

And, in every city that has bridges like this, there are people who care about those who find their way onto them in times of crisis. One is sometimes not as alone as they think.

[EagleCreekFire] The Smoke Before It Got Here

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Another photograph from last Friday.

After concluding our visit to the Sellwood Bridge, we came back into town via SE Milwaukie Avenue, SE Powell Blvd, and SE McLoughlin. The Columbia Gorge, as well as the Eagle Creek Fire (which was still burning and threatening Hood River at the time) is, as maps have shown, just east of the urbanized Portland Metropolitan Area. We'd enjoyed a day of clear, vibrant blue sky and clear air, but there comes the change.

That gray pall on the eastern horizon there was the smoke from that not-so-distant fire, waiting to pay a return visit.

Which it did, the next day, as the record duly shows.

[pdx] Sellwood Bridge: We Love Our River

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The river traffic was fairly bustling this day in 2017.

There's a line out of Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, after Dr. Haber begins toying with reality via George Orr's dreams. He's in his new office suite, overlooking Portland and the river, and Heather Lelache has just witnessed, with knowledge, Orr's dream rewrite the reality of a 21st-century, overbuilt, overpolluted Portland into the Portland that's more like it was back in the 70s, and Haber relates how he, in the new reality, came out to Oregon, and the thing that stuck with me from that scene was the line:

The ecosystem out here was still fairly intact.

And that came to mind as I looked out and saw the blue sky and the water of what was once one of the most polluted rivers in America, the Willamette, a river that's all Oregon's, and that we are as proud of to have as we are proud to be able to pronounce it correctly.

The Willamette is a pulchritudinous river along her entire length from Eugene through Salem to Portland, but it attains a certain mightiness north of Willamette Falls. Not only that, it's influenced by ocean tides ... there's a gentle tidal bore that causes the river to go up and down from the mouth all the way up to the falls at Oregon City.

I was skeptical, then me and my wife spent an lazy afternoon watching the water rise off Sellwood Riverfront Park. Then I was just boggled. Still am.

There wasn't just pentiful fun craft frolicking on the river, but there was some serious work going on under the bridge as well. This crew seemed to be doing some sort of maintenance on the bridge pier:

Men with hard hats on the barge, marine industrial equipment of every description, but it was the bubbling coming up near the top of the picture that intrigued me the most.

Wondered what they were doing down there. Still do.

Meanwhile, Maria kept everything snug and in place. What a cute little boat she is, too.

We love our river.

We're positively ... ah, Chipper about it.

[pdx] Downtown Chevytown, Portland, USA

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That little portion of the inner eastside of Portland that I gave a glimpse of in the last article has a heavy accent of the way all of eastern Portland used to feel, back in the day, and the area still hasn't exhumed the last of that feeling. It emanates because the terrior is, in some subliminal way, preserved. I feel it in the concrete and the sidewalk; in the fact that Andy and Bax is still a Portland thing; the Mediterranean restaurant next to that is still going great guns, and there's still a Wentworth Chevrolet.

courtesy Michael Long on Facebook

In the two-square-block bit of inner SE Portland encompassed by SE Ankeny and Ash Streets, stretching from SE MLK Jr Blvd to SE 6th Avenue, the western one-and-a-half blocks is occupied by the dealership that once fully reveled in the title Wentworth Chevytown. Up until 2013, there was a great and beloved sign over the lot at the corner of MLK and Ash, about four stories tall, with 10-foot-tall red letters reading WENTWORTH CHEVYTOWN. Alas, the dealership, apparently beleaguered by regulation (mostly, they say, having to do with safety regulations pertaining to the high-voltage power lines on Grand Avenue directly in front of the sign) that prevented regular maintenance, deemed it should come down. The Oregonian's Eliot Njus reported the details back in 2013.

Sic transit gloria, and all that. This writing is in 2017, of course, and what changes five years, yes? But Wentworth still abides; there is a Wentworth Subaru (Subaru because Portland) on the block north of that, East Burnside between MLK and Grand, and on the corner of SE Ankeny and Grand, at 134 SE Grand Avenue, the Chevytown mark can still be seen, in appropriate vintage signage.

It is, at least stylish and retro, which doesn't get you as far as it used to get you here in the Rose City, but is still good for something.

The lot in front is another blast from the past, an OK used car lot. These used to be seen pretty much everywhere, and I don't know if OK is still an operant badge for Chevy, but what it was, as Hemmings reports with a bittersweet tone, was Chev's brand for its dealership-sold used cars. And the signs still adorn the block of Grand between Ankeny and Ash.

It gives a certain cadence to the street scene which I greatly enjoy. There was a time when brand and marketing was just kind of a background wallpaper that didn't blare out and cover everything; this reminds me of that.

[Out122ndWay] SE Market St, In the Mist

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A brief check-in, the fog this morning making it feel chillier than the unseasonably warm day this is destined to become:

You don't get variegated fog like that out this way very often, turbulent weather or no.

SE Market Street, looking east from SE 113th Avenue.

[liff] Radiant Dawn

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Radiant, literally. Coming off my work shift this morning, observe the rays being picked out of the sky:

Sunrises are the best some times.

[pdx] The Sellwood Bridge Opening, Part III: The Architecture

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I must admit first off, I did not get any good views on the new bridge from the bank. It seemed a little tough with no ready viewpoints, and the only one I could think of being on the State Hwy 43 side, and a little inaccessable. Until I do, let this simulation from the Sellwood Bridge project site suffice. Three graceful arches supporting a down-to-business, yet subtly well-shaped traffic deck.

I confess, it wasn't my first choice when they rolled out the designs for public comment, but it has grown on me mightily. Meeting the bridge personally sold me; let's just say, it had me at "hello".

Here, again, is the old rusted sign-gantry from the crest of the old bridge:

For all its legendary frailty, the big metal supporting truss under the aged concrete upper deck gives this broad-chested impression of strength and solidity. If it was as frail as all that, it must have been built subliminally-well.

Looking back the other direction …

… you see what's been holding the bridge up this past year-plus. Those supports look spindly, but they've been getting the job done. In case the reader didn't know, the old span is actually slightly north of the new one, which is dead-on where the old one used to be. Before the new span was really underway, the engineering crew put those up and then jacked the old span over to rest on the new supports. Which is kind of amazing, when you think about how much work that took, the engineering involved, and the fact that cars continued to travel safely across the old bridge (which was probably safer than before because of those slight yet strong temporary supports).

The above picture gives you a view of the new under-structure versus  the old. The old: weary and worn, the new: sleek, sexy, and poised. It's said that, in one of the surveys before the replacement, the Sellwood was rated on a scale of 1 to 100, and it rated a mere 2. It's now said that the new structure is so well designed that it will take more of a shake than Cascadia Next is due to deliver. That is to say, when that quake hits, the old bridge is one of the last places you'd want to be; the new bridge, though, is one of the places you'd most want to find yourself in.

Given that Portland's river could turn the city into two unwittingly-isolated halves, knowing this bridge is here should bring great comfort.

Above: a view of that aged undercarriage. The weariness and the wear is unmistakable. Below: a tight shot up the old span. Teeny little narrow thing; lanes just barely wide enough for some of today's cars, and a sidewalk that is unforgivably narrow.

The old Sellwood. Just beyond can be seen the graceful arches of the new span, but the old span is the star here. As tough as it is, as down-to-earth as it is, as old as it is, it has some simple beauty to it. All bridges do. 

… and a staging and materiel area at the west end. This was not always thus. For a very long time, at the foot of what was once Sellwood Ferry Rd, for there was a ferry before there was any bridge. there was a boat seller and marina of long, long standing, which was named for the man who started it: Staff Jennings. It had a sign with a fluctuating neon star which was a landmark for the many years I drove past it.

Also, just another memory.

[liff] Tele-faux-to Beauty

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One more stop along the intersection of Foster and Holgate for now, then we move on.

I just have the one digital camera. It's a Canon PowerShot S100 provided by a most beneficent friend who has my f-stop number. It's a step up from the Kodak that we had before it, which is still good … but this's better. Fun effects, things to play with … better zooms than the old plastic fantastic, the ViviCam 3705, which still does home duty.

Every device has its place, and we don't throw things away because they get old. The old cameras are still doing just like they always did, though the 3705 seems to have developed a disease that has made it even more hungry for battteries, which is strange, because it's an inanimate object. Or … is it?

Point is, being limited with ones equipment makes one push the one they have to the utmost. With the power of the Canon's zoom and the various effects and a talent I seem to have for composition and finding interesting perspective lines, it wasn't long before I was exploring. I've done this before. I found out that if I chose the right sight line and framed and zoomed just so, the effect I got was much like I remember telephoto pictures, and since I'm faking it, I call it my own word: telefauxto. Pronounced the same. And I like the effects just the same.

First, looking down Foster Road, from the series of shots posted yesterday. The line of electrical poles have a rhythm, logic and meter of their own, and form a skeleton nailing down the landscape you can see behind it. And, partially shorn of context, make a poetry of its own.

When I look down a side street, zoom and crop just so, a different perspective imposes itself and becomes the star of the piece. This is saturated with a mood and presence that remind me of a great many Southeast Portland side streets.

This one doesn't use a high-angle perspective but it does go with a contextless approach to generate a sort of introspective mood of its own. Wires, poles, insulators, and transformers against a turbulent sky. The shapes defined by the colors, values, and straight lines can lead to other worlds, if the eyes linger long enough.

Reality is real, but reality is also what you put in, and what you leave out.

[pdx] Tele-faux-to View, SE Foster Road

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Northeast Portland has Sandy Boulevard; Southeast has Foster Road. Two great diagonal boulevards which cut across blocks making interesting shapes and enabling any enterprising commuter to make right triangles at will if they are so inclined.

East side's hypoteneuses. Hypotenusae?

Here's two tele-faux-to views … this one, looking east-southeast …

The greenspace on the left is Laurelwood Park, and it's in the sharp gore-point of Foster and Holgate. And, in a city that seems to be gentrifying before our eyes and becoming shiny and sterile, Foster Road seems fine in not putting on any airs at all. And this is why, of the streets of the inner east side, Foster Road is still one of my most beloved places.

Note the building on the right there? It says K&B over the front entry; and undoubtedly something happens somehow in it, but I'm not sure what. Just being what it is, its old working-class self, doing whatever it does, and not (so far) in a hurry to become tidy, neat, and sterile.

And then there's this view, west-northwest:

… modest, a little dusty, real, and it is what it is. There are some newer, posher places up that way, but there are some small striving places too. And notice, too, it's not an actual straight diagonal; it zigs and zags a bit, turning a little north there, and then in the distance, as you pass George Morlan Plumbing, bending a little the other way again. Of course, on a map, the bends aren't that obvious, but they do have a habit of making a terribly interesting road just that much more interesting.

Old eastside Portland still lingers, to a degree, on SE Foster Road. And we love that.

[pdx] Foster Holgate Tango Foxtrot

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In Southeast Portland, the two charming trafficways, the mighty SE Foster Road and the more modest but still dear SE Holgate Blvd, meet at a rather severe angle; Holgate runs cardinal east t'west, and Foster is one of our two great eastside diagonals. And in that corner is, this exuberant building.

The building is actually home to three businesses. Over there on the far right is SharedSpace, the studio where Jake and Barry (and a few others) work and do wonderful stuff. In the middle is a cute little old-fashioned barbershop (at least it looks that way; those who know me know that with barbershops I have little truck (nothing personal)). But that splash of color?

That's an Argentine-style tango studio where you can really get lessons and such. They call it Tango Berretín.  Tango got popular again maybe a decade ago, and faded; but Tango Berretín is still kicking in high style, so they must be doing something right.

This mighty intersection is where three streets actually come together; the aforementioned Foster and Holgate, and SE 67th Avenue. Above is the picture of the building along the 67th side, and below, of course, is the gusset point. The view faces NE.

 

I'll cop to something here; there's a "Vivid Color" setting on my trusty Canon PowerShot, and it seemed unfair to photograph this delightfully over-the-top, unafraid décor in anything else. And it really made the cloudy sky dramatic, which I visually enjoy.

An eclectic corner like this kind of proves with all the ambivalence about the way Portland's growing, there are still corners of town that haven't forgotten how to weird, Portland-style.

[Out122ndWay] The Divine Comedy of SE 122nd Ave, Part II: The Alpha and The Omega

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In the last post, I presented documentary evidence that the sensorama of human life is well and perfectly recapitulated on SE 122nd Avenue at Morrison Street. But if you need a metaphysical frame, you don't need to go far. Just go north of Stark Street about as far south as you were just then.

On SE 122nd between Ash and Pine Streets, there's the Omega Funeral Home. And, on SE 122nd, very next block, between Pine and Oak, is the Shepherd's Gate Church … the one that used to be a strip club.

Tell me there ain't no subtext there, campers!

A few blocks south of here, life poses questions and answers them in mortal ways. And, here, life's questions are bookended and debated on quite another level.

The Shepherd's Gate Church first appeard on this blog here: http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2015/05/out122ndway-122nd-and-stark-goodbye.html.

SE 122nd Avenue, from Ash to Morrison. It's more than just an interesting jumble of business punctuated by a Burgerville.

It's Portland's philosophical, existential highway.

And so it goes.

[Out122ndWay] The Divine Comedy of SE 122nd Ave, Part I: Existence

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There's a section of SE 122nd Avenue that recapitulates the sum total of human existence. It's all there … birth, death, and all in-between.

Peep this:

There's (going away from us), a dive bar, a porno shop, an auto parts store, a Volkswagen, and a public library. Everything here, but everything is necessary, including the street (the 12100 block of SE Morrison) which separates the auto parts store from the library.

Because … well, look. You have books for knowledge, dive bars for food, fun and companionship, the pornos for sexy sex that causes more people to happen (or so I've heard) and an auto parts store … because if auto repair isn't pain then, my friends, absolutely nothing is. Existential dread is best represented by the time spent waiting in the mechanic's waiting area to bring you the bill.

And Volkswagens are necessary. They just are. Don't question it.

If they don't have it in this stretch of SE 122nd, just south of Stark … you don't really need it.

But things go metaphysical just two blocks north of here. See next message.

[pdx] Molten Gold In The Skies Over Downtown Russellville

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The one-way couplet that distributes east-west traffic along SE Washington and Stark Streets from SE 75th through SE 108th Avenues has its anchors in two nabes of long-standing establishment. By far the more well-known is Montavilla which, as befits its name. starts on the northeastern shoulder of Mount Tabor and is in full effect through about SE 82nd Avenue.

The other comprises the area from about SE 92nd Avenue through 108th, and has a freeway running through it. That area is Russellville, and that's my home. The areas have two different characters: Montavilla a little more toff, with a strong dash of modern Portlandia; the businesses along the north-side of Stark between 80th and 76th feature a measure of poshness that's not too hard to discern from the street. There's still the echo of the working-class there, but it's seeming to attenuate over time. Russellville is still pretty down and dirty in the good way, and real; where Montavilla has the hip late-night bistros, and the pet supply store with artisanal products, it's Russellville that has the pizza parlor, the Dollar Tree, the strip clubs, and the Target store, and the freeway running through it (I-205).

Please note I cast no aspersions intentionally. But I live here; this is what I see. And, in the manner of community, if Montavilla gets the finer stuff, that's not to say they're bad; similarly, to say that Russellville's a bit more careworn, that's not to say we're all bad either. But sometimes we get compensated in unexpected ways. Such as late Saturday afternoon, when The Wife™ and myself walked out of the Jack In The Box at SE 105th and Stark, to see the sky.

It's all in where you're standing, and where you are when you are.

The sun, which was setting behind Mount Tabor to the west, was impinging on the clouds and not merely illuminating them from with out, but scintillating sunset rays were clearly at furious play in the clouds themsevles.

A thing like this can even make a Denny's look like a place that has a dignified view of heaven.

Meanwhile The Wife™, whose powers of observation are typically quite sharp, directed my view over the Saylor's Old Country Kitchen, the restaurant on the north side of SE Stark Street. It's famous for a 72-ounce chunk o'meat that's free if you can eat it all down at one sitting, but tonight, it was renowned for this:

You can see it just over the sign, above it at to the left of it. The setting sun was actually inflecting the clouds behind the point of view. It's a sun-doggish, sun-bowish thing, which is a little inaccurate to say, because those effects happen totally different ways. But it's how I thought of it.

Since it's a little tough to see unaccented, I bumped up the reds and it stands out much better.

It's all in where you're standing. And when you're standing. And that's like life.