The Woonerf Comes To Everett

4159... and just what is a woonerf? How about a chamfer, for that matter?

Everett, Washington is taking a number of approaches to revitalizing its considerably-extensive waterfront and making it welcoming to people. And, to that end, one burgeoning development, accessible from Marine View Dr W via Thirteenth Street, is a redevelopment of a large pier area where lumber and shingle mills used to rule; they're calling it the Millwright District. There will be retail, residential, commercial; all the urban things.

Circling the area is a new street known as Millwright Loop, giving the area the vague outline of a spatula when seen from above. And there's this:

Chamfer Woonerf. Photo courtesy Benjaming Donguk Lukoff, used with permission.

It shows up here on this street blade: CHAMFER WOONERF. It's a street which serves the interior of the spatula's blade.

And, of course, that brings us to the question of what a woonerf is, and as it turns out, it's simple to answer, and like the much-maligned bioswale, it's something we had all along and is nothing really new (we called bioswales French drains once upon a time and didn't make a big deal about it), but it does have a certain approach and attitude inspired by European point of view.

A woonerf is just a street designed to allow automobiles but also designed to accommodate people activites; some call it a living street; sort of a cross between a public plaza and a side street. People and autos share space. It became a modern thing in the Netherlands, where it picked up its strange name. And, most importantly, it's a street that easily gives itself to public events like street fairs and festivals. And it would be an ideal thing for something in the center of a destination district.

And a chamfer, for those who don't know, is a woodworking thing where you knock the corner off a form. 

So, Chamfer Woonerf. Strange name, but it'll catch on.

Hamilton in SE Portland

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Portland gets pretty silly about its sign-toppers, and sometimes artistic and thoughtful, but I've never seen a unique one, and not like this one only on a certain intersection of SE 62nd Avenue:

Mi esposa spotted that as we drove past and was, for a short time, annoyed by it because the type was so small in passing (valid). Figured it was just a matter of time before we found another but no joy there; had to circle back.

Ev'ryone give it up for America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman: LAFAYETTE.

Now, even I, with your standard sub-standard American history schooling, am aware of Lafayette. What I didn't know is that it's a line from the song "Guns and Ships" from the musical Hamilton ... I'm not much for musicals, you see, not that we can usually afford a ticket. 

Keeping your eye out for references, though, is free. And you do never know what you'll find in Portland sometimes. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 48: One Of The Most Interesting Street Blades In Salem

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As proven elsewhere in this prolix chronicle, a road trip to me isn't complete without bagging a few street blades. And we were just happening to cruise down South Commercial into the hilly, forested demesne known as South Salem where two important local roads come together.

One, of course, would be Commercial St, SE or, in the local parlance, simply South Commercial. The other is the end of what seems to be 12th St SE, but not technically so. If one follows 12th south from the city center one will note that near that south end the street bends southwesterly to intersect with Commercial. While this directs all 12th Street traffic to a merge with Commercial, this street has actually changed its name. 12th St SE's name is extended straight south into the neighborhood immedately east of that; the diagonal road's name, reflecting its function in connecting 12th to Commercial via the path of least resistance is 12th Street Cut-off, SE. And the signs reflect this.

A further cut-off ramp reaching a little north on Commercial looks like this, omitting the directional SE:

Meanwhile, across the street, a severe angle with the intersection of Ibsen St SE put both streets on the same placard, as it were:

This sign is more in keeping with the general design grammar and logic of the average Salem street blade, while giving the eye an interesting thing to look at by enlarging the ST abbreviation to the visual precedence of the rest of the street name. 

However one looks at it, the blade for this Salem street has to do a lot of work, more than most, and makes the display of one of the more interesting street names in any town I've known just that much more memorable. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 41: Lincoln City Street Blades, In Passing

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As we came back through L.C., I got me some street blade pix. 

You know. How I do.

The street grid in Lincoln City holds endless fascination for me, as I've said before. I'm coming up with an article that I'll submit to a blog of a fellow I very much respect exploring it. For now, it's only necessary to know this: for directional prefixes, the city is quartered by US 101, L.C.'s main street, and the "D" River into NW, NE, SW and SE quadrants. 

The average L.C. city street blade looks more or less like this:

There are a few obvious observations that one can make from this, and they aren't outre at all. L.C. follows a standard and predictable design logic which renders an easily-understood design grammar: the directional and the specific are of a lesser size which cause the actual street name (or number in this case) to be the star of the design. The ordinal, in the case of the numbered street, is appropriately sized.

The blade that's very oblique in this view can be seen a bit clearer, though smaller, in the deep background, at the corner with NE 18th Pl. It simply says N HWY 101. South Hwy 101 is called out in identical style on the other side of the "D" River.

The fascination in L.C. isn't so much in the simplicity of of the design but it the way it's actually somewhat inconsistently applied. Not too far from this corner, we found this:

This gives a good view of the standard named blade in town, and a very oblique view again of another. Here one can see that the generic ST doesn't line up with the directional like on the top blade, rather, it's centered. The impression given, when compared with other L.C. street blades, is a bit of casual sloppiness. 

There are other blade sets which come off as kind of avant garde, such as this one:

Here the layout is followed faithfully, but the font jumps out at you. I'm pretty sure that that Helvetica-esque font isn't an MUTCD standard, it looks atypical for street blades and, except for the capital "I" in the street name Inlet, there are no majuscules anywhere, and it's used in a very consistent way on the blades. 

It's a bit of a wonder, really.

And that concludes our little tour of the street blades of Lincoln City. 

News Lane, Seattle, 2010

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Another thing that leapt to the fore as I was reviewing (and, it must be said, pining a bit) over the photos I took in Seattle in 2010 on me and the Brown Eyed Girl's 20th marriage anniversary.

I was, of course, out for interesting street names and signage. That should go without saying by now but it ups my logorrheic quotient so here I am for you.

Here, in August of 2010, was a sign that struck my fancy on more than one level.

This was taken at, as near as I can determine, where News Lane crosses Pike Street. The named alley (that's all it is really) runs between 1st an 2nd Avenues. It's quite close to the famous Public Market. 

Any connection to any news, organization or otherwise, had left the Lane long ago. While the old P-I building is in the area, that might have been a coincidence, for all I knew. Or know.

Here's an angle on the street itself, looking south from Pike:

I could have a fugitive-drama or hard-boiled story set here. I'm getting heavy Harry In Your Pocket vibes. I'm charmed by the toy-camera fade out on the margins, which is a thing of mystery because I took this with the legendary ViviCam 3705, which wasn't that sophisticated.

This is a view looking north.

The only question on my mind about this photo is which cross street I was at when I took it. The angle on the building at the far end of the way indicates it's at Stewart Street, where the grid pivots to follow the bay short, and with only about block's distance, this should be at Pine Street. I also recall begnning to be very tired from walking all over Seattle's downtown, enjoying the views, but in terribly inappropriate shoes. An additional block, even going from Pike to Pine, would have been intimidating at that point. Yet the visual information leaves me no other reasonable alternative to assume.

We're planning on seeing the Oregon Coast later this year and making up for the fact that our 30th anniversary came during a pandemic year with about a dozen other centrifugal forces messing everything up. But do I want to be with her in Seattle at least one more time? Yes, Yes I do.

Current searches of the area on Google Street View show no evidence of the blade, though it is still noted as such on Google Maps.

SW 4th And Harrison

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The street blade set caught my eye because there is something so pleasantly urban about the way it contrasts against the new-as-new-can-be building behind it. I also like that the block is 1850, not an even number; an address quirk about Portland I'm happy to say that they can't get rid of.

This is in the part of the city center that's south of SW Market St, which is the 1600 block south of West Burnside. SW Harrison St is three blocks south of that, but instead of a full block it only gets a half block; 1850 instead of 1900.

There's a reason for this, and it has to do with the end of canted downtown blocks, which align to the river, and the part beginning at SW Lincoln St, which is the 2100 block, which runs more cardinally east-west and begins the more cardinally-oriented grid south from there. Lincoln was designated 2000; SW Mill St, one south of Market, was designated 1700; SW Montgomery, 1800, SW Harrison, 1850; SW Hall, 1900; SW College, 1950; SW Jackson, 2000; SW Clifton, 2050. These all occupy a wedge of land which starts narrow on the east and widens as you go west at the point there the grid straightens out, and while the streets continued to march southward at the rate of one every 220 feet, the north-south address blocks on the numbered avenues were stretched to fill by 2 every hundred numbers, to even out at 2100 by the time they, either notionally or physically, crossed Lincoln Street.

Not all of these streets exist on the ground, of course; a great many were erased by urban renewal in the 1960s, construction of the Stadium Freeway and, in some places, ground too steep to build a street on. But it's a fun pattern to suss out.

[Address_Nerd] In Passing: Two Interesting Salem Street Names

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While I've not called Salem home for many a year (and at this point feel myself more of a Portlander than I've ever been of anywhere else), I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't still feel somewhat at home there.

You can take the boy out of Marion County (or he can), but you really can't take Marion County out of the boy. The strawberry patch has set its stamp upon me, aye.

Since I don't get back to Salem as often as I ought, Google Street View is my friend betimes. And since the street level photography has gotten so damn good over the last few years, I indulge my urge to see what the street names and blades look like and how they have changed over time. There are two interesting bits of nomenclature that have stuck with me. I delved and found, and I'd like to share them now.

1. The Cutoff at the end of 12th Street.

12th Street, SE, is a major access backbone to the area of southeast Salem east of Commerical Street but west of the Salem Airport. For over 2 and a half miles south of State Street it distributes traffic and commerce to those inner south-east side neighborhood areas, climbing the hill south of Vista Avenue, and then swerving southwestward to merge with Commercial Street at about the 3800 block, just north of where Sunnyside Road SE peels off.

What is easily missed, though, is that the road stops being 12th Street SE at that point. There is a 12th Street SE south of this point … but it lines up with the main stem of 12th and goes from Duffield Heights St SE south to Hilfiker Lane SE, in the small neighborhood just east of Commerical, south of the 12th St light. That diagonal section connecting 12th at Oakhill Avenue SE to the big traffic signal plenum at Commerical Street is actually known as …

12th STREET CUT-OFF SE. A real mouthful of a name. But it lends itself to, perhaps, the most intriguing looking street blades Salem can boast. The above blade blends the signage for Ibsen St SE and 12th Street Cut-off due to the interesting angle of the intersection, and the extension across the main road that allows southbound 12th Street traffic to access Commercial Street northbound … a dendritic ramp affair that also connects to Promotory Place SE.

Another interesting thing is that the signage is not consistent. There are two other cross streets to 12th Street Cut-off, Doris Ave SE and Oakhill Ave SE, and both the signs shift the "ST" generic to above the block index, leaving the "CUT OFF" kind of dangling there.

The street name is most prosaic, as the cut-off does provide a shortcut to Commercial Street. Giving it a variant name also prevents a duplicated street name, as the southern third of 12th Street Cut-Off is somewhat parallel to the southernmost extensions of 12th Street SE, just a few blocks to the east.

2. The One And Only Link You Need.

The other interesting blade happens in West Salem. I lived near this place for a very short time. There is a street that links Kingwood Dr NW and the place where Hillcrest Dr NW and Riverview Dr NW come together. This is a very short street, on the order of only about 180 feet in length, and in honor of its functional position of being very near three streets but not actually being part of any of them, it's simply (and also prosaically) called …

THE LINK ST NW. 

The "ST" generic seems to be a later addition; when I lived in that neighborhood, maps and the street sign simply called it The Link, NW. Latterly, I've noticed, post offices and city planners abhor a vacuum in the generic spot (Witness here in Portland where SE Reedway (a per se street name sans generic) is increasingly posted as SE Reedway St, a misnomer. So, the awkwardish The Link Street NW it is for them. I'll always see it a little different.

At least the word THE has been retained, giving a memorable presentation. 

[#AddressNerd] Fractional Blocks In The Portland Street Blade 2.0 Design

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While cities try to be planned in even chunks, life isn't perfect. The ideal is digital; the reality, analog. Streets oft-times happen where they happen.

A good example of this is the grid layout of Salt Lake City, where the address block is a standard thing and the street can concievably land anywhere in that block. For example, a two standard streets, one the 35th and the next the 36th, would be named 3500 South and 3600 South. A street about 1/3 of the way between 3500 South and 3600 South might be named 3530 South. One eight-tenths of the way could be named 3580 South.

On this plan addresses are childs' play to augur in on. As you travel north or south on any street that would cross these, you just glance right or left to see how the addresses are running. A bit dry, perhaps; an address like 455 West 3530 South is mathematically exciting but literarily dull. But Portland's signage acts just like this. Check this blade fro SW Broadway near PSU that I snapped some time ago. The tab reads 700. SW Broadway is the 7th block west of the river in Downtown. The blade is telling you not that the block down the SW Broadway face is 700, but that you are either entering or leaving the 700 block of whatever cross street you're on. As in SLC, the crossing-street system assumes you don't need to be reminded what street you're on, but you do want to know how far up or down the street you're on without having to crane your neck left or right and hope to see the number as you go past.

If SW Broadway were a street in SLC, it would be South 700 West. 

I frame the concept thusly because it sets the stage for this next picture; the intersection of NE Pacific Street and NE Holladay Court.

The intersection of these two streets do not happen on an even address block point, and the new way of street-blading Portland attempts to address this. As someone who loves precision in such things, I'm kind of over the moon here. A bit of commentary perforce: in raw terms, the intersection of NE Pacific Street and NE Holladay Court is of two streets that are defined as east-west runners. They therefore have very similar blockface numbers. However! One has to remember that when you look at that block index, you're not looking at the the address on the street that is named but the address on the street you're already on that's defined by the point of the crossing street. Thus, NE Pacific Street cuts across NE Holladay Court at approximately 13050 NE Holladay Court; NE Holladay Court intersects NE Pacific Street at the address of 13020 NE Pacific Street.

If that weren't bewildering enough, this blade set might make you cross your eyes:

This is a few hundred feet back, where Holladay Street bends to become Holladay Court. Not exactly an intersection as one might think about it, until one thinks about it: it's an intersection, just one where a street name changes. Each block index reads 13000; this intersection is where the 13000 block begins and ends on either street.

It's a little challenging to get used to if you're a new Portlander; the only other Willamette Valley city I know that does it this way is McMinnville. Eventually, it'll click, and once it does, it'll seem like the most organic and natural thing … as long as you start with the idea that you already know what street you're on, and this tells you what's coming and going as you travel.

And the font? That's Clearview, baby. Looks good to me!

[Address Nerd] Street Blades? They're Always Clear In Philadelphia

2503.

I haven't had a good story about a street blade to tell in a while, but while digesting the information delivered to me in the last missive, I've stumbled on a really cool blade design, and couldn't wait to share it.

I'm surprised I haven't heard about the design of the blades in Philadelphia before. They're quite nifty. One of the classics of big-city American street blade style, I've found in my informal, note-free surveys, is the address index going on a little tab along the top of the blade. That way, the full street name - the specific (actual street name), generic (st/ave/ct/whatever), and directional (N, S, SW, etc) are the star. The address block is important, but most often, you're probably just interested in what street you happen to be on at the moment.

Most towns, in order to simplify street blade construction have, over time, incorporated the block index into the main blade, resulting in a design that uses a standard, simple rectangular blade shape, whose benefits in creation and production ought to be self-evident. But the classic tab on the top goes away.

Philadelphia's design actually creates the blade outline with the tab, effectively, built-in ... and including a lot of pedestrian-and-motorist location information either directly or indirectly. Here's one for the end of the 2100 block of West Kater Street, in Philly:

Intersection of Kater and 21st in Philadelphia
CC2.0 BY-SA licensed by creator Edu-Tourist

The sign is clear and beautiful, and is particularly notable for for including the directional not as a part of the street name (on the sign, at least) and as a data point in the block number display, which also gives you a clear idea of which way it is to the baseline - important in cities like Philadelphia, where the central business district is usually also the location of the local address grid origin.

Knowing this sign and getting a look at the sign on the other corner of 21st, you'd know at a glace how far away from the downtown core you are, and even be able to infer which way north actually is (remembering to account for the tilt of the local street grid).

The incorporation of the tab into the design of the sign makes for a non-standard shape, but presumably, Philly has gotten this obstacle circumvented. Notable as well is the practice of spelling the generic (STREET, in this case) out rather than abbreviating it, but removing the block number and directional from the main part of the sign makes this possible. Presumably if the specific were a particularly long word, that'd call for an abbreviation.

About the only drawback is that any geegaw personalizing the blade for the the district would have to go below, as in this photo: http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/070730/070730_philly_hmed_4p.h2.jpg (referenced in this discussion board thread at PhiladelphiaSpeaks.com), which is a little bit of a break from tradition - it's also customary to put such identifying plaques in the pride-of-place spot, along the top, as we do here in PDX.

But withal, it's a grand design, and we deem it nifty.

Technorati Tags: street blade gallery, street blades, philadelphia

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[pdx] New Street Blades - SE 122nd and Pardee

2382.

Okay, false alarm there. It looked like Flock would post. Fooled me again.

To show the world I'm not completely hung up here, here's two pictures from a recent photo safari. The new Type 3 blades, at SE 122nd Avenue and Pardee Street – one block south of the light at Holgate.

The 122nd there on this blade looks a little stretched out in the altitudinal direction.

Very readable, very pleasant on the eye. Once again and not for the last time, kudos to the designer of these blades. Very nice looking.

[pdx] SE 92nd And Division – New Blades, Cool Building

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The new PDX street blades are now gracing both the NW and NE corners of SE 92nd Avenue and Division Street.

I have rhapsodized enough about these new designs that I needed do that any more. My devoted reader should be well familiar by now with my feelings about their Clearview goodness, and mixed-case on a street blade just makes me happy and antic inside. It's the feeling I had when I finally got to write on College-ruled paper instead of wide-ruled and regular-size pencils instead of those big green ones.

Of course I have the big green ones now … but it's totally ironic. Seriously.

Just east of here and on the south side of the street is the coolest building in the area:

If I had a successful design agency, I would totally have this building, at least partially. And I would totally have the big diamond-windowed office. A harlequin building! Mine, you!

The area is, of course, very close to I-205, which provides for a bit of urban layering:

This is what I do. Look up at signs and enjoy the play of line, angle, curve, and color. And sunny days are still rare in Portland at this time of year.

But the new crop of street blades are in bloom. And looking good.

Technorati Tags: PDX Photos, Portland Street Blades, Street Blade Gallery, SE 92nd Avenue, SE Division Street

[pdx] The Sandy-Couch-Burnside Couplet Cometh: A Piece Of PDX, Going Away …

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… that particular piece being the two blocks of NE Sandy Blvd between NE 12th Avenue and NE 14th Avenue, as the area we like to call the Six Points East is going to become the eastern anchor to the new Burnside-Couch One-Way couplet that feeds down to the so-called Burnside Bridgehead at MLK and the Bridge.

East Burnside Street will be one-way eastbound from MLK to NE 14th Avenue, where eastbound traffic to Sandy will be routed.

NE Couch will peel westbound traffic off NE Sandy Blvd at 14th Avenue and route that traffic to the bridge via the zero-hundred block of NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The 1200 and 1300 Blocks of NE Sandy Blvd will cease to be – along with the business frontage of Northwest Fitness.

The following series of images depict new views of Portland and views that you won't be able to see after the middle of next month without breaking major traffic laws. I debated breaking this up, but I'll put it all in one post, the better to find as a landing zone. Maybe I'll break it apart at some future time.

The new overblades on the street signal overheads now not only carry the new Clearview font and design style but also the iconic Portland rose that has so far been seen on the slightly-older overblades.

The numbered avenue overblade. The block number is not shown because it's obvious that 12th Avenue defines the 1200 block. Clearview and rose.

Lloyd Center Union (not next to Lloyd Center, and not a Union 76 Station) is a auto service garage that's been at the corner of NE 12th and Couch for as long as anyone can remember. Maybe it was once a Union 76 station, I don't know. For a long time it was painted just like one, and had to carry a sign saying that no gas was available was there. The blue-and-orange sign over the blue garage door on the left there is a remnant of that livery. Traffic in front of Lloyd Center Union is going to get very busy soon – but just westbound.

This is the view you'll see running westbound down Couch as you approach NE 11th Avenue from now on as you drive toward the Burnside Bridge. From now, on, to view it the way you used to … that is to say, like this:

You'll be breaking major traffic laws, as well as just putting yourself into bodily harm. Speaking of which, I did stand for a few minutes in the very middle of East Burnside Street … but there was no traffic, as you can see. This is the beauty of taking pictures in Portland, Oregon, on a Sunday morning.

A friend from my past called Portland "The City That Always Sleeps". Here, we haven't yet unrolled the sidewalks.

NE 11th between Burnside and Couch. Nice to know that Cthulhu's minions represent. Of course, the Lower Burnside crowd can be kind of rough sometimes, so they get a run for their money. Best you just retire to Union Jack's around the corner, look at the nekkid laydees, and knock back a drink or two.

Here's something else you're going to see more of now that you'll be going down to the bridge on NE Couch Street – it's called Norse Hall. Been there since the 1920s, I understand. Big ol' clubhouse, meeting space, that sort of thing. Across the street …

… at 100 NE 11th Avenue, is German Formula, another auto shop for das Volksvagen amongst other fine examples of German engineering. Well kept and maintained, it exults in its birthday – 1929.

The signs you'll see next are ones that will be certainly made obsolete by the new street alignment – they're landmarks, and they show their age.

There will be no need for this sort of direction when the width of Burnside is all going one way and there's no Sandy Boulevard between 12th and 14th Avenues.

The silver poles holding up these signs are warhorses, stalwarts, and have rust on spots, but where other places they'd look like wear, here, they're badges of honor.

This bit of road will soon be a bit of history.

That old sign over 12th Avenue is probably going to be replaced. It certainly needs to. But I enjoy it. And the driver of that car probably thinks I'm a nut for standing in the middle of the street in front of him and taking pix. And maybe he's right. Who knows?

Another thing that will change … that's the 1300 block of Burnside, and that car on the left would otherwise be found one block north from here.

I gave the fellow fifteen cents. It was all I had to give him, but I don't think you should have to beg for coffee in Portland. Seems just as unjust as having to make your living by begging that way anyway. I hope he found his cuppa.

Another look at the bit of Sandy that will cease to be. If you turn 180 degrees, you see something people aren't generally aware of … and that's Southeast Sandy Blvd.

It goes down the hill until the true beginning of Sandy, which is SE 7th Avenue and Washington Street. Up until now it was good to know; you just went straight though and before you knew it, you were on SE Morrison Street or Belmont, if you wanted. Now, it'll take two extra turns and a couple more traffic lights.

The new traffic flow to Sandy will be eastbound on Burnside until 14th Avenue, then north a block, behind Northwest Fitness. The new street is being improved:

That side of the Northwest Fitness building, I'm told, is to be – as far as the address goes, anyway – the new front to the building. One thing that probably won't change is the old Sandy Hut Tavern:

… which will be sitting, prow-like, at the Couch-Sandy wedge for a while to come yet, by the looks of things.

The Excecutive Lodge – which may or may not cater to actual executives – is across from here, and has a bit of vintage neon on the side:

… all Color TV Air Conditioned. Now, my friends, that's luxury. And the only way you'll get this viewpoint from now forward is on foot.

The Portland Bottling Co. building has been in the news lately, because of what some company did to the landmark 7-Up sign up top. I sure wish they'd of left that alone; I'm not about to go looking for that tea bottle just because they put it up there. The sign is dead to me. But the architecture of the building is so very Art Deco, that I'm glad they didn't cover it up. It's like looking at an old, well preserved car.

I feel like I'm looking at an old Terraplane when I see this side of the building.

I don't care what anyone else says; thats a face at corner of the building. It's hungry. And it's coming for me.

Art Deco detail, 1920s style type. What's not to get lost in over here? As architectures go, Portland Bottling Company is a collectors item, a grubby gem.

Here's a new street blade at 13th and Couch that combines the border from the earliest new-style blades with the type structure of the later ones.

Here's a crossing signal that is definitely going away …

As is that one.

And here's one more image of the bit of Sandy that's going away:

From that two-armed signal gantry to the limit of sight, that's a major Portland throughfare that's going away, in the name of progress, development, or something.

I myself shall miss it when it's gone. Six Points East was an annoying, amusing intersection – but there's worse things in life than having to wait though it (at least if you aren't late for something). And it's an authentic Portland quirk, rather than all the manufactured ones you see so much of these days.

Well, I hope the new Burnside-Couch couplet does all the things they say it's going to do.

Technorati Tags: PDX, Sandy Blvd, Burnside St, Couch St, Six Points East, 12th Avenue, PDX History, PDX Photos

[pdx] Where César E Chávez Meets Rosa Parks

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I recall that, on the first go-around, those in favor of the Interstate Avenue rename to César E. Chávez Boulevard plan used, as a selling point, the visual poetry and justice of having the names of two giants of justice cross at a point in front of the New Seasons Market at Interstate and what-was-then-just-renamed Portland Boulevard.

In the new age of CEC Blvd, they've gotten their wish really, just not in a way they'd of expected. Now, César E. Chávez Blvd does indeed intersect Rosa Parks Way …

… only this is Rosa Parks Way …

… and this is NE César E. Chávez Blvd …

Not to mention that NE 39th Avenue got upgraded to a Boulevard, whereas Portland Boulevard got downgraded to a mere Way.

None of this should be interpreted as my having any problem with 39th being renamed to honor Chávez, or Portland Blvd being renamed to honor Rosa Parks (as a matter of fact, I find I like them rathermuch), but rather an indication of the perversity of the universe, which once again schools us that you may get what you want, but the crucible of obtaining will sometimes surprise us by giving it to us in a way that nobody ever counted on.

Universe's funny that way.

Somewhat on a tangent, we also note that a street named for its proximity to Portland Blvd, NE Portland Blvd Ct., has retained its old name (there's precedence for this with SW Ford Street Dr, which references a no-longer-extant Ford Street), which is lucky for the Portland sign shop, as a NE Rosa Parks Way Ct blade would be about as awkward to mount as it is to say.
 

Technorati Tags: PDX, Portland, PDX Street Blades, Portland Street Blades, Street Blade Gallery, Rosa Parks Way, Cesar E Chavez Blvd