cyclotram

blue heron, westmoreland park

2009-11-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

july infrared

2009-11-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

august infrared

2009-11-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

pearlhenge

2009-11-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

Some construction photos from somewhere in the Pearl District, at the tail end of the condo bubble. I'm not sure which building this turned out to be; I haven't been paying close attention to the Pearl recently, and many of the new buildings aren't overly distinctive anyway.

It's almost a shame the bubble didn't pop earlier, leaving a forest of concrete slabs and bits in its wake. Grainy black & white photos of this scene in midwinter would've been Holga-licious.

On a related note, I ran across a fascinating video tour inside the unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Billions already spent, billions more needed and unavailable. Which in turn is oddly reminiscent of the Commie-era Palatul Parlamentului in Bucharest, Romania.

Not that I'm trying to suggest an analogy between Mayor Adams and Nicolae Ceaucescu or anything, no sirree. Although it is curious how so many people seem afraid to publicly criticize Sam for any reason. Why is that, exactly? What sort of hold does he have over people? What are they so afraid of, and -- more importantly -- should I be afraid of that too, whatever it is? Maybe I should stop talking about this now. Yeah.

reflected, autumn

2009-11-06T02:08:00.000-08:00

This is the area around 3rd & Ankeny, going by the bit of the "Keep Portland Weird" slogan you can see here. Don't bother doing a pilgrimage this time -- in RL it didn't actually look very much like what you see here.

big pink in a window

2009-11-06T02:02:00.000-08:00

A few more window-reflection shots, this time of the US Bank tower, a.k.a. "Big Pink". This sort of photo requires an empty storefront with butcher paper behind the windows, with a good view of something you want photos of. The worse the economy is, the more options you have for this.

As a result, you would be within your rights to assume that some sort of message or social commentary is intended, but there really isn't. Not consciously, at least, unless you count "Empty storefronts are kind of melancholy and sad". Which is more of a truism than a message, really.

Still, sometimes I like to play like this reflection stuff kinda-resembles the sort of photo they teach you to make in Art Sk00l. And in Art Sk00l (and beyond), one is more or less obligated to at least pretend one's work embodies various Important Truths, because that's a key part of the product, you see. This juices up the perceived value and desirability of the work, thereby enabling one to starve somewhat more slowly. So, in short, feel free to imagine I'm trying to say something deep and meaningful, if you like.

Hall & 14th

2009-11-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

A few photos of the nameless city park at SW 14th & Hall, just across I-405 from downtown Portland. I've mentioned the place before, in these three posts, but I've never gotten around to doing a post about it. Quite possibly that's because it's not really that fascinating. It's a small triangle of land next to a bend in the freeway, and my guess is that it's a leftover scrap of land from when the freeway went in. There are a few flowers, some landscaping, some lights and benches, and a trash bin or two, and that's about it. The place was on my TODO list anyway because it's both obscure and close to home, but I still never got around to going back and taking photos. Then I realized I still had some photos from 2007 that I'd never used, and I might as well go with those. They get the basic idea across, at least.

View Larger Map

Via PortlandMaps, we learn that the triangle is designated "R246890". Which isn't much of a name, but at least it's unique. We also learn that the park comes to 0.53 acres, and the land technically belongs to the Oregon Dept. of Transportation rather than the city, although I gather the city (rather than ODOT) looks after it. This is not terribly surprising considering that it's right next to a freeway, and it may explain why the city's never gotten around to naming it, putting up a sign for it, etc.

I've already mentioned, in one of those previous posts, the sole news item I could find related to it, a 2006 change in the park hours. Assuming the policy's still in force, after 9pm you're still free to walk through the park, but loitering is verboten. I would hope that if, for example, you're walking through at 9:04, and you drop your car keys and stop to pick them up, you don't immediately get tased by Officer Friendly. But you never know. Chances are that the real-life policy is to hassle anyone who looks homeless, and convince them to go be poor somewhere else. The park is surprisingly secluded despite being wedged between a freeway and a somewhat twee historic neighborhood. It's down a slope from the street and only accessible from a couple of side entrances, and it's surrounded by trees on all sides. If you're homeless and just looking for somewhere to sleep and not be disturbed, this would seem like an ideal spot.

Note that I said "seem" there. I haven't actually encountered anyone living here, and I'm just deducing based on city policy. Maybe the freeway is just too noisy. I suppose if I was really dedicated to this whole blogging thing, I'd grab a ratty blanket and a 40 of Old E and go try it myself. But I didn't do that, and doing so only occurred to me just now, and it doesn't sound like a very good idea. However, if you're feeling more adventurous than I, and you decide to go try it, I'll be happy to link to you. If you try it, get tased by Officer Friendly for your efforts, and write a humorous or harrowing account of your adventure, I'd be delighted to link to you.

And if you actually live here for real, I can pretty much guarantee I'd link to you. Unless that would attract too much attention, I mean, since I do get visitors here from City Hall now and then. And in the larger scheme of things, a link from an obscure and obsessive little blog is probably not on the top ten (or hundred) list of things you really need, is it?

twilight, market street

2009-11-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

fallen

2009-11-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Doughboy Monument, Astoria

2009-11-01T01:19:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

A few old (2007-ish) photos of the "Doughboy Monument", the slightly odd World War I memorial out in Astoria, at the corner of Marine Drive & Columbia Avenue, just east of the Astoria-Megler Bridge. The slightly odd bit is the low building that forms the base of the statue. It doesn't seem to have any obvious purpose, but it does. Any guesses? No? Why, it's a public restroom, of course. Really, it is. It dates back to the 1920's, when there seems to have been a mania for adding public restrooms to various improbable things, like the Oregon City Bridge for instance. I've never seen a good explanation for this. Did people just drink a lot more water than they do today? Beats me.

Astoria, Oregon Daily Photo has a nice post about the monument, including the various inscriptions around it. Which is nice, since they're are too small to see in my photos. The author expands on that in "Astoria's Doughboy Monument: Finding an angle", in which she tries to figure out a good angle to shoot it from. Busy backgrounds in most directions, and wayyy too many overhead wires. I remember running into this problem too when I took the photos in this post, and thanks in advance for pretending you hadn't noticed.

Portland Public Art covers the doughboy here, calling it "dull and mechanical". Also a mention of it (and the sculptor's many similar works) at ~westr. (Scroll down to the "Soldier's Monument" bit.)

The statue on top is titled "Over the top at Cantigny", by the sculptor John Paulding. Cantigny is a small town in France, and the site of the first WWI battle involving US soldiers. The town now features a large memorial to US troops, and another smaller one outside of town. Among those who served at Cantigny was Col. Robert McCormick, later the right-wing owner of the Chicago Tribune. I mention this because he had a 500 acre estate outside Chicago (now a park), which he named "Cantigny". The battle also lent its name to an Army transport ship of the 1920's.

Triad, Laurelhurst Park

2009-10-31T02:14:00.000-07:00

A few photos of "Triad", a modern (circa 1980) steel sculpture plunked down in the middle of Laurelhurst Park. I'm not sure it fits the site all that well, but taken on its own it's ok. It's about the right size, and doesn't overpower the landscape the way some do (*cough* rusting chunks *cough*). The Smithsonian art inventory page for it is here. Not a lot else about it on the 'tubes, although I ran across a photo + brief mention of it in a back issue of the Multnomah Bible College student newspaper.

I'm not totally sure of this, but it sounds like the sculptor later went on to be a co-owner of Portland's Papa Haydn restaurant.

I took these during the same expedition where I also took photos of a visiting heron, and various mostly infrared photos of the pond area. So that was a productive day. And even better, a sunny one, and I got a few IR and UV photos of the sculpture, for a little variety. I sure do miss the sun... I still almost remember what it looked like, vaguely...

Mysterious Milestone 5

2009-10-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

So now we've come to the last milestone that I know of, and it's a mysterious one. Like the "other" P7 I mentioned the other day, this one's located in Southwest Portland. It's on Spring Garden Road, between two houses, just east of the intersection with 17th Ave. South side of the street, between the first and second houses east of 17th. The Stark Street Mile Markers mini-blog makes no mention of it, and I only learned of it when I ran across photos of it on Flickr. Beyond that, I know nothing definite about it. It's a stone or possibly concrete post with the number 5 on it, that much is certain. I assume the "5" represents distance (though we don't know even that for a fact), and I assume that's distance in miles to somewhere, and I assume that somewhere is probably downtown Portland -- although there's no 'P' this time to indicate that. It's not clear what route they're measuring it along, though. The "5" is sort of near both Barbur/99W and Taylor's Ferry, and Capitol Highway isn't far to the west. But I don't know that any of them ever ran along this exact route. I could be wrong. I don't have a handy source of authoritative info on that. If there was somewhere on the net that had historical maps of the area at various times, that would be ideal. But if it exists, I haven't run across it yet.

The milestone is clearly of newer vintage than the others. It most closely resembles the mileposts on the Columbia River Highway, which went in circa 1914. Although they could easily be decades older or newer. So we don't know if it's on the same route as P7, and as with P7 we don't know whether this is its original location, or whether this is the original stone. If it's a stone, and it might not be.

While looking into Mysterious Milestone 5, I wandered off on a tangent for a while and learned far too much trivia and arcana about how state highways are named and numbered. And I still don't think I know enough to explain it properly. I was curious about Capitol Highway, which today is just a secondary road that winds its way rather aimlessly through the West Hills between Barbur (in the area of George Himes Park) and roughly PCC Sylvania. It was, we're told, the route of OR-99W before it was rerouted to its current location. So far so good, except that we haven't explained the "Capitol" in the name, since 99W doesn't go to Salem. Apparently the original full-length Capitol Highway branched off just before McMinnville, and headed due south to Salem via Dayton. This is present-day OR-221.

Or, if you prefer, "Salem-Dayton Highway No. 150". It turns out that state roads in Oregon often have two separate numbers, as Wikipedia valiantly tries to explain here. The numbers you normally encounter (like OR-99W, etc.) are route numbers, a system the state introduced in 1932 that semi-replaced the earlier highway numbers from 1917. Nobody uses the old numbers anymore except ODOT, and they use them internally for reasons I can't guess at. And I think I read somewhere that the numbers on road mile markers are based on highway mileage, not route mileage, leading to weird results when the two aren't coextensive. If you drive across the state on US 20, you will, I'm told, encounter "mile 1" no fewer than five times. In any case, in addition to being OR-99W, plus any local street name it happens to have, the same road is also "Pacific Highway West No. 1W". I saw a mention that Capitol Highway was once Highway #3, although at present that number belongs to "Oswego Highway No. 3", better known as OR-43 or Macadam, among other names (and present-day Capitol Highway isn't a state highway at all anymore.) In the same vein, I-405 is also "Stadium Freeway No. 61", parts of Boones Ferry Rd. and Hall Blvd. are "Beaverton-Tualatin Highway No. 141" (, and an obscure stretch of Marine Drive and N. Portland Road are, officially, "Swift Highway No. 120". The latter two were recently (2002) designated OR-141 and OR-120 respectively, although they haven't put up route signs for either one so far....

Um, how did I get off on this tangent again? We've covered how to get to the Capitol via the historical Capitol Highway, and I previously covered how to get to erstwhile Taylor's Ferry via the original route of Taylor's Ferry Road. As for Barbur, it was only built in 1933 (construction photo here), and prior to that it was the route of the Southern Pacific Westside Line. And all of this is very interesting and so forth, but I still have no idea how Spring Garden Rd. fits in. Unless maybe it just doesn't fit in.

autumnal & inedible (probably)

2009-10-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

As seen on SW Ash St., in downtown Portland. I don't actually know what sort of tree these are on. My rusty Boy Scout tree identification skillz were pretty much 100% focused on commercially valuable conifers. Hey, it was the early 80's in the Pacific Northwest, and there was still an outside chance that might be a useful job skill someday, so that's what we learned. It may actually be some kind of ash tree, going by some of the photos I'm seeing on the net. Which would be appropriate, and a bit more detail-oriented than the city usually is.

In any event, free to chime in if you know what these are. I say that every so often, and I think I've gotten a response exactly once, plus one non-blog response on a Flickr photo page. Which suggests that the majority of this humble blog's Gentle Reader(s) are either A.) not avid botanists or B.) avid but unhelpful botanists. I'm going to go with option A, since that's what I prefer to believe.

I also don't know whether the fruit you see here is edible or not. I suspect it isn't, on the theory that the city will never knowingly put something out there that homeless people could subsist on, even if it doesn't taste very good. Or possibly I'm overly cynical about that.

Either way, I'm not going to go and suggest that anyone try eating these. Although if you do, strictly of your own free will, and the fruit doesn't kill you, and the pesticides and other assorted cooties also don't kill you, feel free to post a comment and describe what it tastes like. Because I admit I'm just a little curious, albeit not curious enough to try it myself.

Southwest Milestone P7

2009-10-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Ok, so we finished up the last Stark St. Milestone a few days ago, but we aren't quite done with Milestone Madness just yet. In my post about the P7 on Stark St., I mentioned there was another P7 out on Capitol Highway in SW Portland. And this, o Gentle Reader(s), is that other P7. As you can sorta-see here, it's located right at the entrance to the Capitol Hill Library, just a couple of feet from the entrance curb cut. Park at the library and look for it. It's hard to miss, once you're looking for it and you know it's there.

The milestones on Stark follow an obvious pattern, and most of them still exist. This milestone seems to be the sole survivor of at least 7 heading SW out of downtown. So it's more mysterious than the Stark stones, and raises a few questions I can't answer right now:

7 miles(?) from where, along what route? Presumably it's in miles, presumably it's miles from downtown Portland, and presumably it follows the route of Hwy 99W to the SW of here, to the site of the actual Taylor's Ferry, and beyond. The route between downtown and here is less certain -- somehow or other it has to add up to 7 miles, so it's not as-the-crow-flies distance, since it seems to be just short of 5 miles in a straight line. Unless the stone is newer than it looks, the distance isn't likely to be along the current Hwy 99W / Barbur Blvd. route, since that was a railroad right of way until some time in the early-mid 20th century. I suspect it's measured along the route of old Taylor's Ferry road, following Macadam south out of town until the start of present-day Taylors Ferry Rd., just south of the Zupan's grocery store. And if I'm wrong about the route, I have no idea what the real route might be.
I don't know for a fact whether this is the original milestone, or its original site. Could be both, could be neither. I suppose I could've gone inside and asked, since if anyone's likely to know about the milestone it would be someone with the library. But their open hours and my free hours don't mesh up very well, and I had to run off for an important meeting just as they were getting ready to open for the day.
The existence of this milestone suggests that others existed, at least between here and downtown, and possibly between here and the old site of Taylor's Ferry. If so, what became of the others? Were they all lost to road-widening projects (which is distinctly possible, especially as we go further away from downtown)? Or do they still exist somewhere, awaiting discovery by intrepid urban explorers?
As you can see, this P7 is in better shape than most of the ones on Stark. I don't know for a fact that it's the same age as the Stark milestones. It could be the same age but abused less, or it could be slightly newer, or it could be a modern reproduction, for all I know. I suppose I could call or email the library and ask about it, since it's the 21st century and all. They may even respond to tweets or whatever it is that one does on Facebook, for all I know.

Just south of the library is Portland's new Holly Farm Park. I thought about visiting, and drove past and took a look, but I didn't stop. It's new, but it's just a neighborhood park, and it looks far more interesting from space than it does at street level. Oh, well.

Cat in Repose

2009-10-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

Here we have some photos of the big stone cat on the Transit Mall, on 5th between Morrison and Alder. It's called Cat in Repose, by Kathleen McCullough, and it dates back to 1977 when the bus mall first went in. And now it's back from storage, as they're finally done with MAX construction.

Most of the original bus mall art is just eyeroll-inducing, and if anything the new crop is worse. But I've always been fond of the cat. I freely admit I'm biased, and I'm not very objective when it comes to cats, even when they're made of limestone. If you're looking for challenging, cutting edge art you may want to look elsewhere, but it's a cheerful and soothing presence, and it just works in its own way.

Scanning the interwebs for info about it was notably unhelpful. There's no shortage of guidebook-type sites that give it a quick mention, briefly informing the reader that the cat is beloved by children of all ages, or something along those lines. Beyond that, there's not much out there, so I've gathered up everything that seemed halfway useful here for your enjoyment.

Portland Public Art mentioned it once a few years back, when it was damaged by a thoughtless road crew with a pressure washer. They seem to have completely restored it for the MAX grand opening, though.

There's exactly one Flickr photo of the cat out there, that I'm aware of. Other than mine, obviously.

The cat's Smithsonian Art Inventory page has a little more info.

The art inventory also has a little info on the sculptor, and mentions one other work of hers, a lion at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. I ran across a photo of it here, on a blog generally about outdoor art in Chicago. The lion is in about the same pose as our cat, and it's carved from the same Indiana limestone. I don't usually find myself saying this, but I think we ended up with the better of the two. Ours has more of a modern, minimalist look to it, and the lion's more, well, cutesy. Almost folk-artsy, even.

Neither one quite measures up to Richard Recchia's 1931 Persian Cat (SI inventory page here). But hey.

Truth be told, I'd much rather be posting photos of my own cat than posting these, but (as I mentioned a while back) his kidneys gave out on him, and we had to take him in for that one final trip to the vet back in mid-July. I still have a bunch of cute cat photos that I've never posted, and I'm still convinced the net needs more cat photos. But looking at them is still tough, and I'm not sure how I feel about posting them. So maybe someday, and maybe not, but definitely not today.

I'd hate to wrap things up on that note, so let me direct you to "私信 [I am Maru]", a Japanese blog about the life and adventures of Maru, a container-obsessed Scottish fold cat. It's cute and uncomplicated and it's nice to look at when I need a break from grinding out Java all day. So enjoy!

Milestone P14

2009-10-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

So here we have the last Stark St. milestone on our tour: Milestone P14 is way out on the far end of Gresham, on the campus of Mt. Hood Community College. It's near, but not quite at, the intersection of SE Stark and 257th Ave. / Kane Drive. The milestone is east of the intersection, on the south side of stark. There's a low tree-lined berm separating the MHCC parking lot from Stark, and the milestone sits on this berm between a couple of trees. Just a few steps east of it is a big greyish (or maybe green-greyish) utility box of some kind. It's bigger than the milestone and closer to the street, and may be easier to find.

The most convenient way to visit P14 is to park in the college lot just steps away from the thing. As far as I could tell, there's no parking permit system similar to what PCC and Portland State have, and you can park here without getting tased by a campus rent-a-cop. They usually have signs up for that sort of thing and I didn't see any. However, if you do run afoul of a zap-happy security guard, it's not my fault, and I hereby disclaim and renounce all responsibility, real or imagined, for anything that does or doesn't occur here, and you hereby accept that this is one of those inherent dangers that come from acting based on information you found on some random site on the interwebs. A random site with a peculiar and obscure name, no less, run by some random guy with a stupid anonymous nym he doesn't even like very much anymore and is seriously considering changing. Just so we're all clear on where things stand, I mean.

If worse comes to worse, you could always park at the gas station across Stark, or in one of the strip-mall parking lots across 257th. Although they're probably patrolled by predatory towing companies, come to think of it. So there's always TriMet, but the nearest #20 stops are a bit of a walk. Actually this is as far east as the #20 goes; at 257th it turns south and meanders its way down to the Gresham Transit Center. The area's also served by the #80 and #81, which I'm not very familiar with.

Basically the point of all of this handwringing is that I'm trying to conjure up a little excitement around P14, and it's not really working very well. Other than the college, the area is your basic suburban mix of fast food chains, drugstores, big box stores, a few offices here and there, and I'm sure it's perfectly nice and everything... but it leaves something to be desired in the (sub)urban exploration department. You could be anywhere, I mean, if there wasn't a milestone here to tell you exactly where you were.

The stone itself has a pronounced Pisa-like lean to it. If you've arrived here at the tail end of the hypothetical milestone pub crawl I keep going on about, it may help to be aware of this and know that it's not just you. You could probably do some trick photos like people do with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, where you pretend to hold it up, or push it over -- the difference being that your accomplice needs to stand behind the stone instead of in front of it to get the perspective trick right. Which you could easily figure out for yourselves if you were sober, which you aren't, because this is the last of 9 (or so) stops if you're just doing extant milestones, and the 14th of 15 otherwise. Which either way is a whole lot of stops. Speaking of which, there's what looks like a sports bar across from the college on 257th/Kane, or there's a Starbucks just west of here if you'd rather have some coffee at this point, which would be understandable.

The Stark Street Mile Markers blog argues that, as part of conserving and restoring the milestones, P14 should be reset in an upright position. I'd argue "not so fast" on that particular point. The milestone's so old that the lean itself may have some historic value worth preserving. I mean, it's one thing if it started leaning 15 years ago for no reason and it leans another degree or two every year. You'd want to correct that, obviously. But if, hypothetically, it leans due to an accident with an errant Stanley Steamer in 1903, the Northwest's first recorded DUI incident -- or possibly was the work of especially dimwitted Nazi saboteurs in 1942 -- you may want to leave it the way it is. Don't laugh; stranger things happen all the time in the historic preservation world. I'm not saying it should or shouldn't lean; I'm just saying the matter requires further research, and no messing with it in the meantime. There's no rush, after all. It's a rock, it's operates on geological time, and it's survived close to 130-150 years already, which is way more than we can say for whoever put it here.

Besides, I think I kind of like it this way. It's a distinguishing mark. It gives P14 a little character. It's almost jaunty, even. But then, I've been spending far too much time of late staring at old rocks. So it might be best to just ignore me. At least on this particular topic.

sailboat, eastbank esplanade

2009-10-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

the buildings in the water

2009-10-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

willamette, october

2009-10-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Milestone P13

2009-10-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

So we've reached the penultimate stop on our tour of the Stark St. Milestones, namely Milestone P13, in the 23600 block of SE Stark. The closest cross street is Cleveland Avenue, about a block west, so we're squarely into suburban Gresham at this point. At the corner of Stark and Cleveland is the Olympic Gym fitness club, and the milestone sits in a little landscaped triangle at one corner of the gym grounds. Immediately east of the milestone, Stark is bordered on both sides by one of those grey concrete sound walls. Concrete sound walls are usually a clear sign that a road was widened from two to four or more lanes, probably no earlier than the mid-1980's. The Stark St. Mile Markers mini-blog says of P13: "This stone was rescued by the Gresham Historical Society and reset in 1987." I think the story is that it was knocked down by a thoughtless road crew during the road widening, and the local historical society had to go track it down and find it a new home near its original location.

At this point, the idea of a milestone pub crawl kind of breaks down, since there aren't any businesses of any kind nearby except for the fitness club. It would require a flexible definition of "nearby". Or friends who live near the milestone and don't mind hosting roving packs of drunk geography nerds.

You might actually have better luck a mile west of here. Milestone P12 is on the MIA list, sadly, but the neighborhood around its former home (roughly the 21700 block of Stark) is known as Twelvemile Corner. I don't know that area very well either, and I didn't actually stop and look around since there wasn't a milestone to search for. But it's Gresham, so there's bound to be fast food nearby, and probably an old-school tavern or two -- windowless, featuring pool tables and video poker, and full of old-timers who gripe endlessly about the new smoke-free law. Also, Google Maps says that there's an Applebee's due south of here on Burnside. I've only been to an Applebee's once, and I don't want sound all urban and snobby and whatever, but it was just soul-crushing. But maybe you're into that sort of thing, I don't know.

A few blocks further west is the only Portland-area outpost of Abby's Pizza, an Oregon-based chain with stores all over the place except Portland. I'm not sure why that is. Sometimes I get the impression the rest of the state eats a lot more pizza than we do here, but I haven't found any stats to back that up.

In any case, "Twelvemile Corner" is one of the rare geographic names derived from the mile marker system. The only other one I know of is the obscure "11 Mile Avenue" near Milestone P11. There's nothing equivalent to Detroit's Mile Road System. The best known of those is 8 Mile Road, which as I understand it is considered the border between the rich and poor parts of town. Plus it's the state's survey baseline (like Stark St. is), and is also the title of an Eminem movie. As I said, we have no local equivalent.

Revenue Bridge, Sandy River

2009-10-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Here's one lonesome photo of the Revenue Bridge up near Sandy, where Ten Eyck Rd. crosses the Sandy River. I took this on a day I was checking out other bridges in the area, and I'd originally planned to stop here and take a few photos of it too. But I didn't see anywhere to park, and there also doesn't appear to be any way to walk across safely --- there's no sidewalk, there isn't even a bike lane --- and there's also no convenient place to take photos of the bridge from the side or below, and on top of everything else it's not very photogenic anyway. So I think this one lonesome photo is going to have to do.

The bridge is actually very new, less than a year old at the time I'm posting this. Somehow, Clackamas County managed to find the money and then get the project done, without all the endless handwringing that characterizes bridge projects in Portland. The downside of this is that they seem to have produced a supremely uninteresting bridge. What, no "world class" design that we can't possibly afford, even before the cost overruns? What, no endless "visioning process", with hearings and committee meetings with every imaginable "stakeholder", the city promising each and every one of them the moon and stars? How is this possible?

In any case, the bridge is new enough that Structurae has nothing on it yet, although it does have a page about the previous bridge (which it calls the "Ten Eyck Road Bridge"), plus photos. And BridgeHunter lists the old bridge on its page of lost historic bridges for 2009. Calling the previous bridge historic is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. It only dated to 1952, and it doesn't look like it was anything very unique or special. I don't recall ever paying much attention to the old bridge when driving over it, although it's true that I wasn't interested in bridges at the time.

What's more, the old bridge wasn't the original bridge here. Far from it, in fact. There have actually been bridges at this location since the early pioneer days, before Oregon was even a state. And the story behind that also explains the bridge's funny name.

When I was starting to put the post together, I assumed "Revenue Bridge" simply meant that there was a toll charged to cross here at one time. I figured I'd crack a lame joke to the effect that another less likely possibility is that it was just named after someone named "Revenue". Which sounds silly, but it's actually true this time. As this Gresham Outlook story explains, Francis Revenue and his wife were the first pioneer settlers in the Sandy area, circa 1853, and for a time they operated a toll bridge at this location. The bridge was situated on the Barlow Road, the Oregon Trail's scary land route over the Cascades. So it would have been a very lucrative place to own a bridge, right up until the transcontinental railroad went in.

The Sandy page at MountHoodHistory.com includes photos of Mr. & Mrs. Revenue, both looking like they'd just wandered out of the Old Testament. Although that's generally true of people in photos from that era. Something about having to sit motionless for long periods of time while the daguerrotype camera slowly did its thing. The Revenues and their bridge are also mentioned in this account of traveling the Oregon Trail.

And this page fills in a few more details about the Revenues' operation. It mentions in passing that prior to the original bridge, emigrants had to ford the Sandy River as best they could. The Sandy runs fast and cold all year, and every summer it sees a few drownings of unwary swimmers and boaters. So trying to wade across with a covered wagon, a couple of half-starved oxen, and all your worldly possessions would have been challenging.

The Revenues, along with a couple of other family members, are buried nearby.

Still unexplained is the surname "Revenue". It's quite a rare surname, and I don't think I've ever seen it before. I'd imagine it's a case where centuries ago someone was given a surname based on his occupation (see Miller, Farmer, Cooper, Fletcher, etc.), although it's not clear what that would've meant. An archaic synonym for "accountant", perhaps? Royal tax collector, possibly? Or, just maybe, the owner of a medieval toll bridge?

Milestone P11

2009-10-14T01:07:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Today's episode of Milestone Madness takes us even further east, to the 19800 block of SE Stark. Milestone P11 (the mid-19th Century marker indicating exactly 11 miles to downtown Portland) is, like most of the milestones, located on the south side of Stark. Just west of it is the Stark Market convenience store, and to the east is the Mobile Park Plaza, uh, manufactured home community. The milestone is probably part of the property boundary between the two, come to think of it.

If you're trying to locate the milestone by counting cross streets, be aware that despite the address, the nearest streets to the east and west are both numbered as 197th Avenue. Go figure.

I regret to say that I didn't take any sufficiently closeup photos of P11 to tell whether the yellow on this one is paint or lichen. It's been reported that various milestones show evidence of having been painted either white or yellow at one time. P5 was, and still sort of is, white. But all the yellow I've seen so far has been of natural origin. Maybe P11 is the exception? I guess I could go back and look again, but I think I'll leave this question for other intrepid adventurers, in the unlikely event anyone besides me really cares one way or the other.

One thing worth pointing out is that the historical marker next to P7 lists which milestones are extant and which are lost, and it lists this one as "lost". The Stark Street Mile Markers blog mentions that P11 was stolen some time in the late 90's and later recovered, so that might give us a general time frame for when the historical marker went in.

I also ought to have taken more photos of the trailer park next door, or at least the entrance to it. It's got quite the wannabe-grand entrance, flanked with lions and what were probably fountains at one time. It would be a good subject for a series of moody indie Holga photos, if you're into that. Although from the few people I saw in the few minutes I was there, it seems like many area residents are elderly, so if you're here too long taking photos someone's likely to call the police. And this far east is Gresham, not Portland, so I don't know what their policy is on tasing people who look vaguely suspicious. Also, someone connected with the place is a Republican donor, which I mention just so you know you are no longer in the commie pinko part of SE Portland this far east. But you probably knew that already, or guessed as much on the drive here.

If you'd rather not drive -- whether for ideological reasons, or because you're hitting all the milestones as a pub crawl -- the nearest TriMet stop is just east of here (stop id #5477, served by bus #20), at the corner of Stark and ... drum roll ... 11 Mile Avenue. Also, the Ruby Junction MAX station is at 197th & Burnside, a short walk due south of here.

Well, that more or less concludes this stop on the tour. I don't know this part of town that extensively, so if you're doing a milestone pub crawl there aren't any establishments around here that I can recommend from personal experience. But hey, when you're an intrepid urban explorer, sometimes you just have to go find your own damn beer. If you have an iPhone, there's probably an app for that.

Milestone P9

2009-10-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Yes, o Gentle Reader(s), it's time for yet another milestone. This time we're visiting P9, at the 15800 block of SE Stark St, on the south side of the street. Similar to milestone P6, there isn't a cross street right at this point, and the stone is on a long block between 157th and 160th. The Stark Street Mile Markers blog gives the exact address as 15802, but it seems to be a bit west of there, more of a 15780, if we're going to be really anal about these things, which we are. It's next to a garage building on the west end of the U-shaped Victoria Gardens apartment complex. There's a Trimet stop a few steps west of the milestone, stop ID 5450, served by eastbound bus #20. So it's between the bus stop and the first curb cut for the apartments, which should narrow it down to a stretch of maybe 15 feet or so.

I should point out, however, that this isn't a very nice part of town. Where "nice" is what everyone says when they really mean "affluent". It's a little west of Rockwood proper, but the same basic demographics are at work here. I mean, nobody's going to drive by and randomly shoot you or anything while you're looking at the milestone, probably. I'm just mentioning this just so you know not to expect picture-postcard Portland around these parts.

The main danger, actually, is having your car towed if you park at the apartment complex while checking out the milestone. East Multnomah County is ground zero for predatory tow truck companies, and I understand the company listed on the sign here is especially notorious. Turn your back for just a moment and your car's gone, and it's all 100% legal. So heed the sign and just park on a side street or something instead.

You know how our elected officials like to prattle on about how ultra-Euro-fancy Portland supposedly is? Generally that's just marketing talk, intended to attract tourists and upscale condo buyers. But increasingly we resemble Paris in at least one respect, in that we're developing our own ring of les banlieues. Like Paris (and probably a lot of other European cities), poor people and minorities are increasingly squeezed out of the central city, by housing prices and government policy, and they typically end up in a belt of inner-ring suburbs, areas that tourists and local residents alike have no reason to visit. Except for the occasional milestone, I mean. When the mayor goes on yet another of his fact-finding trips across the Atlantic, there are parts of town he isn't interested in seeing, and his hosts aren't interested in showing him, and nobody brings it up, and everyone's happier that way. So it's out of sight, out of mind, problem solved.

I'm not exactly accusing the city of doing this deliberately. They may be cynical enough, but I'm not sure they're clever enough. It's that we go to a lot of trouble to have a nice central city like the Europeans do (or we imagine they do), and as a result we get the same (possibly unintended) side effects that they've got. I mean, Rockwood is no Clichy-sous-Bois, and we don't have packs of rioters going around torching cars or anything like that. I'm just saying there are certain interesting parallels, and the equivalent situation in Paris hasn't exactly turned out well, has it?

nightflyer

2009-10-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

In case you're curious, the origin of the phrase "fly by night" is explained here, and it's got nothing to do with being airborne. I'm told, by people who should know, that actually flying by night requires a bit of skill, especially in bad weather.

FWIW.

palms, fourth avenue

2009-10-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the palm trees the Portland Development Commission planted in Old Town a while back. They're supposed to be of a cold-tolerant variety, by palm tree standards. As far as I know they haven't died yet, though they haven't exactly become an invasive species either.

These palms were supposed to help gentrify the area, I guess by making the rich Californians feel at home and want to buy luxury condos right here. Sadly (for the project), gentrification sort of hit an invisible barrier at NW Broadway, and nothing much ever happened further east between Broadway and the river. Maybe someday the area will transform into a sleek, upscale enclave, but I wouldn't bet on it anytime soon. It's been Skid Row since the days when sailing ships docked at the foot of Couch Street, after rounding Cape Horn to get here. A coat of paint and a few anemic palm trees won't be enough to erase 150 years' worth of bad mojo. They keep trying, and nothing ever seems to pan out, almost as if there's a curse at work here.

On the bright side, the puny little trees mean that the interesting parts of the tree are easier to photograph, so I guess that would be one upside.