I’m not gonna lie. It was a long six hours. Like any good project, we had to take a break and buy more supplies (our liquid nails had become solid.) But we did it!
My Ikea-planning helped. It was a matter of cutting along lines and matching labeled parts to other parts before we glued and screwed everything into place. At the time of this picture, I still needed to cut the hole out for the electrical outlet, but this is where we stopped to celebrate our win.
And here we are celebrating! We built a very strong platform. I feel as though I could tap dance on top if it with no trouble.
Also, notice how it’s a bit higher than the dryer is currently sitting. That’s fine and gives me a few more inches of maneuverability for litter box cleaning.
Some of the protesters at the Police Union building took a turn down Denver and did some burning and property destruction in the Kenton Downtown area. I went for a walk the next morning to take in the destruction.
I support protestors call for racial justice. I’m not a fan of property destruction. I think the anarchists are doing a great job painting all protestors as destructive which isn’t the case. But being anarchists, they are quite happy to destroy a movement for their own pleasure.
I was out in the seven o’clock hour and things had already been tidied.
This part of Denver Ave. has been cut off from car traffic so the businesses (many of which are restaurants) can have more room to sell things. This is a program that has been happening in commercial areas around Portland this summer. You can see how they make the stencils for the sidewalk chalk shapes that indicate walkways and then use the stencils to partition areas into rooms. I find this to be a very clever use of materials.
I think this might have been the part of town where the dumpster was set on fire. You can see some charred wood.
Here is a bit of stencil that wasn’t wholly consumed by flame.
This is another one was burned a little. You can see it in the lower-left corner.
Here’s a bit more melting.
I think Bart’s Barber Shop had already had their window smashed in. It wouldn’t have been boarded up so quickly. I think the graffiti is new. You can also see some other graffiti on the window over the logo and some old graffiti on the Kenton Lodge cornerstone.
I wanted to take these pictures because when people hear “riot” and “fire” and “property destruction” I think a lot of them picture rubble and complete decimation. As you can see here, there is property damage that will cost money and that sucks. But it’s not complete destruction that businesses need to rise, Phoenix-like out of the ashes.
