Holy cannoli Batman! It’s an infill house I like! I like that it doesn’t loom. I like that it has a garage. I like that it has that great upper front porch. Let’s see if Portland Maps can tell me more. It can! It’s an ADU, recently built. They converted their garage. Well done!
I grew up in Boise, Idaho, but my grandparents and aunts lived in Portland so we visited at least twice a year. Portland was the big city, where you always locked your car in the mall parking lot, where there was a bus system that people actually used, where I routinely tried not to stare at skinheads and homeless people.
In Heavier than Heaven, Charles Cross’s biography of Kurt Cobain, he describes Portland in the late 80s and early 90s as (I’m paraphrasing here) a city, but a blue-collar city, still showing its roots in logging and shipping. And that’s what I remember of downtown Portland growing up. Sure, it had Meier and Frank and the ten stories of goods, plus a fancy restaurant to replenish your appetite during a day of shopping. But it was also full of buildings like this one, single story and dingy looking and in need of a face lift. My memories of walking around downtown Portland as a child are gray (probably because of the perpetually overcast skies) and crowded (many Portland streets are not very wide).
Those dingy buildings are disappearing so quickly. Just looking at the edges of this photo you can see the changes happening. The shiny building to the left of the Passport Photo place was a similarly dingy restaurant equipment supply store until a few years ago. And in the upper left you can see additional stories grafted onto a building on the Park Blocks that has been purposed into mixed-use condominiums. On the upper right is a huge condo complex the likes of which I will never be able to afford and I can’t even tell you what kind of buildings used to be there.
It’s a time of big changes for the blue-collar logging town. Some of them I love, some of them I don’t. I just hope that through the changes Portland says a city I’m crazy in love with.
My neighbor who knows what’s going on in the neighborhood told me the sad news. There’s going to be a development of mixed-use apartments like we saw with the site of the former City of Roses Motel. I don’t have specifications yet, but I’m guessing there won’t be parking, or much parking included. Given that this is one block north of our house, Matt and I can probably say goodbye to easy street parking.
And we shall soon say goodbye to three structures including this beautiful duplex, which is still in great shape. No word on if the tree will survive.
Here’s the duplex from the other side. One of the tenants, now long gone, was the first person to welcome me to the neighborhood, back in 2007.
The commercial building will also go. I had some plans to tear it down and make a big garden. 🙂 But that won’t be happening.
And this pretty little house, which my neighbor says is also really nice inside.
Which means we will also lose this lilac tree.
Again, I must be careful in my lamenting as my current duplex residence also replaced a single family house. And it didn’t include parking either. I’ve been thinking more about this issue lately because the City Club just did a study about affordable housing and the membership voted to amend the report to re-zone single family neighborhoods to increase density. And there was this very intriguing interview with Sonja Trauss of SF BARF saying yes, big projects should be built. I found myself agreeing with her logic, but also resisting because I hate to see houses that are well cared for destroyed for something big and ugly and usually hugely over-priced.
Did you guess that the Orange Door was on the front cover? Yes? You are right! And guess who took the picture? Did you guess me? Right again!
Ah, Proud Ground. Thanks to you, I can say I have photo credits. My photos show up regularly in your publications.
Here we go, chipping away at another page. Matt, outside the 23rd Avenue Bottle Shop. This shop is newer than our Passports, but we still had to get the stamp. This place can meet all of your McMenamins-related alcohol needs.
Across the parking lot from the Bottle Shop is McMenamins Tavern & Pool.
Onward to Hoyt, where we found the Ram’s Head.
A quick stop at the Blue Moon.
Then a long walk to the Market Street Pub where we got our last stamp and waited for a table so we could get our burger.
Here’s our completed page. We got our Mission Theater stamp when we went to the alien abduction movie last spring.
And here’s my burger. And oyster crackers came with my clam chowder!
I noticed that the lamp wasn’t going anywhere. It’s screwed to the tabletop.
Since I helped with PKO’s senior dissertation, I was invited to her Senior Dessert event, where each student talked about their senior project. Since PKO’s school is just off Burnside, I decided to talk a walk up Burnside.
But first! Dinner! According to the Oregonian, it’s Dumpling Week. I initially dismissed Dumpling Week as I am not a fan of dumplings. But that was before a friend posted the featured dumplings at Sizzle Pie. Pizza “dumplings”? I can go for that. They were delicious. Apparently Salt and Straw, the ice cream place, had some ice cream “dumplings” too.
Outside of Sizzle Pie were these signs.
They seemed to be part of an art instillation that was ending tonight.
It turned out that all those signs were encouraging people to exchange high fives! Alas, there was no one to high five with. I wonder if I missed a sign like this on the other end of the block?
The Burnside Bridge. I’ve always liked the bridge operator towers. Ahead on the left you can see the new big building that changed their window ratio after the design was approved. Nothing bad is happening to them for doing that.
This building has long been a favorite. It has a Burnside Bridge entrance and for many years was empty or used for storage. Now it seems to be some sort of creative-type work space. And also the warehouse for the fruit place, but I think that was always the case.
Blurry shot of what was the used car lot with the multi-pointed roof. I don’t know what they are building, but I can guess it’s apartments/condos that I won’t be able to afford.
Back before Matt and I shacked up, and I used to walk from my studio apartment downtown to his place in Buckman, I used to avoid this sketchy motel. But it became the Jupiter Motel, a hip place to stay. And then it was fun to walk by. In my mind, this was the first thing that really changed on Burnside.
Hippo Hardware is still there.
What was once the big parking lot for the Foursquare church is now a big apartment complex of one- and two-bedroom apartments. Starting rent for a 575 square foot one bedroom? $1395.
Here’s where the restaurant Old Wives’ Tales was before it was sold to a developer to build either apartments or condominiums. I’m not terribly upset. The owner seems quite happy with the deal (see link) and the food there was always kind of bland.
Good old Little Baja! I can remember that from when we would visit when I was growing up.
This used to be a parking lot. Now it’s…guess what! Did you guess expensive apartments? You are correct!
But here is my favorite place on East Burnside. The neon is looking quite resplendent.
This corner once held a two-story run of different modest businesses, with apartments on top. Now it’s a four-story run of fancier businesses and condos or apartments I can’t afford.
I made it to the Senior Dessert. Here’s PKO talking about her project!
My new job has me back downtown. I’m very excited to take my favorite Max train. With this job, I’ve decided to get off at the Rose Quarter and walk over the Steel Bridge to get to work. This will give me a 20-minute walk at the beginning and end of my workday.
The surprise snow, brought a not-so-suprise snow day. (We don’t do snow in Portland, and we certainly don’t do ice on top of snow.)
Ice and snow on the front porch.
My street was looking okay, but the side streets were icier.
Melting ice and snow in on my doormat.
We started the next day with a 2-hour delay, which was converted to a second snow day by 7:30am. Two snow days! What a gift!
Here’s what you usually get when you go to isitsnowinginpdx.com. Because there’s often a lot of weather related anticipation/hand-wringing about the possibility of snow. And most of it comes to naught. I find the weather hype annoying.
But today I woke up at 4:30, read in bed, fed the cats, returned to bed and drifted off again after 7. When I woke up around 8:30, there was…snow? It’s been so long that snow has arrived without days of anticipation that I almost didn’t believe I was looking at actual snow. But snow it was. I stayed in bed and took in the view.
Antares kept track of the snow out the window. 
So I’m going to ask you one more time. Is it snowing in Portland?
The holiday tree (which I believe is it’s official name) is getting its branches attached. I think they supplement with branches from other trees, judging by Douglas Firs I’ve seen in the wild. (aka the neighborhoods of Portland)
Somewhere on this post is a picture of a big hole. After a period of recession-era shutdown, that big hole has now become a very sparkly new building.
Said sparkly new building towers over Director Park (picture it on the far right of the picture below). Perhaps its height will make the covered area in the park look a better scale. By the way, the roof of the covered area is being repaired as its instillation was faulty.
Our iconic “Allow Me” statue has been outfitted for the holidays.
