Tag: Portland

On the way to volunteering

The renovation of Eddie’s Flat Iron Pizza building has been going on since at least May.  I’m not sure why it’s taking so long.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell what the plan is, but for sure they are splitting the space into to spaces.  There was a lot of work going on on the right side of this picture, before it spread around to the front.  But I think they are also taking off the early 80s pink-ish tile and have some plan for a new surface.  But look what was underneath! I love to find old signage on buildings. IMG_4572

It used to be a place called the Ice Cream Bowl.  And I bet there used to be a stucco exterior and a lot of deco glass blocks once upon a time too.  IMG_4573

As an update on 9/23, I walked by and they have hacked away this entire porch/entrance structure.  The entrance is now flat with the tiled area.  I was disappointed to see it go, so much so that I didn’t take a picture.

Just up the  block you can see an unfortunate thing that happened over the summer.  I’m guessing fireworks, but I don’t know for sure.

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Say goodbye to this three-quarters of a block

It’s coming down to make way for new construction.

First, the building I refer to as the Unfortunately Stuccoed Building.  I’ve been hoping for years that my school could move to this building.  It’s bigger, we would be able to occupy two floors and it’s right next to the park.  IMG_4534

But no, this building will soon be no more.  What a great front entrance that would have been. Note that the building on the right is staying.IMG_4535

Here is the north side of the block.  This building is nothing to write home about and spans one-quarter of a the block.IMG_4536

The northeast corner of the block has this two-story brick with nice bones.IMG_4537

A view of the two-story with nice bones from the corner.IMG_4538

New building coming soon to the Pearl District.

This is the half-block north of the block where my school is located, right across the street from the Pearl Bakery.  And changes are afoot.

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This building is going to be tall, it looks like 11 stories at it’s highest.  The building across the street is three, maybe four stories.  It looks like a half-block of parking (which is what is going on right now) will also disappear.

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To give some perspective, here’s the corner of the block from the perspective of the new building.  In the center background, you can see the six-story apartment/dorm building that was built where Powell’s Technical Books used to be.  This corner has a three story building (on the left) the two-story parking garage building, the two story building across the street you can’t see in this picture and then eventually an 11-story building.  I guess we shall see how it all looks.

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What will appear here?

IMG_4282This shot was taken from the alley (and I can no longer remember why I was walking down the alley) instead of the street.  I’m intrigued though.  It’s where a blue house used to sit.  I took a picture of it a few months ago and good thing, because it’s gone, baby.  Gone.  But what are they building here?  Two skinny houses with a shared driveway?  That was my initial thought, but I’ve been by since I took this photo and seen six water shut-off boxes.  So maybe this will be six separate units?

 

Corner of Morrison and 20th unrecognizable.

On my way to Lone Fir Cemetery to see Portland Actors Ensemble’s production of Macbeth, I did a triple take at the changes that have occurred since Matt lived in this neighborhood and we regularly drove through this intersection.

On the Southwest corner, this four-story mixed use building. I couldn’t remember what used to be here and the portlandmaps.com 2013 aerial photo told me it was an empty lot.  Actually, if you look at this aerial photo from 2004 you can see the intersection as I usually saw it, albeit from a street level.

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This corner had a few two-story buildings, one of which held a recording studio or music-type place.

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This was an empty lot.  It’s now a big condo complex.

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And here’s the corner that hasn’t changed.  Because it can’t.  Because it has a cemetery.

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Down the street where these tall condos were, there were single family homes.

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Ch-ch-ch-changes.  It was weird how the place where one’s eye finds the sky had shot so dramatically upward in my absence.