This picture was taken at 8:09 a.m. But it could have been taken at any time on this day because thanks to the smoke covering most of Oregon, this is what daylight looks like all day long.
Our air quality is so bad it broke the scale, the sun hasn’t been visible for days and even my hearty lungs were screaming for fresh air.
Big fires lead to big smoke and this is yet another of the many ways climate change is affecting us all.
My friend T is a powerhouse in all ways, and this summer she has been leading family-friendly protests with a few other people. I went down to help out.
This memorial, that honors 216 Black lives taken by racial violence, was powerful.
So many names. Ones I am familiar with, ones I am not.
This person was taking pictures of the protesters. He said he had come to Portland from Minneapolis to capture the protests. Unlike me, he probably doesn’t have many pictures where his lens cover interferes with the image.
And there’s T, being the leader she was born to be.
Would you like to make dozens of people look up? Even while walking? If so, install, and then disassemble, a crane. Not only was I looking up while walking past this, so was everyone else I encountered.
Also, look at this! The wheels aren’t even on the ground! They are being held up by these hydraulic lifts that extend from the crane dissembler thing.
Also. This isn’t a fast process. When I walked by at before eight a.m. they had started and when I left at 4:30 they were still going.
Note from the future. When the quarantine happened in March, the street had still not been reopened. It was close, but hadn’t happened yet.
The Greyhound Station, a block-sized center of transport, has closed. No more will buses pick people up for parts unknown from inside a building. Instead, it will pick people up from a street.
There is a great undulating wall on this side of the station. I hope it will be preserved through the next development, but I’m guessing my hopes will be in vain.
The main post office has been a part of my life since 2006, when I started working at The Emerson School. It takes up a huge swath of land at the northern edge of the Park Blocks, and it sprawls with an assured sense that the postal mail will always be an important part of daily life.
Alas, this is not the case. The mail processing facility has moved out to the airport for better access to the planes and shipping channels. (Though worse access for most employees, probably). And now this entire segment will be redeveloped into some magical bit of mixed-use Portland.
Here’s the view from Northwest Johnson street, where you can see the train station popping up over the mid-century design.
Later, there will be more photos of the front, but you can see where the mail trucks use to pull out for places near and far.
It was once big enough to have an in-house cafe!
This building sits at the corner of NW 23rd and West Burnside. It used to be the offices of Barbara Sue Seal Properties. I have memories of it from an early age, when we used to come to the Alphabet District when vising at Spring Break/Christmas/Summer
This article says that Barbara Sue Seal started this business in 1983 and was immediately successful. She sold her business in 1997, but still loves doing deals.
Hopefully the next tenant will leave the seal be!
There are some great trees near the office that explode into my favorite color every autumn. And then there are the trees that are still solidly green.
Not completely solidly as it turns out.
The Alder Street Food Cart Pod is famous! It takes up an entire city block. Yes! People can walk the perimeter and find a large variety of choices for their meals.
It’s also going away at the end of the month. A luxury hotel and condominium will be built on the block instead.
These pictures were taken from the streetcar, hence the blurry glare.
There has been talk of relocating some of the food carts to a different area of town, maybe the North Park Blocks, or the underused park on Ankeny and Burnside. But nothing has been firmed up. So in a few days, these carts will be gone.
Doing some shopping in the Pearl.
I love them so much. There are so many Summer 2019 in Portland things about them. They are both wearing pants, because it’s not really hot. The silhouette is about the same for both the man and the woman, though the man gets a bit of breathing room in his clothing. Both of their shoes are great—stylish and walkable. The woman has got some great shoulders on her, and that phone is so big it peeks out of her back picket. Plus: I spy a tattoo.
Also, they are both wearing watches, neither of which look like smart watches.
Now I’m starting to think they are perhaps from Europe.
Today while waiting for the train, I watched this gentleman use a blanket to sweep the detritus from the trees onto the sidewalk. It wasn’t the most efficient way to clear the sidewalk, but it was pretty inventive for someone who didn’t have a broom, and it also looked like a good meditative practice.
You can see the difference. To the left of the couple, the sidewalk is covered with the green stuff from the tree.
Thanks, sir, for making the downtown Portland sidewalks look nicer.
