The building is getting smaller and smaller. In the previous post, this was the angle you could see the Zell Brothers sign.
I like how it looks like someone took a bite out of this one.
It’s not too long until there is nothing left.
Tag: Portland
End of building.
Though I love old buildings pretty much unequivocally, there is some part of me that feels a thrill when I see them being demolished. Demolition work is probably pretty satisfying–especially if you can’t hear the clarion call of history whispering to you as you wield your heavy machinery. You come to work in the morning, you pull down a roof or a wall and at the end of the day, there is less building. This continues until there is no building and you move on to the next soon-to-be-gone building.
Progress continues on the tearing down of the Dental Arts Building and block. I took a “before” picture and posted it here.
One of my favorite things in cities is to read the old, painted advertisements on the sides of buildings. On the east side of the Dental Arts building is a very large ad for Zell Brothers, the store that was on the other end of the block.
Amazing Internet discovery! Someone else in Portland loves building ads too. They have a whole blog devoted to it.
A view uninterrupted by trees.
It was a windy day and the strips of detritus hanging from the ceiling were blowing in the wind.
And the wind rustled through the blinds in this window.
That part of me that loves destruction thrills at the Mercantile awning crumpled on the sidewalk in this picture.
See wind invade the building:
And watch it blowing the blinds:
A walk through Northwest Portland
On my way to my acupuncture appointment, I captured these images.
The lovely doors of St Mary’s.
I love finding signs with outdated language and/or customs. “You tradesmen, you enter over here. Not through the front door.”
This looks like a pretty typical multi-family residence in Northwest. But wait! What is that sign in the lower left? (I actually crossed the street to find out.)
Ah! My place for orthodox church on Sundays.
Who needs sleep when there is coffee? Who needs a recycle bin, when there is a truck bed?
I mean really, who?
Signs
My walk to work has uncovered this rivalry in my favorite building:
Their uniform
Walking back to the house, I snapped a picture of these two girls.
They are clearly wearing their unofficial high school uniform of the moment: Uggs, skinny jeans, plain white long sleeved t-shirts, long hair, worn down.
When I was in high school my unofficial uniform was: converse high tops–laced up to the second grommet from the top–baggy jeans, baggy t-shirt with funny sayings and hair either worn down or up in a scrunchie.
What was your unofficial uniform?
Were you wondering what 130 people in the Portland area named their children 4-5 years ago?
I can tell you:
Zachary, Samuel John, Anna Elena, Miles Lincoln, Connor, Wren, M. Mackenzie, Sage Aradia, Sorrell, JanCarlos, Jamison, Ava, Nigel, John Alan, Karynne, August “Gus”, Maggie, Hyden, Krisandra, Oscar Matthew, Milo, Porter Jay, Elijah,Samuel, Jackson, Silas, Eleni, Alejandra, Leah, Ace, Carson E., Pasha, Mariella, Hazel, Sullivan, Ten, Cleo, Arden, Zoe M., Valen, Mason, Jackson Lee, Tuesday Louise, Carte, Jasper, Olivia, Gabriel, Violet, Maha Hanna, Zoe, Delilah Rose, Skyler, Rhionne, C.T., Jasper “Jack”, Tapley, Alexandra, Madeline, Mia, Grace, Kassia, Karla, Hazel, Coen, Elawyn L., Natalie, Uma, Ezra A., Benjamin, Alexandra, Tobias, Cole, Aidan, Selah, Edme, Isabella, Ezra, David,Maya, Alice, Hudson, Joseph Dodge, Chiara, Dhruva Krishna, Rachel, Orion, Sam, Nicolas, Zoe, Zora, Lily, Nora, Evan, Lucy, Landon, Maya, Molly Donyale, Phoenix, Aiden Theo, Simona, Joran, Justice, Alec, Emmett, Jasmine Nicole, Rose Helen, Coleman, Tenzin, Jackson Green, Max, Lily Ann Mason, Colin Foley, Zachary W., Isabella, Charlie, Lucian, Umoya, Jibril, Anika Jaz, Helena Rose, Nicholas Richard, Jeremy Palmer, Ukiah, Ira “Bird”, Lyla R., Jude, Cole “Spike”, Prashant, Milena R., Gabriel, Soren, Clara D. C., Isaac, Brendon
Four rows of windows.
I stand at the Max stop across from this building a lot. It took me awhile, but I eventually noticed that each of the upper floors of this building has different windows. I wonder how that came about?
Dental Arts.
Another city block is being transformed. It is happening a lot downtown right now. The block to the right, which appears to have nothing on it, was a parking lot a year and a half ago. They tore up the parking lot, built and underground garage and this spring will install a park. “Tear up a parking lot and build a park” or something like that was the tag line with that project. It had “Big Yellow Taxi” in my head for weeks on end. The block north of the soon to be park is also coming down. A big mixed use office tower/retail and maybe condos? will be sprouting there next. The Virgina Cafe moved down the street and around the corner, but I’m most sad about the Mercantile, which was a clothing store too fancy for me to shop in, but which always had nice window displays. It has moved around the corner and down the street too, but now it’s not on my walking route.
I wanted to take a picture of the dental arts building before it goes, as it always seemed like such a nice little upright building.
Davis Street Door
My walk from the Max to work takes me along Davis Street. I’ve walked the length of sidewalk between Second and Third Avenues more than 100 times and never looked to my left at just the right moment. Due to some welding that was happening on the side of the street I usually walk on, today I crossed street and I spied a doorway. “How long has that been there?” I wondered to myself.
It looked open, so I wandered in. I followed the brick path through a brick corridor…
…and ended up in a charming courtyard.
There was a handy sign to let me know that the Merchants’ Hotel was built in 1885 and not only was it a fancy hotel, it had one of the first hydraulic elevators in Portland. Between World Wars, the hotel housed a number of Japanese businesses, including the Japanese-Oregon daily newspaper. The sign does not go on to say that with the coming of World War II all of those Japanese businesses would be abandoned as the Japanese were “relocated”, but ideally you know that story.
Excited to have found a nook of history on a day that only comes around every four years, I turned around and happily continued my trek to work.
Plant grows out of building
I was on my way to the doctor when I came across this upstart plant. It had the nerve to grow out of the side of a building!
I thought perhaps it had grown from the ground up behind the metal panel between the two windows, emerging mid-building.
A closer look revealed that it hadn’t come from the ground at all, but had taken root halfway up the building.
Whenever I find something like this, it reminds me how temporary our buildings are, without a human to maintain them. Plants, water, wind and weather are much stronger than concrete, given enough time.