Seen on the street, No. 2, one of my favorite Portland fountains

Unofficially titled "The Car Wash," this fountain always captures my attention, especially in this sort of  profile view. I've read on the City of Portland Web site that during its hours of operation--8 a.m-10 p.m., spring, summer, fall--a wind gauge shuts it off fairly often as a precaution for the safety of pedestrians. The sidewalk is glazed tile which can be slippery when wet, more so than concrete. The wind gauge only lets it flow during very calm conditions, shutting off the water if the wind speed exceeds 2 miles per hour. The fountain is made of steel, and as best I can tell, created by Carter, Hull, Nishita, McCulley & Baxter, installed in 1977 at SW 5th Avenue and Ankeny Street. The red and white seen through the evergreen hedge is on the roof of the gas station on West Burnside, between SW 5th and SW 4th--I often catch my last bus home from Portland Trail Blazer games in front of that gas station. I took this photo while I waited for the bus to the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival on July 3.

Busy Sidewalk, No. 1

A family of four, out for a stroll on a Friday evening. Sunny, cold in the shadows, thus the jackets, those thick boots on the older daughter, and Dad's hands in his pockets. I imagine that the shopping bag with the red design on it came from the City Target, not too many blocks west and south of the intersection where they crossed West Burnside. You can see a portion of a sign there above the top of the red umbrella. Berbati's, where Lamont first worked when he moved to Portland in September, 2000. I'm not sure if it was this corner or another one; back then the establishment took up more square footage than it does today.

I took this photo on March 21 at 6:45 p.m., then I caught the bus on home. I had lasted as long as I could at Tom McCall Waterfront Park among the blooming cherry trees and folks out enjoying them. Nature called, don't you know.

Still dreaming about our wonderful blue sky days. The Mark O. Hatfield Building, downtown Portland.

I took this photo on June 16, 2012. Look at that glorious blue sky! The leafy, green trees! They highlight the renovated Mark. O. Hatfield Building very well. Wow! I can't help myself. I love downtown Portland, Oregon! And guess what? This triangle-looking building is not on a triangle corner. Know what I mean? The streets don't make a triangle for it to fit in. It was shaped differently, going out wider towards those green trees, when it was constructed in 1910 as the Lowengart Building. In 1933-34, West Burnside was widened. That's the street where the trees are in the median. Since 1994 it's been known as the Mark O. Hatfield Building. And see the buildings up SW Broadway, the brick one with the white on it and the other brick one right beside it? That's the Benson Hotel, where Mama and I stayed on our very first visit to Portland!

At one of my favorite blogs about Portland, Vintage Portland, I found two fabulous vintage photos to share with you, all about this intersection during and after the widening of West Burnside. Enjoy yourselves! You can click twice on the vintage photos, after you've opened a particular post, and really get to see all sorts of intriguing details.

The Lowengart Building, during the widening of West Burnside, 1933. On the left of this vintage photo, in the background you'll see a multi-story building with white-framed windows, arched tops on them. That building is right behind the Benson Hotel! Remember this recent post? I took the photo in the post from the Benson Hotel. It is of the intersection where the Mark O. Hatfield Building sits--the southwest corner of West Burnside and SW Broadway.

I love this next photo, too. The empty lot is a parking lot today. You can see just the corner of it in the photo I took from the Benson Hotel because the parking garage blocks the view. In the screen shot from Google Maps, there are lots of trees in the lot with cars parked among them. The Lowengart Building, after the widening of West Burnside, 1934.

I just found a great article online, dated June 14, 2012, all about the renovation of the Mark O. Hatfield Building. Neat-o!

Renovation of Mark O. Hatfield Building updates 106 low-income housing units
The Oregonian By Molly Hottle

From the time he was a child moving from one apartment to another, Nate McCoy knew he wanted to be an architect.

He and his family would often live in rundown apartments in Portland that were available to single-parent households, like his own, and low-income residents.

“I always wondered why we couldn’t live in nicer apartments,” said McCoy, now 30.

It was those experiences that spurred his desire to become an architect for the city of Portland and to help improve the housing options for the city’s low-income residents.

In that vein, McCoy recently finished working on the rehabilitation of the Mark O. Hatfield Building, a 106-unit structure on West Burnside Street owned by Central City Concern, a Northwest Portland nonprofit. A grand reopening event was held June 7 to celebrate the renovation of the once-crumbling building.

The more than $2.5 million renovation project restored the exterior of the building and updated the heating and cooling systems. The project was quick — it lasted about seven months — and Portland contributed $846,000 in federal grant funds to the project.

The project was also funded by Central City Concern, Multnomah County, Energy Trust of Oregon, Enterprise Community Partners and the Network for Oregon Affordable Housing.

McCoy served as a development manager on the project, ensuring that developers were being paid and dealing with other financial matters. He usually works with projects in the Lents neighborhood, but the renovation of this particular building had special meaning to him.

In 2003, McCoy was given the Mark O. Hatfield Architectural Award, which provided a scholarship for his education in the architecture school at the University of Oregon. He still remembers meeting Hatfield during the award ceremony.

“He was like, ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again,’” McCoy said. “It’s crazy that after he said that, I’m working on a project with his name on it.”

Hatfield, a former Oregon governor and senator, died in August 2011 at the age of 89.

During the reopening celebration, Ed Blackburn, Central City Concern executive director, talked about Hatfield and his efforts to help the nonprofit meet paperwork and application deadlines to ensure the building could be used for low-income housing.

“That’s why it was named after” Hatfield, Blackburn said.

Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish also spoke at the ceremony about how the building gives more than just shelter for its residents. Central City Concern also provides addiction help and job services there.

“In other cities, a building like this at the intersection of Burnside and Broadway would probably either be high-end condos or the most desirable office space in the city,” Fish said. “But here in Portland, this building is home to 106 formerly homeless individuals, seeking a hand up. I think that speaks loud and clear about our values as a community.”

Upgrades made to the building include the installation of three-paned, energy-efficient windows that block noise; the implementation of a new heating system that automatically turns off when windows are opened; and the removal of a 30-year-old steam boiler and outdated electric radiators.

“If you look at it now, it really looks like South Waterfront lofts,” McCoy said.

One day, he hopes to work as a developer, creating housing for Portland’s low-income residents, and he also looks forward to helping his mother, who still lives in low-income housing, move to one of the updated buildings.

“I know people who live in these places still today, so to be able to work in the projects that help the community, to me, have so much more value than working on projects with people with deep pockets,” he said. “It all comes back to the same goal of just giving those in need most an opportunity.” 

-- Molly Hottle; Twitter: @nwpdxreporter

Seen from the bus on SW 6th Avenue, near West Burnside

I took this photo on March 30, 2013. I need to go out this weekend, looking for the downtown planters. I'll bet they are full of flowers either already blooming or about to bloom--we've had some warmer temperatures lately and some soft rain.

Almost a year ago . . . and a tidbit about our approaching spring.

I took this photo on March 4, 2013, just over a year ago, at 2:37 p.m. I took off work early to go on a tour, part of the Benson Hotel's 100th Birthday Celebration. The entire thing turned out very well, but it was super neat to me to also get a chance to look out the windows of the rooms we toured. This view is looking north and slightly west of the hotel. My favorite Portland architect is A. E. Doyle. His firm designed the hotel.

Were you confused at first, seeing those two white vehicles seeming as if they were parked down among the leafless trees on West Burnside? Actually, they're parked on the roof of a parking garage. Info about the parking garage: The historic Corbett Brothers Auto Storage Garage (built 1926) is also known as Broadway Garage and is located 630 SW Pine in Portland, Oregon, United States, is listed on the US National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). That same Portland architect, A. E. Doyle, designed the parking garage, too.



This screen shot has my photo beside a Google Map of the intersection. See where I added West Burnside on each of them? The text is just about in the same place on each photo. Anyway, most every workday, I'm on a bus that turns right onto the wide open street before turning right onto West Burnside. The wide open street is Broadway. You can see the street the bus is on before it turns right, there beside the north side of the parking garage. And in the Google Map, you can see that the trees have their leaves on! Right now the trees look just about the same as in my photograph, although I did notice a few along the homeward commute Thursday after work, some with enough leaf buds large enough to give a hint of color to the tree. Spring's comin', y'all!

Winter Opposites - No. 5, musicians must crave sunshine

Walking west on West Burnside, I noticed these folks enjoying the North Park Blocks and the sunshine on August 1, 2010. I wonder if he'd been playing his guitar earlier and was now on a break. Since stereotypically musicians work at night, I imagine that they must crave the sunshine and get out in it whenever possible.

Seen Downtown, No. 3

Setting sun accents the Salvation Army building on the corner of West Burnside and SW 2nd Avenue. Down the street, it hits the top floor of the New Market Block, too. I was downtown for an after-work artist talk about the public art installed as part of the Portland Streetcar Central Line outside my workplace. Couldn't resist taking some photos.
 

HDR-altered at PicMonkey. Fun to fool with photos, now and then.

April 1, the movement of pedestrians. April 2, the movement of vehicles.

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Saturday night, March 16, I first rode the MAX Yellow Line from the Portland Expo Center where I had enjoyed the Portland Roadster Show - yea, Ratty Caddy - and some fine rockabilly - yea, Marti Brom and Levi Dexter. I got off the MAX at SW 5th and Pine, walked around the corner and waited for the bus home on West Burnside, at the stop in front of the 76 station, known as the SW 4th Avenue bus stop. 

Here comes the 12 Sandy Blvd., my bus. I've tried many times to get a good photo of an approaching bus at night--success, finally. 

And I like how the photo shows the width of West Burnside. Here's what I found online at the city's Web site about the widening of the street: By 1931, the need for more roadway space led to a street widening project on both East and West Burnside. On the west, Burnside was widened from the bridge approach to the Park Blocks. Building fronts were chopped off and rebuilt at the new sidewalk line to add an extra lane. On the east side, the first floor of many buildings became an arcade to accommodate a new sidewalk as the old sidewalk gave way to another traffic lane.



Here's the photo, cropped a bit, just because I am so excited about how great the headlights and tail lights look, how swell it is to be able to read the number and the name of the bus. 

Seen on the street, February 16, 2013, No. 5

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On this particular Saturday, it rained off and on, the sun came out now and then. I liked how the darker sky in the background of this photo and the lack of leaves on the trees make the buildings pop. Those tree limbs speak to me of summer-time-shade. The buildings are on the north side of West Burnside. The trees are on the south side of West Burnside. I'm at this intersection most every workday, on my way home on the bus. On Portland Trail Blazers' game days, I catch the MAX Yellow Line to the right of this photo and head for the Rose Garden Arena. If you look closely, near the No Parking sign on the left, you'll see two male skateboarders. One is on a bench; the other is standing at the end of the bench and is mostly hidden by the sign. 

The large structure just to the right of center is one of the many fountains in Portland. I found on the city's Web site that it is officially untitled, that it has become known as the Kelly Fountain. It runs spring through fall, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. Also online, this description: Oregon artist Lee Kelly won an international competition to design this sculpture. Kelly has designed several other sculptures in Portland and throughout the Pacific Northwest. In this work, water flows over several 20-foot-tall steel structures. In conjunction with the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Water Bureau helped to restore Kelly's fountain to its original beauty in the spring of 2004. The fountain had become run-down over the years. 

Streets at Night, February 26, 2013, intersection of Burnside and 10th

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When I walked from Kenny & Zuke's back to West Burnside to wait for the bus, the Sizzle Pie lighted letters tempted me into stopping for a photo. Across West Burnside from it, you can see the Doc Martens, store. The tracks in the street, shining in the foreground of the photo, serve the Portland Streetcar. Since it wasn't cold or raining and I had 12 minutes to wait for the 20 bus just to get to the stop at SW 4th and West Burnside where I would need to transfer to the 12 or the 19, whichever arrived first, I decided to walk the six blocks. All of the books I'd bought earlier at Powell's Books fit into my backpack, so the walk was nothing but interesting--photography-wise. More coming soon.