Big landscaping changes at my former apartment building

Sometimes I get homesick for the neighborhood where Mama and I lived before she died in January, 2011. So, I drove by when I had a vacation day and a Zipcar on April 14. Was I ever shocked at the changes to the landscaping at our former home, the Presidential Court Apartments in Northwest Portland's Alphabet District!



I took these two photos from the car after pulling to a stop at the curb, ignoring the no parking sign for a moment or two. Our top floor apartment is visible in this photo--we had the entire sort of pale olive-colored section as well as the brick part with the pointed parapet, the entire front section of that top floor from corner to corner. Our bathroom window is the small one at the corner inside corner. The apartment around from us to the right--that's its bathroom window across from ours. Mama's bedroom has the three windows at the corner of the pale olive section of the wall, next to the bathroom. The living room is behind those windows in the brick section.

Here are four photos that I took in May, 2007, looking down from our bathroom window. We had moved into that apartment, perfect for the two of us and our little dachshund Duncan, in October, 2006.



Here's the look that used to be on the right side of the entrance, as you're looking at it from the curb.



This photo shows the landscaping directly beneath our bathroom window, to the left of the entrance.



A street-level view of the landscaping to the right of the entrance.



To the left of the entrance.

While cold and blustery weather lingers, I'm dreaming and knowing this too will come, No. 5

I took this photo at 6:43 p.m. on June 14 2008, as I walked across the Morrison Bridge towards Southeast Portland. Look at that blue sky! I hope that I can remember to take a similar photo this year, just to document any changes in the buildings. And I hope that the sky is just as blue! Can you see the people walking on the Eastbank Esplanade? They know how to enjoy the Willamette River's east bank. When I got there, I walked down that spiral ramp and along the esplanade until I came to the Hawthorne Bridge. Then I walked across it and began my homeward bus rides, taking a couple of them to get home. I lived in Northwest Portland then, in the Alphabet District. My little Mama and our miniature dachshund Duncan were still alive then, and we totally enjoyed our lives in Portland. We'd been here two years, almost to the day.

P.S. I work in the brick building with the flags on top. When I take photos from the rooftop garden, I'm on that lower part of the building, very near those windows, the ones half visible due to the angle of the photo.



There's a nice patio there, a neat place to go outside at break or at lunch, to enjoy whatever the weather has to offer. Here it is after a rain had marked the edges of the tiles. I took this photo on August 23, 2013, at 7:13 a.m.

Thankful for Thanksgiving Day and family memories.

These images are scans of small, much older photographs. The quality is slim, but the love is deep.



Thankful for having had these fine women as part of my life. Except for me, they're now all gone from here, to a place where I shall join them at some point in the I hope distant future. Left to right, front row, Ma (my Daddy's mother), Mama (my mother), Mama Sudie (Mama's mother). Back row, Aunt Baker (Daddy's sister), and me.

 

Also thankful for my dearly departed husband LeRoy and our two sons, Lamont and Leland.

 

Thankful for my Daddy, seen here with Lamont.

 

And my Mama, seen here with Leland.

Local Access Only. Daddy, bicycle. Daughters, bucket.

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September 2, 2010, there was some sort of street fair on NW Raleigh Street which had been closed as a thoroughfare--Local Access Only. Daddy's taking his daughters there in a bucket situated on a bicycle, a very smart way to avoid trying to find somewhere to park in that part of town, period, street fair closure or no street fair closure. As near as I can tell, that black cable dragging the ground beneath the bicycle and the bucket goes from the center of the back wheel up to the right side of the handlebars and then the brake lever. I guess that's what you call the part that you squeeze shut when you want to put on the brakes. I noticed these three Portlanders while I waited at the southbound 15 bus stop on NW 23rd Avenue, in my bag a bunch of fresh vegetables from the nearby Thursday evening Northwest Portland satellite of the Portland Farmers Market. I'd let Mama know that I was going to stay on the 15 and go shop there after work. (Please don't be confused, this photo was taken four months before she died. She was tickled about the prospect of fresh, home-cooked veggies.) Interesting that the farmers market in that area has now moved to the very street that Mama and I lived on, four blocks east of our apartment building.

Memories, seen from a new perspective, thanks to the AHC's tour of 705 Davis Condominiums

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I took these photos from different windows in other condos--looking at the views was just as much fun for me as looking at the condos themselves.
 

On the sidewalks of NW Everett, between NW 22nd and NW 23rd--I'd have a hard time counting how many times I walked these sidewalks, in all kinds of weather, before and after work, on weekends, to and from the Fred Meyer, by myself, with Mama and our little dachshund Duncan, with my two sons, with my brother when he visited, my our friends-so-great-that-they-are-family visited from Mississippi and California, with a sweetheart of a friend from Mississippi who also became a Portlander, and with a friend I met at the bus stop who had a pet skunk. Walked with those folks in all sorts of combinations over the years. Back when we had a car, the '96 Buick, I parallel parked on either side of this one-way street numerous times--on NW 22nd also--sometimes with the ease of a hot knife in butter, sometimes not.
 

I could almost type the exact same text beneath this view, too, except that it's looking at the dead-end intersection of NW King with NW Davis. I parked the car here a lot, too. Boy, am I happy not to own a car any more!
 

Here's more of NW Davis, just east of the intersection in the photo right above this one. Mama walked the sidewalk on the right back when she was healthy enough to go to the beauty shop which was on the corner hidden by all of the leaf-laden trees. I have to tell you that when I looked out the window and took this photo, I got choked up for a little while, remembering the day she asked me to find her a beauty shop that she could walk to from our apartment. I used Google Maps Search Nearby and found us a beauty shop. I'm getting choked up right now just typing this because over the years we knew what we'd really found was a sweetheart of a woman, our friend Rosa. This woman came to our apartment in later years and gave Mama her trims and perms there because Mama's mobility lessened as congestive heart failure took its toll. The last photo of us together Rosa took with her camera after she'd done our hair in our kitchen, on the Sunday before Mama died in her sleep on Friday afternoon, January 7, 2011. I count myself blessed to still have Rosa in my life.
 

Back in the day, when Mama was mobile, we walked together to Fred Meyer a few times. We never carried our groceries home in a bag (back then the stores in Portland were allowed to use plastic bags, but not now as you can see from this paper bag in the hands of that man). We used a rolling black bag. Another thing, back in the day, we could walk right into our Fred Meyer with our little dachshund Duncan on his leash. It was hard to tell you was more popular with other shoppers, Mama or Duncan.
 

One last memory. See the mustard-colored, multi-storied building, top left? It stands diagonally across the street from our building. We lived on the top floor of our four-story building, and I seem to remember that the building we're looking at had six stories. Our living room was on the corner of our building closest to the intersection, therefore not far at all from the building we're looking at. Our TV was in the corner, with two good-sized windows in each of the two walls that made up the corner. I could sit in my chair, placed diagonally in front of the TV, and easily see most of the top floors of the building, not the two walls you can see in the photo, but the wall just out of sight to the left. Mama could not see what I could see from her recliner. Anyway, one night I'm sitting there in my chair, watching TV with Mama. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed motion in one of the windows, a repetitive, rhythmic motion. Taking my attention from the TV, I focused on that window and realized that I was seeing a man and a woman having sex in what I figured must be the living room, without any curtains shut. Her legs were straight up in the air and he was very busy between them. "My gosh," I said, "there is someone having sex in an apartment over there!" Mama said, "What? Where?" Then we decided we'd turn out the light so that she might could catch a glimpse without us being noticeably voyeuristic, but by the time we did that, it was all over over there. Truth.

Oh, so good. Mama memories.

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Back story: Mama and I lived from October, 2006, until January, 2011, on the 4th floor, actually the top floor, of the Presidential Court apartment building on the corner of NW 22nd Avenue and NW Everett. We loved our apartment and many good days there, with each other and with family and friends, and our dearly departed miniature dachshund Duncan. From our kitchen window, we could see this much of a nearby multi-story, multi-family building. We always wondered what it would be like to see any of the views available from the top floor of that building, but most of all, we wondered what it would like to stand in that space we called the window room that you see in this photo. Mama died in our apartment on January 7, 2011, and getting the chance to go inside that building, much less to stand in that little room, never entered my mind again. Until I got an e-mail from the Architectural Heritage Center announcing a tour of the building, originally apartments, now condos. I immediately went online and signed up for the fundraiser. As I rode the bus in the rain last Sunday, most of what was on my mind was the renewed hope to able to stand in the window room, to look toward our kitchen window and see it from an entirely different perspective. To remember the good times with my Mama. I took this photo of the window room from our kitchen window on May 3, 2009.
 

So imagine my joy when I realized as I was directed to the last of seven condos on the tour and figured out that, based on where I was at that time in the building and putting it together with its views, my last stop would be the condo with the window room. I walked through the rest of the huge, single-story condo before stepping up onto the window room's raised floor. All I really cared about was finding out if I could see any of our windows, if the trees that had grown enough to block a view of the windows. Here's a cropped closeup of those windows. Our kitchen window is the only one still visible, the first one you can see on the right in the olive green painted wall--we lived in the corner of the building on the southwest side of the intersection. The tree hides the two living room windows on that eastward-facing wall.
 

Here's photo that I took of Mama waving at me from that kitchen window, on December 21, 2008. That was a Sunday. I must have been out walking the dog or coming back from walking to the Fred Meyer--I cannot remember. But I remember calling her on the cell phone and asking her to go open the kitchen window and wave at me so that I could take a photo. It took me quite a bit of looking through my photos until I managed to find this one--I didn't have it tagged as Mama, doofus me. Notice the snow? We Portlanders were in the midst of days and days and days of lots and lots and lots of snow. Fascinating to the two of us Mississippians-turned-Portlanders!
 

And here's the wide shot that I took of our building when I stood in the window room. Mission accomplished!

About the AHC Event - Centennial Celebration Tour!
Historic 705 NW Davis Apartments Sunday, September 29, 2013 Timed entries between 1:00 and 4:30 pm Members and Friends Admission: $ 25.00

A benefit for the Architectural Heritage Center, generously presented by the residents of the 705 Davis Condominiums Celebrate the centennial of one of Portland's "grande dame" apartment buildings designed by Whitehouse and Fouilhoux at a special benefit for the Architectural Heritage Center. 

Timed-entry tours begin in the courtyard with an overview by Edward Teague, head of the Architecture and Allied Arts Library at the University of Oregon. Visitors will learn about the noted building's history, architect, and architecture, and then be toured through seven one- or two-story units, and an original servant's room, along with an opportunity to learn about ongoing preservation, see historic photographs, and enjoy light refreshments.

Batchelder tiles, Honduran mahogany, and elegant moldings grace the interior, once inhabited by Julia Hoffman, a founder of what is now the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and the chief investor in the building. Other early residents included Max Hirsch, a founder of White Stag, Isabelle Gauld, Oregon chair for Bundles for Britain, Eric Ladd, "before his time" local preservationist, and Fanny and Edgar Lazarus - the latter the architect for Vista House.

In honor of Mother's Day tomorrow

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In honor of Mother's Day on Sunday, I give you my little Mama! She's out front of the Virginia Cafe in downtown Portland, about to go off to the casino with me in our Zipcar of the day! I took this photo on July 29, 2010.

My home

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My home comforts me when I walk towards the front door and . . .



. . . when I turn to look out at the world one more time before I walk inside, turn right twice, and open my front door. 

I believe without doubt that my Mama, who passed away on January 7, 2011, approves of my new home, the place I found with the help of my two sons and to which I had moved by the end of January--with the help of my two sons, my brother who flew up from Mississippi, and numerous friends from work who helped pack, clean and move all of my stuff. She knew I couldn't stay in our apartment, not after she took an afternoon nap in her bedroom and did not wake up. She is happy that I found a studio apartment of a suitable size with a bonus room which works brilliantly as a bedroom and a closet large enough for 95% of my stuff--the rest is on display. And the fact that it's an apartment closer to my two sons which actually has nearby or right-out-the-front-door street parking for when they visit serves to increase the smile I know is on her sweet face. 

Merry Christmas--via my little Mama--December, 25, 2007

Without a doubt, my Mama gave it her all for me and my camera, readily stepping up whenever I asked to take her photo.

Here she is, first standing in the protection afforded by the porch at our apartment building in NW Portland, face glowing, her smile spread all the way to her eyes. Second, she's completely bundled up, posing just outside the porch, snow spitting around her. In the third photo, I've walked down to the street to get a shot of her from that persepctive. Even more snow's coming down, and she's ready to go, leg cocked to start her walk down the steps, just as soon as she hears from my sons. They were driving over to get us because our celebration was to be at a friend's home this particular Christmas. She's got her cell phone at the ready, gripped in her right hand. Seems to me that they drove up right after I took this photo.

We enjoyed our Christmas very much. I hope that you enjoy yours today. I appreciate getting to share my little Mama with you again. I miss her very much, every single day, so it means a lot to me to include her here at momentous times like this. Thank you.

Framed for Christmas, No. 8

Merry Christmas, y'all, from Flat Chris--thanks to Chris' teacher, my friend Tonya, I now have his name correct--and Duncan, the darlin' dachshund! I took this photo on December 22, 2007, back when Mama and I had only been in Portland about a year and a half. We loved our apartment, being in the same city with my sons, and Portland itself.

By the way, that little blue scooter, a Barbie scooter which I had bought at some point at the local Goodwill, turned out to be just what Flat Chris needed to be able to stand up as he was out and about with Mama and me. Cool! And get this. The Monday after I had been looking through my Christmas photos and deciding which ones to print and then post in my work cube, a work friend came by and said, "I dreamed about you last night. You were on a baby blue motor scooter, wearing a matching outfit. You didn't have on your helmet; it was on the seat behind you. You pulled away with a matching blue scarf flying out from around your neck. I have no idea why I dreamed such a thing." When I proceeded to explain to her that I'd been looking at photos that same night, lots of photos with a baby blue scooter in them, we both got chills. She walked back to my cube, at my suggestion, to look at this photo, then returned to where I was relieving the Front Desk worker and exclaimed, "That's the scooter I saw you on in my dream!" More chills.