Lyza Danger Gardner

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PDX History: Chew on This–Our Foreign Origins

May 19th, 2008

Did you know that when Pettygrove et. al first planted their roots in “The Clearing” on the west bank of the Willamette River (later known as Portland, Ore.) that Portland wasn’t even technically in the United States? If politics in the following few years had veered differently, we could be living under the British flag.

Put another way: “Father of Oregon” John McLoughlin was born in Canada, and was a British citizen, working for the Hudson’s Bay Company. So our state’s father was not born American (though he did later switch his citizenship in the 1850’s, once settled down in Oregon City).

It wasn’t until 1846, a few years into Portland’s existence, that the American flag was run up the flagpole at Fort Vancouver (Washington) and the British were formally sent packing.

Also an interesting tidbit: one of the reasons for Vancouver’s failing to become the region’s primary metropolis* is that there was speculation that the Brits might get to keep the land north of the Columbia River (today’s Washington state). Foreseeing the 640 acres of free land the US was expected to give each settler, pioneers instead chose to stay south of the river, where things were more likely to end up in American hands**.

* There are others. But this is an interesting one.
** The bill to give the 640 acres to homesteaders, as well as increase the volubility of the American claim to Oregon Territory, was introduced by a Missouri senator named Lewis Linn. This was a popular move. Hence West Linn, Linnton and Linn County, Oregon.

Eugene Snyder’s book “Portland’s Early Days: Stump Town Triumphant” and the staff at the McLoughlin House in Oregon City provided sources for this entry.

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PDX: The Weather Ball

May 16th, 2008

An apt topic, giving today’s sudden swelter: The Weather Ball in downtown Portland.

Once I was driving with Mr. Pencil, on the off-ramp from I-5 south, city center exit, and said “Oh, the weather ball says it’s going to rain.”

And Mr. Pencil: “The weather what?”

“Surely you know about the weather ball.”

Just a moment ago, I stuck my head out of the office window, and pulled it back in, then closed the window because it is wavery hot out there. It gleams, and hot wind blows in.

“Drat!” I said to Aileen, across the room at her desk. “You can’t see the weather ball from here.”

“The weather ball?! What’s the weather ball?”

And so it goes. I guess it’s not as common knowledge as I would have assumed.

The weather ball is, well, a ball of sorts (if by “ball” you mean “cube”–it has squared edges) on a pole on a building in downtown Portland. It’s covered in lights. It’s on a squat, dull building–I’m not sure which one. It might be the Unitas building. It might not. It’s near the Standard Insurance Building.

It can tell you one of six things, that is:

  1. It’s going to get hotter (steady red)
  2. It’s going to get colder (steady white)
  3. It’s going to stay about the same (steady green)
  4. (and 5 and 6) It’s going to precipitate (blinking)

Yesterday I imagine it was steady red. I don’t know what it says today because I cannot, as I said, see it. Well, I can see it, by running down the hall to the west end of the building and using the unfinished unit’s view, but it’s so bright I can’t make it out. I think it’s red.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who knows about this. It’s been around a whole lot of long time. I loved it as a child.

According to Wikipedia, it’s one of a whole lot of similar weather beacons in the world.

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9 Responses to “PDX: The Weather Ball”

  1. Josh Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    Wow that’s crazy! I had no idea this existed.

  2. Don Park Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    i know what the weather ball is but i never knew how to read it. thanks for the info!

  3. autumn Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    must admit complete ignorance of the weather ball. -1 portlandia cred team rouse. :(

  4. tODD Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

    Yeah, I’m with Don on this one. I saw it a lot in my time downtown, but thought then it was an ugly decoration on an ugly building.

    How is it not always more convenient for you to look at your computer for weather information? Forecastfox is telling me that not only is it sunny, but several people have died from melting (or that’s what I assume the exclamation point in the red octagon means).

  5. sharon Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    Heya, cool! I knew that’s what it was called, but I never knew how to understand it; thanks for the key.

    Also, isn’t there a weathervane/barometer that’s functional yet oddly artistic in Pioneer Courthouse Square? Hrm…

  6. Alan I. Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    In downtown Sacramento, there is the equivalent. The News 10 Weather Tower has the same key for telling passer-by’s the weather conditions. See for yourself at http://www.news10.net/weather/tower-key-lights.aspx.

  7. Fran Says:
    May 17th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    Weather ball: Childhood memory. Minneapolis, 1956. (It was installed on a tall bank building in 1949). A brother patiently explaining the code, which is ridiculously simple. So simple that I thought it was nuts that the compositors in The Oregonian’s back shop (back when there was a back shop, before pages were computer generated) kept a note on the bulletin board explaining it. Then they build the PacWest tower on the site of what had been a one-story bank building, and now you can’t see the ball from the third floor anyway.

  8. Maggie Says:
    May 19th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    Boston has one too. I wonder if these all will soon become relics of a pre-Internet age…

  9. Mary Sue Says:
    May 19th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    A hah! I have wondered about that thing for many months and now I know the sekrit code!

    There was one in Sacramento, CA I remember, but it was varying shades of red for hot, damnhot, and Holyhellit’shot.

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PDX Remember-When: Life Before the Eastbank Esplanade

May 12th, 2008

It’s a vague memory. Picking through underbrush and worrying myself over broken bottles and heaps of concrete at night, in my late-teen early-photography-phase quests to get night shots of the skyline. The east side of the Willamette River before the Eastbank Esplanade. A messy and nearly-inaccessible river bank full of tangled, malevolent vines and homeless encampments.

In May, 2001, the city officially opened the Eastbank Esplanade, the 1.5-mile segment of path and floating walkway connecting the Steel Bridge to the Hawthorne, completing a 2.8-mile (or so) loop around the waterfront (the other half being, as you may know, Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the west bank).

Where I used to work is three blocks from the promenade, and the current office is of a likewise distance. I use the path perhaps twice a week, more in the summer, for wanderings and flailing. Enough such that I can barely remember what it was like before, as those memories have all been scrubbed away and layered over with more recent, attractive ones.

Do you remember what the east bank was like before the Esplanade? Do you have any interesting memories of the construction?

Also, there was originally going to be a Phase III of the development plan: developing the path from the Hawthorne down to OMSI. That area is still fairly bedraggled. Did this phase get dropped or is it still on the horizon?

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One Response to “PDX Remember-When: Life Before the Eastbank Esplanade”

  1. Aaron B. Hockley Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

    I don’t have a link handy, but I saw something last week about a developer that’s building on the east bank near OMSI, and developing a waterfront walkway was part of the deal.

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PDX Test: Lovejoy Fountain

May 2nd, 2008

Quick quiz: How many of you know where Lovejoy Fountain is? To Google is to cheat.

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4 Responses to “PDX Test: Lovejoy Fountain”

  1. jmartens Says:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 11:10 pm

    Uh, is this a trick question?

  2. tODD Says:
    May 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 am

    I had to Google to find the address, but I had the right part of town. I know I’d wandered by it once when I used to live in that area.

  3. autumn Says:
    May 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 am

    its down between 2nd and 3rd sort of hidden in a weird vortex of high rise apartment buildings. i gave myself swimmers ear playing in that fountain.

  4. fridder Says:
    July 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    The fountain was brand new when I was a student at Wilson High back in the late 60s. It was *THE* hang-out place for most of the cool people from the SW high schools. All the high-rise apartments came much later.

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The PDX Remember-When Game!

April 17th, 2008

Everyone gets to participate! The older the memory, the more cred you get for being Portland-indigenous.

  • Remember when Lloyd Center was open to the sky? It got rainy in there. I have a photo of me with the Easter Bunny there when I was about three or four.
  • Remember when they imploded that building downtown to make room for Pioneer Place?
  • Remember Powell’s before the expansion? Extra credit: remember when the children’s section was in the present Gold room? Extra extra credit: do you remember shopping in the kid’s section when you were a kid? How about the Catbird Seat bookstore above the present location of Columbia Sportswear downtown?
  • Did you attend the arrival of Portlandia, downtown in the rain? “It was installed in September 1985 after being floated up the Willamette River on a barge.” (Wikipedia)
  • Do you remember the waterfront before the Harborside/Riverplace development?
  • Did you shop at Finnegan’s toys when you were younger? And can anyone (besides me) remember “City Kids” in, I think, the current location of the Great Harvest Bread Co. in Yamhill Market? And, for that matter, anyone recall actually shopping in the Yamhill Market?

Abstract Fremont Bridge

Quiz!
Which of the places listed below are currently still in their original location as of, oh, the early- to mid- ’80s or so? Discuss.

  1. Nordstrom’s (downtown)
  2. The Children’s Museum
  3. Camera World
  4. Central Library
  5. The Bijou Cafe
  6. The Old Spaghetti Factory

Speaking of all of this, am I the only person who misses the former Psycho Safeway at SW 10th & Jefferson? It’s all a heap of condos now and when we drive by I have to turn my head and tell myself not to look over there because it’s just going to be weird.

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28 Responses to “The PDX Remember-When Game!”

  1. tODD Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am

    I have no native credit, but I have been here for ten years, so I can tell stories about how much the inner West side has changed.

    Yes, I sort of miss Psycho Safeway. I was in that part of town recently, and when I saw those condos, I couldn’t figure out what they’d replaced, so drastic was the change. Heck, lots of areas of downtown have gotten a lot less crappy since I got here (parts of Goose Hollow and southern downtown, especially).

    But mostly, I miss what the Pearl once was. When I moved here, it seemed to be a really interesting area with lots of free-roaming wild art installations — clearly having moved from the realm of seedy into that part of the cycle where things are run down but interesting, arty. Now that cycle has, inevitably, moved into the overpriced ridiculous phase. Bummer. Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.

  2. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:47 am

    I agree on the Pearl tip. When I first started working for Kavi (this is even as recently as 1997), we had a tiny office in a warehouse at 13th & Marshall. Across from us was the wild and dusty chaos of trainyards. The streets were barely paved. There was a fish fertilizer plant next door. Now it is very clean. I think the last straw for me was the “Mañana” Restaurant—mmmmm, corporate chain. NOM NOM.

  3. autumn Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    i do remember lloyd center being open to the sky. it made ice skating much more wintery. i also remember when the flagship store was frederick & nelson, rather than macy’s thank you very much.

    i do remember portlandia coming to town, as well as the controversy over the architectural design of the portland building and everyone bitching about how it looked like a birthday cake. which, it does.

    i remember when bud clark was mayor and the “expose yourself to art” poster he made. the rosebud he always had tucked into his lapel.

    that we called it the rose festival mud center when the rained and rained and rained one year.

    i also remember RIDING in the monorail at santaland in the meier and frank downtown. i always thought i had hallucinated it until i took aria up there a few years ago…

  4. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    Monorail at Meier & Franks: CHECK! I totally remember that. And the particular smell of their gingerbread men cookies.

    We used to call the Rose Festival the “scum center.”

  5. Peat Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

    How about the original Old Spaghetti Factory? That was one of the first dining experiences I remember as a tiny kid. :)

    Lloyd Center being open to the sky. Yeah. I remember how slippery the pebble cement walkways used to get at this time of year.

    I don’t miss Psycho Safeway, but I certainly do remember it. Heh. Bad lighting and dingy linoleum.

    How about the old theater were Fox Tower is today? That place was cool. I had the opportunity to wander around inside after they shut it down .. we were installing some neon horses on the roof for Art Quake. Does that still happen?

    How about 21st + 23rd when it was just some funky shops and not a “shopping district”? I remember going to Roses to get chocolate eclaires. Also, the mechanical cash register and cigarette vending machine at Stepping Stone Cafe, where we used to have breakfast once a week before I went to computer club in elementary school.

    The monorail at Meier & Frank was hot.

  6. sarah gilbert Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    oh, lloyd center. i remember the great big christmas tree that would poke out of the open roof. and i remember how, when it was rainy, we would cut through the little protected part in front of the door of — was it the knife shop? — and the ground was worn from people avoiding the rain.

    i was in high school when pioneer place was imploded. it was in our yearbook!

    i shopped at the yamhill market. i distinctly remember a fudge shop.

    i didn’t attend portlandia’s installation though. it’s funny, i also don’t remember the waterfront before riverplace. i worked at the deli there (now little river cafe) through high school & college, but i don’t remember ever going before the development.

    nordstrom and the central library have been there as long as i can remember. didn’t camera world used to be on the corner of broadway and… yamhill maybe? i know the children’s museum used to be downtown. the old spaghetti factory has been there forever, yes?

    i grew up just off hawthorne and here are some things i remember:
    – that building where grand central bakery is on 23rd has been many things. it was a drugstore (rexall?), where they sold strange things like walkers and frightening dialysis equipment, though they also sold cards, and we went there to get our valentines. after that it was a very lovely plant store, it was quite the paradise. it’s where i fell in love with thyme!
    – remember the arctic circle on hawthorne? i worked there in high school.
    – remember farrell’s? bonus points for having had ‘happy birthday’ sung to you there. with the kazoos and the running around with the sundae on the waiters’ shoulders. i applied for a job there, but i was too young, sigh.

    you are not the only person who misses psycho safeway. i actually saw a mention of it in some local paper recently. i can’t stand the new one! it’s just not crazy!

  7. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    Farrell’s!

    How about: Who’s been on Ramblin’ Rod (kid’s daily TV cartoon show produced locally)? Me: twice, at least.

  8. Brett Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    Roses, at 23rd and Burnside, I think? I remember their foot wide cinnamon rolls and 13 layer cakes.

    The two story McDonald’s on Alder, where Rich’s Cigar is now.

    The old OMSI, where the Children’s Museum is now, by the zoo. With the walk-though giant heart, and the “Transparent Lady”

    My quiz answers:
    1. Nordstrom’s (downtown) - Yes? I think? I didn’t shop there much as a kid.
    2. The Children’s Museum - Nope this moved to the old OMSI by the forestry center.
    3. Camera World - I think yes?
    4. Central Library - Yes. It’s like a million years old.
    5. The Bijou Cafe - No?
    6. The Old Spaghetti Factory - No! This used to be downtown, a block up from Naito parkway, on like Washington street I think?

  9. Aileen Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

    I remember Roses being on 23rd and Burnside. I used to walk over for a cinnamon roll on Sunday morning. It would feed my entire family.

    I also remember when Coffee People came to 23rd and Hoyt. Their milkshakes probably accounted for an unacceptably high portion of my caloric intake during high school.

    I do not miss Pyscho Safeway. Not one bit.

  10. Peat Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    Two story McDonalds! That was epic. Good call.

  11. autumn Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    i realize this wasnt even all that long ago, but who was outraged over the 7up building off of halsey? first they painted it that vomit color and then turned it into becoming a freaking shrine to budweiser?

    farrells! yes! remember the trough?? if you ate the whole thing they gave you a snout?

  12. autumn Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    also, up at the old OMSI, the planetarium? my dad told me superman lived there. seemed reasonable…

  13. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    Oh, I’ve got a good one. When I was a kid, I thought the Hollywood District was what they meant when they talked about “Hollywood” on TV. I thought it was THE Hollywood.

  14. Brett Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    Farrells! I went to many birthdays there.

    Ok, Bonus points for anybody that remembers “Disco Mart” (It’s a SE thing).

  15. Brett Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    P.S. I have a brick in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

  16. Bethany Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    (Nod to Lyza’s Twitter icon) I’m “Actually born here sorta”. Born & raised one hour North in Kelso, WA. Now live in Oakland, CA.

    Yes to Ramblin’ Rod! I remember watching him and one time being on the show! Loved the old OMSI, many memories of visiting there, the rose garden & the zoo.

    Open Lloyd Center check! And arrival of Portlandia & controversy about the Portland Building. Fondly remember Bud Clark & expose yourself to art…

    I miss PDX. Everytime I return & look at the skyline (hello big pink!) it warms my heart. Thanks for the memories!

  17. Alan I. Says:
    April 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    I miss the Widmer Brewing Company brewery and restaurant. That was my favorite place to visit on business in the early 1990’s. Now, I believe it is a shopping mall. Prost!

  18. Jolene Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 8:47 am

    How about the Portland Zoo entrance down by the first driveway, and the Children’s Zoo up top?!

    My Mom would take me downtown when I was a kid, and the elevators would pop up from under the sidewalks. (Watch out, gaping holes!)

    There was a parking garage downtown that would lift the cars up on an elevator and park them like a big vending machine.

    I was on Rambin Rod once, don’t forget the Smile Contest.

    When Washington Square opened, they sent double decker busses into the neighborhoods and gave the kids “pence” for penny candy you could buy at the Mall.

  19. Brett Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    Ok, I can’t get enough. Wasn’t the Widmer Brewing place where Southpark is now? On 9th and Salmon? I miss that place too, I think I went there for Prom.

  20. tODD Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am

    I miss the smell of beer being brewed downtown, back when the brewery blocks were named in a rather matter-of-fact manner.

  21. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:20 am

    Todd,

    Totally. When I was a little kid (I went to preschool on the corner of Jefferson & Park–last year they mowed it down and are building condos there), I could often smell it. For some reason, I thought it was split pea soup. Why Portland would be manufacturing such massive quantities of split-pea soup was not something I considered.

    Brett: I think the corner of Park & Salmon (now Southpark) was B. Moloch (or B. Moloch’s). Deli-ish place? My mom loved the place but I for some reason did not.

  22. samgrover Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    I’m in my ninth year in Portland now. I saw them moving the Simon Benson house into the PSU campus. Before that, it was in a dilapidated state near the campus on SW 11th. Do you remember?

  23. change sucks, i say Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    So great to read all y’alls memories! Super cool.

    I’m didn’t get here till ‘94, so I’m not that old. Big respect to y’all.

    Yesterday, after a conference I was on my way to an afterparty at a company on 7th and SE Ankeny. I said ‘oh, yeah I’ll meet you guys there, that’s near the Pine St. Theatre right?’

    Blank stares.

    Ah well.

  24. Lyza Gardner Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:47 am

    You mean La Luna? :)

  25. tODD Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 11:56 am

    You mean The Womb? Or Thrasher Presents on Pine St.? Yeah, it was kind of changing its name every few months there at the end.

  26. Sister Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    Wow, this really works. Powerful nostalgia really overwhelming - especially those things on this list that, like Autumn, I sometimes think I hallucinated - things I couldn’t place for a long time growing up because the memories were too dim: the monorail, totally! and Yamhill Market and Ramblin’ Rod. Like the time I went back to - oh, what’s that cafe called, I think it’s still there in Old Town (speaking of, is Old Town Pizza still around?), that had the bridge over the stairs where we used to play billy goats gruff? with the big fish tank? (a question clearly only meant for Lyza)

    I actually always thought it *was* split-pea soup, which I still can’t eat to this day (a direct correlation). Must have been something Lyza told me once.

    Also for Lyza: remember when a “large” fries at the Hillsdale Pub came out on a cookie sheet? (And then there was Nature’s! and Winchell’s! And the old Burlingame Market! And Crane’s!!!) Wasn’t there also an Arctic Circle in Raleigh Hills?

    7-up, yes, but I’m surprised no one’s mentioned White Stag. (I still can’t call it Naito Parkway, either.) As for civic buildings, I remember when the convention center opened (Party at the Points!) and touring the Performing Arts Center with a hardhat while it was under construction. And filing papers at the old federal courthouse on Broadway and Madison.

    And the saddest thing is, I’ve been gone so long (10 years!) that there are things I don’t even realize are hard to remember now - like the original site of the Benson House, for instance, or that the Children’s Museum is *not* still down by the YWCA (I had to think twice about that one.) Do I still count as a Portlandian??

    (oh, and the downtown Nordstrom’s is now the oldest Nordstrom’s, after they moved their flagship store in Seattle. It’s the center of the universe.)

  27. autumn Says:
    April 18th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    old town pizza is still open. on 3rd & davis. my parents were friends with the owners back in the coke snorting days of the 80’s! back when my dad worked at the last hurrah which was an under-street-level biker bar on sw washington and 6th. this, along with cheers, cemented my still currently held belief that any bar worth its salt is located under street level. theres one on 6th and clay called mummy’s with an egyptian theme. i need pals for an exploratory visit….

  28. Jolene Says:
    April 19th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    After we rode the Monorail at Meier & Franks, we would go across the street to Frederick & Nelsons and give the Cinnamon Bear a hug. He was never quite as scary as Santa, and the Cinnamon Bear would give out cookies!

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