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The Trolley Meets the Tram

On that lovely September day when we checked out the bridges, we also found ourselves near the Portland Streetcar (aka The Trolley).

The line has been extended upriver a bit from the City Center, taking in the new high-rises along the waterfront to the south. So we hopped on for a ride into new old territory.

When we lived on SW Kelly Avenue, we jogged along the warehouse district streets which now have been spiffified by new paving, the streetcar tracks, and lots of new construction.

The area is full of high-rises. Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) has its own big building, and many condos are being put up on what used to be weed-strewn flats.

The tram, which runs from the main hospital complex of OHSU (up the hill on Sam Jackson Road) down to its auxiliary building on the waterfront has a wonderful otherworldly design. It was the source of great controversy and the Corbett/Terwilliger neighborhood was rather arrogantly by-passed, its legitimate complaints ignored, but to the outsider from the east half of town, it's still fascinating to see. -- June

Samson

It was almost too dark to photograph Samson, who lives across 14th Avenue from us, a few evenings ago when we walked by his house. He's a charming fellow, gentle and friendly. -- Jer

From the Burnside Bridge, Fall 2007

Walking across the Burnside Bridge is normally a matter of steeling yourself against roaring, close-by traffic. However, on the fall day we walked across it to the Portland City Center, it was closed to automobiles. People on foot and on bikes could meander across it, enjoying the views without trembling from the trembling of the concrete from the weight of tractor trailers.

Here are some of the photos from the Burnside Bridge on a cloud-bewreathed day in September.

Looking west at the city proper.

Still looking west, seeing another boat, the big paddle-wheeler that runs tourists up and down the river. The clouds look fierce but were actually just waving at us as they went overhead.

And of course, I never can resist photographing Big Pink. -- June

Hawthorne Bridge September 2007

-- Jer

The Esplanade and Some Bridges, Fall 2007

It was a gorgeous day, full of clouds and sunshine, 70 degrees, time for a walk down the river and across to the City.

Our adventure began at the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, which runs perpendicular to SE Main, where the bronze statue of ex-mayor Vera Katz always greets us. Someone had given her a still-fresh rose, and the sculptor has made her look as cheerful as she always was as mayor. It was then-mayor Katz who was responsible for the Esplanade, a fact which has always endeared her to me -- and, as the rose indicates, others also.

Different days on the Esplanade always make for different photos. This day I got intrigued by the bridges.

The photo above shows a number of the passages for transportation across the Willamette. The close-in girders belong to the underside of the Burnside Bridge. The silvery cross-hatched structure is a pedestrian crossway over I-5, which leads to the Esplanade (behind the concrete wall and steps), which leads to the Steel Bridge, the black structure behind all on the left. The Steel Bridge is a carrier of the light rail trains, automobiles, heavy rail trains, and, on their own cantilevered walkway, pedestrians. And of course the rower is making his own way across the water.

We climbed up onto the Burnside Bridge (closed to autos but open to pedestrians and bicyclists), where we enjoyed the lack of roaring traffic and could photograph the city at leisure.

Looking upriver, we could see the Esplanade as well as the Hawthorne and Marquam Bridges. The Marquam is the I-5 bridge, so it's reserved for autos, but the Hawthorne was recently renovated to make it friendly for bikes and pedestrians as well as autos and buses. You can see just a bit of the I-5 freeway in the center, left of the big green Interstate sign.

I had to leave out the Ross Island, the Sellwood, the Morrison, the Broadway, and the St. Johns bridges. Obviously, Portland spraddles a river. It also has a lot of different transportation options. -- June

Hay Field

A field of hay at Diamond, Ore.

-- Jer

As the Nights Grow Longer...

The morning light grows later. Which has its advantages, the chief one being that I can get my walk in while the light is in its early phase. In the summer, it's long past dawn shadows and light by the time I get out the door. As Robert Frost told us:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

"Nature's first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold. / Her early leaf's a flower; / But only so an hour. / Then leaf subsides to leaf. / So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay."

So while the light is golden and the dawn late enough to be seen by a sleepy-head, here's the neighborhood in the early a.m.:

-- June

Ashland Hotel

June ran a photo of this hotel in Ashland a few days ago.  I've been trying to get a decent shot of this structure for several years. This one is better than my others because we got up early in the morning and went downtown before cars filled the street and the sky went blank. A polarizing filter also helped. -- Jer

Sunflower Report

At some point each year, I have to report on the sunflowers that inhabit the neighborhood. They generally are grown in the parkings, because that's the best place to get sun. Sometimes they have a Van-Gogh-ish look to them; other times they are simply themselves.

These sunflower photos were taken at 7 a.m., along SE Salmon and Yamhill streets on Friday, Sept. 21, 2007. Autumn is a-coming in, sing fa-la, fa-la.

 

-- June

 PS: while it may appear I'm not doing any art, I am playing with my art -- that is, I've updated my website and made some sense out of some of what I have been doing. You can see it on Work in Progress, which links off Recent Work.

http://www.juneunderwood.com/workinprogress.php

Ashland Window

Reflections and non-reflections in Ashland, Ore.  -- Jer