City Archaeology, Mcloughlin Boulevard, Portland

I continue to mine Portland for painting ideas and have been getting a lot of use out of that zone of wasteland, McLoughlin Boulevard in southeast. McLoughlin Blvd is also State Route 99e, which was once a major north-south highway (before I-5) and so it has derelict relics of strip architecture from the '50's.

One reason McLaughlin a good painting prospect for me is not just because it's a six lane highway lined with asphalt and decrepit buildings, but also because the Springwater bike and pedestrian trail crosses over it, making it easy to look at and photograph. Many of my photos were taken from the bridge in the photo below.

So a couple of nights ago Jer and I took a quick tour of the evening light and McLoughlin, first from the trail and then from street level.

It's the incongruities that get me every time. Look at the lovely sky and the soaring bridge and the rhythm of light poles -- and the blast of highway with unattractive buildings lining it.

Among the most unattractive (which I am, of course, painting) is the square yellow one. It sits six lanes and lots of asphalt across from the round yellow one, both of which are in the first photo above (I painted the round one earlier and posted it here.)

This building may have been a bar at one time and perhaps owned by the same person who owned the building across the way. I figure he got a bargain on the yellow paint, long about 1954. When the street was widened, an impassible curb was added, so both these buildings, which may have been popular drinking spots, got left without highway access and finally fell into disrepair.

But just up Ochoco Street, a block away, is Johnson Creek, feathered in the greens of spring

I saw a guy in the house that peeps just over the roof of the yellow building (above) taking a wheelbarrow load of lawn clippings to his already spaded and seeded back garden. And another nearby house is kept immaculate and beautifully groomed as it lives in the shadow of one of the ubiquitous warehouses. Remnants of a city past; views of the city present; all tangled together with trees and water and wildlife and humans.

Oh yes, the wildlife. In the photo above, the clump of trees just beyond the desolate parking lot sits in a tiny water-filled bog, full of cattails and birds. Jer and I parked right next to it so I could photograph the yellow building up close, and when I opened the door, the sound of the birds almost drowned out the sound of the cars passing. We were both astonished and delighted. --June

Comments

[terry grant]

McLaughlin Blvd is a treasure trove of sad old buildings, isn't it? Heading west toward the Ross Island bridge, from where your pictures today were taken are some old boarded up buildings that seem to have been restaurants, bars, motels, etc. Must have been a happenin' strip along there at one point. I always notice the irony of the glittering "big city" backdrop behind those abandoned buildings if I am driving McLaughlin toward downtown.