Division Street at the Portland City Line

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Back on the outer east side of Portland, as Portland as you can go because the Gresham city line is literally at my back here, at SE 174th Avenue and Division Street, looking west.

This is another example of my poor-man's telephoto, which mostly involves a long sightline and a tight zoom ... but I've always liked the result.

Of interest, off on the horizon, is a hill called Kelly Butte. If you're down Division at about 101st and look south off Division, that's the hill you'll see there; yet another notable member of the Boring Volcanic Field, which is the constellation of nobbly hills starting at Mount Tabor and straggling out into Clackamas County until it merges into the Cascade foothills.

Kelly Butte has a place in Portland Civil Defense and cinematic history, because from 1955 through about 1974, the bunker there hosted Portland's emergency Civil Defense nerve center, to which city officials would rush in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. In 1957, CBS broadcast a movie titled The Day Called X, a documentary narraated by actor Glenn Ford, dramatizing Portland's response to a notional Soviet bomber assault (this was in the days before ICBMs, when nukes came delivered Dr. Strangelove-style, from the bellies of big planes and the city had time to get out of the way), and that bunker - staffed in the film by people who were really Portland city officials at the time, including Mayor Terry Schrunk - was a key location in the film. In 1974, the bunker became the 911 headquarters for the Bureau of Emergency Communications, and in 1994, the bunker was decommissioned and sealed when 911 moved to a more modern location.

Kelly Butte's current job is holding a lot of Portland's drinking water in underground tanks that once went to the now-decorative reserviors at the foot of Mount Tabor, near SE 60th and Division. 

There was also a legendary honky-tonk out this way, the Division Street Corral, also known as the "D Street"; a legendary venue, it hosted acts from John Mayall to Johnny Cash and Paul Revere and the Raiders. 

The page as https://pnwbands.com/divisionstreetcorral.html, has a pretty complete list of all the musical goodness that passed out that way, and some of the pictures are still up (some have died due to net rot). 

One other thing to note is the wiggliness of what would seem on paper to be a rather straight road, and that's another reason I enjoy creating these pictures. Surveying was precise but I guess sometimes it was never perfect, and drawing straight lines on a sphere, which strikes me as one of surveying's great challenges, introduces quirks of its own. 

It also makes pictures like this look nifty. 

Division and 122nd Standard Time

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This is a clock tower at the southwest corner of SE 122nd Avenue and Division Street, as seen from Division, going east. The Division Center, a rubric with a sort of awkward poetry to it, refers to the shopping center it serves as a landmark for. 

The building was Payless ShoeSource for a long time before it was a cell phone store. In my fantasies, it's an art supply store run by me and my wife.

We have two clocktowers on SE 122nd Avenue. One is at the Mighty Mighty Midland Branch Library, the other, here. They have one thing in common. The correct time would not be that thing.

This photo was taken at about 8:20 PM, last Wednesday. That is not, as it can be seen, the time on the face of the clock. There is little doubt in my mind that, had we gone down 122nd and the library clock would have also been askew. Not the same way, of course; that would give away the conspiracy of ... something, somehow. 

See, Out 122nd Way, you can have accurate time, or cool clock towers.

You cannot, apparently, have both.

Now I Know The Apartment Developers on Division Are Just Messing With Us

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The picture doesn't yet exist that encapsulates just how nonsensical housing development in inner east-side Portland is ...

Oh, wait. I stand corrected.

Somehow, it stands to reason that an apartment silo (one of many up and down Division west of César Chávez) should be called Move the House Apartments, a name that has the same amount of sense as any Republican idea has these days.

Actually, that's kind of unfair on the apartment name, now that I think about it. 

At least it'll be easy to fill over with sakcrete when the time comes to rename it, as we know it must.

29 April 2019, At 57th And SE Division

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Those of you hardcore SE Portlanders will remember that, up until late 2019 or early 2020 there was one of the last classic drive-up Dairy Queen burger stands in, hell, the Universe, I guess, at the corner of SE 57th Avenue and Division Street, across from Clinton Park and Franklin High School and Atkinson Elementary. 

It was a burger stand, as in a kitchen in a building and you either parked in the lot and ate or you ate on the tables up front if the weather was nice, or you headed through the drive-through and took your haul to wherever you were going to consume it. Last year (I guess), before the pandemic, they, with little fanfare, began to pull down the ancient little building and I found out by Googling about that they had apparently decided they were going to rebuild in a more modern building, with a 2nd floor because the lot was that small.

At least that's what they said. Who can tell for certain if it's even going to happen anymore. We go by that part of Division occasionally and it's just the old parking lot with a gravel square where the building was and a big steel shipping container alongside, coated in graffiti now, holding things related to the deconstruction presumably. It keeps its own counsel in these matters.

But in April of 2019, me and the Brown Eyed Girl stopped by for a snack or perhaps a burger, and I got some photos of the park across the way, golden in that light. 

That was then. 

That Dairy Queen's burger game was immaculate, my friends. Several minutes down the road, those burgers were still hot, just the right amount of juicy, and always perfectly cooked. 

I suspect they won't be rebuilding, no matter what they meant to do. 

And so it goes. 

East Down Division, Six Days Ago, Under The Smoke

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Here's another thing about that ped overpass on Division at SE 136th: an incomparable sight line.

I got a couple other zoom shots which I'll share tomorrow or the next day so I don't tap myself out and, besides, I'm getting a little tapped out when it comes to blogging today and I want to go paint so there's that.

Anyway! Division is an awesome street, really. There are tony parts, and working class parts, and it goes on forever, all the way from Portland through Gresham and doesn't give out until almost Oxbow Park, way out beyond Gresham. Urban, rural, farm, forest, Division will give it to you.

I return us, though, to that pedestrian overpass I was going on about in the last entry. I said there was a story regarding Birthday Hat, and here it is:

It was windy that day, and I was clicking away at the sky with the incoming smoky miasma, somewhat furiously as I had to get back down to the Dutch Bros where my latte was coming to completion and the Brown Eyed Girl would be waiting to take us on to the Franz store or whereever else it was we'd be going, and what I should have foreseen happened and a gust of a breeze (It was windy that day) plucked Birthday Hat off my head and sent it spinning down to Division Street below.

I got a glimpse of where it landed: in the left turn lane going from Division west to 136th south. A part of me was giving it up for About To Be Crushed, when a red car driven by a black man pulled into the turn lane, snagged my rogue trilby, looked up, saw me, I saw him and we somehow communicated that I'd make my way down and he'd meet me on the corner. Powering down my camera I made for the stairs.

It's fortune that the light at 136th seems to take so long to cycle and that the drivers on Division westbound were courteous that day because I made it down to that car and gratefully retrieved the hat. Either that, or I was terribly motivated. But the hat was gotten back and sincere gratitude expressed for this kindness that day.

And, I did get this shot:

Division under looming smoke, one of the last glimpses of blue sky we'd have for many days (we still don't, as of this writing) ranks of familiar Cascade foothills. 

And me, still in possession of Birthday Hat, which seems to have a sort of modest level of luck attached to it. Well, I may not have much faith in supernatural explanations, but I'll roll with this one for now.

Wy'east Over Division, Six Days Ago

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Diving back deeper, I was finally able to coax a image to resemble things the way I remember them.

I do, as it happens, do a little manipulation of most of the images I post. I try to keep it to the absolute minimum, white balance, color enhance maybe. I suppose many photographers do same, but even though I've learnt a great deal about composition and framing over the years I've shot digital photos for fun, sometimes those cameras just don't pick up the image the way my eye and psyche do. 

Sometimes one feels one's telling a fib with the insane amount of photo editing that is available, but then, if every photo's a story and I'm trying to tell a moment, it's also a sort of integrity that I try to make that photo resonate with my memory of the moment. 

I guess.

Six days ago, before the smoke arrived for good, me and the Girl were out doing whatever it was we were doing, and stopped, as we have habit to do, at the Dutch Bros on SE Division just east of 136th. It's a verity for us. Very nearby there is a pedestrian overpass and I noticed that Wy'east was presenting interesingly under the incoming smoke (which I already visually explored here and here. It was here along Division, though, when I realized I had something visually worth capturing. 

There was a lineup at Dutch Bros, so out of the car I leapt, me and Birthday Hat. Short adventure with Birthday Hat, but that's for the next entry. 

I tried to frame the mountain, but when seen in the viewfinder it mellowed back so much it was all but impossible to compose effectively, so I seat-of-the-pantsed it using surrounding hills and other things that I could see. Eventually I'm here in front of my computer and I can play with curves and, even though this is not what the camera appeared to capture, this resonates with the memory of what I saw.

Old Wy'east usually presents well from this part of Division. Once I got the color where I wanted it, it visually imposes quite aptly.

Here I'll include a bit of pull-back for context. 

This takes in not only Division just below the overpass and the PGE substation at 138th and Divsion but also our insurance agent's office. 

Anthony Kondos. Nice guy. We recommend him. 

There is an endless internal dialogue with me going on when it comes to scenes like this, and its participants are constantly amazed that looking on something like this mountain, which I regard with almost a fetishistic intensity, comes out one fulsome way in the brain and the psyche but another diminished way under the indifference of the digital camera. Our brain really works hard at playing things up for us. 

This dialogue has no resolution, one supposes, and perhaps no end save sufficiently-advanced senesence or biological decease. 

So it goes.

Echoes of Country Along Citified Division Street

3713Outer East Portlandia is still studded with hints of an authentic past that goes beyond the lamented demise of "Old Portland". Out here, in The Numbers, they come in glimpses obscured by trees embedded in the polyglot proletarian atmosphere one only seems to find these days east of I-205, and, as opposed to the old urban areas west of I-205, they tend to carry a decidedly rural aura to them.

On SE Division Street, just west of the light at SE 130th Avenue on the north side of the street, are two such glimpses. I'll not publicize the addresses, but if you were here and driving down Division and just looked, you'd see them, sure enough. Their unforgettability etches them indelibly on the memory.

This house is particularly remarkable for its architectural touch, which I shouldn't have to point out:

I've long admired this house, and how could you not, with that askew corner and the pointed peak? The detail over the front porch is nifty enough on its own and then it gives you this visual jackpot.

It's quite a semi-hidden gem.

This other one, above, is the next-door neighbor. Modest and unremarkable when framed this way, just a small cottage located in a remote wood ... though, of course, it's on one of Portland's most thronging arterials, the road between Oregon's largest city and its fourth-largest, both of which hold more than 100,000 people.

And it's this aspect of it that really lodges in the mind and memory. All this suburban urbanity around it, and here are these two small places that haven't forgotten that they were once outside of town and solidly in the country, the country that once filled the space between Portland and Gresham.

Back when there was space between Portland and Gresham.

Wy'East in Surrogate on Division

3709The last several days here in my beloved PDX Metro have been gray and cloudy. And I do like this; I've always preferred the cloudy days to the agressively clear, horizon-to-horizon blue.

However, it does prevent me from seeing my mountain muse, Wy'east. But a billboard company has kind of come to the rescue. Looking down on SE 98th and Division, from above a dodgy quick-shop and gas station, and within sight of the big Division/I-205 mixing bowl, we have a beatific place-holder design on a billboard, which has benevolence designed in.

So, if I can't get my Wy'east fix from 122nd, at least I got it from here, this day.

The lighthouse on the cupola of the Public Storage next door gives a dash of visual simultaneously ironic and romantic, in that commercial suburban business district sort of way.

Bonobo Mart Seems Always Out Of Stock

3708Another place we are habitues of, Discounts Plus provides us with much variety, spice 'o' life, and cheap soda pop and the occasional container of Osem kosher croutons and container of Bisto.

But there is one thing that they've never carried, despite what the sign over the window says. See if you can spot it.

If you haven't seen it yet, let's zoom in. Look between the sign that says TOOLS and the one that says TARPS.

That's right. MONKEYS.

And you know what? They're always out of stock. So aggravating.

[pdx] The Jade District: JAMS at 82nd and Division

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Referred to in the last missive, the JAMS building at 82nd and Division, in the Jade, is a event venue and community center that caters to the community groups and people that constitute the population of the Jade District, which is quite diverse and features a great number of people of eastern Asian heritage. Judging by the signs on the businesses in that area, it's principally Vietnamese, Chines, Thai, Laotian, and Pacific Islander.

The 82nd Avenue front to the JAMS center.

The side of the building that fronts to SE 82nd Avenue still features the old neon and exterior from when it was Banner Furniture, and part of the old painted-on logo of the furniture spot can be seen there on the left, which is the south wall.

As Michael Long said, this was once a Piggly-Wiggly. The artchtecture of the building looks like one of those old-school grocery stores, sure enough.

Another feature of this sideof the building is the big windows. Behind the windows on this side, the old furniture showroom has been made into an event hall. Not only do they have the posters with artistic maps of the growth of Portland in the upper tier, there's whimsical collage posters with current businesses of the area combined with vintage photos.

The building extends to the west, with a wing that stretches nearly to SE 80th Avenue, containing community rooms and office space.

The address of the building, 8114, can be seen on the roofline there just before the building angles and the words "Discount FURNITURE". The neon, as shown on APANO's page for JAMS (see link above) still functions.

The building, as the use-statement illustrates, is a station-point. APANO leases it at the present time, and it's not seen as the final answer to the needs of having a permanent community center in the 82nd Avenue/Jade District area. It's a waypoint.

[map art] JAMS: The Growth Of Portland Artistically Mapped At 82nd And Division

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On the SW corner of SE 82nd and Division is a building that's been there a long, long time. For a great many hears it was the SE Portland home of Banner Furniture (which is now merely a single location out in Hillsboro), and before that, it was SE Portland's Piggly Wiggly outlet (according to the indispensable Michael Long) - I would have guessed a Safeway, since Piggly Wigglys never got down to Silverton or Salem (as far as I knew) when I was a kid and the old Safeway on East Main had a similar design and footprint).

Currently it serves as a community event venue and center called JAMS (Jade/APANO Multicultural Space), which is currently being leased by APANO, and is one of the current and evolving features of the core of area along SE 82nd between E Burnside and SE Powell which has been dubbed the Jade District. A great number of east Asian-owned businesses and culture have come out this way to join those that were already there (the Canton Grill, the late Legin (once the Lung Fung East - the pagoda-styled building razed to allow PCC-Southeast to expand) and the FuBonn shopping complex, amongst others) to form a burgeoning outer-east Portland cultural community that is evolving by the day, it seems.

JAMS bills itself as a temporary step between here and there; the building while in good repair, is clearly venerable and ripe for up-development. Until then, it's the community center that this area needs, and while it's there, it's using the old front windows, facing SE 82nd, to good effect.

There are large posters there, and one series that has caught my eye in the past few months, in the top tier of the windows facing 82nd, is a series of posters that appear to show the territorial growth of Portland since 1845.

Here's the one for 1845:

... and Portland in 1875 ...

... and Portland in 1915 ...

... by now you're noticing three things. First, the information is minimal; the visual profile of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers are clearly recognizable, the city's apparent extent limned by a thick red line, the interior of the shape filled with a vigorous, energetic, rough cross-hatching that looks like it was made on scratchboard. Secondly, the presentation is not complex, it's simple as it is direct. And, thirdly, it's rather inaccurate. The city area seems outsized and shifted to the north and west of where it should be.

So, it's a map ... but it's as much art as map. It's beginning to give me a gut-level, subjective idea of how Portland grew and despite - or perhaps because - of the informational subjectivity, it's incredibly engaging.

Now, 1945:

... 1975 ...

... and, appropriately instead of any particular year in that decade, we have the 1980s. Not only was this a 'fuzzy' time when old Portland began to change into new Portland, I can't really think of one exemplar year that would do justice to the whole decade. It was so chaotic it so many ways politically, economically, socially, and artistically.

The map does have a particularly valuable insight, in that the uniform red boundary line elsewhere in the map expands to a region on the east, and the caption 'unincorporated East-County' seems to appear as an explanation. That's an excellent way of noting that culturally and economically, even though the area between 82nd/I-205 and Gresham was part of Portland in every way but governmentally; that area was still Multnomah County. During the 1980s, of course, that era swiftly closed out, as the unincorporated land between Gresham and Portland was divvied up between the two in a rapid series of annexations which left the only unincorporated areas of Multnomah County those northwest of Linnton and that east of Troutdale and Gresham by the turn of the 2000s.

The sequence ends in 2016.

This is Portland as we have it today, with six major freeways slicing it into six easy pieces. The freeway meanders reduced to pixel-like steps, the area of "Portland" spilling over into what's actually Vancouver, the informational inaccuracy is at once aggressive on the left brain but informative to the right. Portland always has been a state of mind, now more than ever, and whysoever the art was designed this way, it's very engaging on a mind and soul level.