Journalist By Nature: Love Where You Live

A seasonally unusual high pressure zone over Portland recently has kept the sky a bright, clear blue, temperatures low and today, windy. Perfect city walking weather! Today we double looped the Peninsula Park and Overlook Park neighborhoods of North Portland. The architecture of these areas continues with Craftsman, Bungalow and Four Square styles intermingling with infills of sleek modern high rise apartments. The architect Ellis Lawrence designed the Community Center in Peninsula Park in the spirit of an Italian villa, echoing his Albina district Title Wave library re-sale building mentioned in the last blog.
The beautiful formal rose garden of the park is well-maintained with its rows of neatly pruned rose bushes, mowed law strips, stone fencing, fountain and pollarded trees at the pathway intersections. A double row of colossal Linden trees shades the southwest corner of the park and a fancy bandstand graces the northeast corner. This was the premier rose garden of Portland until the Washington Park Rose Garden was established. According to Karen Foster's research in Portland City Walks "the idea (in 1910) was to use beauty and grand monuments in the inner city as a means of promoting moral and civic virtue". To this end, the community center is decorated with murals of male and female athletes cavorting near the ceiling and an outdoor swimming pool that came to house the penguins of the Portland Zoo before their watery quarters were completed in 1957.

Nearby Portland Community College's Cascade campus preserves a century cherry tree in the middle of the paved parking lot. A small student art museum showcases a rotating art display. The college offers 25 one-year certificate programs, 20 associate degree programs and a general college transfer degree. Nearby Jefferson High School makes it convenient for students to accelerate their education by taking college and high school classes in the same academic year. Another Carnegie-funded library is on Killingsworth, designed in the Jacobethan style by Joseph Jacobberger, a Portland architect. The exterior brick is of the Flemish bond brick style.

Blowing further east on Killingsworth we arrived at the Chapel Pub, another McMenamin brothers "save", housing their corporate headquarters upstairs and a pub on the main floor of what used to be a funeral parlor. Inside is beautiful ironwork by O.B. Dawson, the craftsman who designed all the ironwork in Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Well-preserved and painted in more modern color schemes are Queen Anne and Craftsman homes. A former convent now houses low-income seniors at the Villa Saint Rose. Glazed windows and stained glass grace the facade of the building.

Hopscotching across Interstate 5 and the MAX tracks we boarded the train for a 1.5 mile ride south to the Overlook Park station. This is near the Kaiser North Interstate Medical complex and the 1907 Saint Stanislaus Church, seat of Portland's Polonia or Polish community. Sunday Mass is still said in Polish as well as English and Croatian in a nod to the immigrants who worked in the rail yards and port facilities in 1890. A tribute plaque to one of our group member's grandfather is on the church's wall, commemorating his work in establishing the church.

Overlook Park, a large open acreage, is rimmed by a 130-foot high bluff on the west that affords a view of the railroad yard and Union Station as well as the oil refinery along the Willamette River. Further to the east is the Fremont Bridge, spanning the river from the Albina area to the Northwest area. Houses along the Melrose Drive and Overlook Terrace reflect the English Cottage style. Their front yards are beautifully planted but some of their once-spacious views of the river are being blocked by several newer, two-story homes on the edge of the bluff. The Overlook House, a facility of Portland Parks and Recreation, is a lovely setting for a wedding or reception with its manicured garden and spacious patio on the back of the house.

The adidas America headquarters (properly pronounced ah-dee-DAS rather than the common U.S. pronunciation of ah-DEE-das) uses the former Bess Kaiser Hospital facility as well as numerous other buildings added later to develop a substantial campus. According to Foster, "Working with Portland-based Mercy Corps, the company filled shipping containers with the hospital's cabinets, doors, stainless steel sinks and toilets and sent them to hospitals in Honduras and one of the former Soviet republics."

There is a stateliness about the neighborhoods in this area, proud in design and energetic in renovation. New owners have erected fresh fences, bolstered foundations, built vegetable gardens in kid-decorated boxes and brought modern color palettes to the homes. Without homeowner associations there is no review of what gets done at any particular house but the overall sense is one of neighborly enjoyment with creative freedom.

Buffeting winds finally drove us to seek shelter in some warm eatery so we cut part of our final loop short and headed back to North Interstate Street where we found the Fire On The Mountain buffalo wings restaurant. This tiny but spicy place is colorfully painted, furnished with well-worn seating and a six seater bar where Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat beer is served on tap. The menu is filled with buffalo wing-inspired sandwiches and real wings, salads and appetizers. The Box Lunch Burger of the day was dripping with raspberry habernero sauce and oozing condiments. The fries got topped with Banana Sauce, a fruity but frisky ketchup. A tiny box of raisins completed the box lunch theme. An icy glass of tap beer was passed around the table to quench the fire in our mouths. The staff was cheery and quick to please. This place deserves another visit.

Across the tracks a new grouping of high rise apartments was recently completed at the corner of N. Interstate and Greeley. Renewal is evident in this part of North Portland as was the intention with the insertion of the MAX light rail yellow line spur here. There's never enough time to adequately explore all the shops and avenues in one day's walk but today's sampling was educational and provided a pleasant 5 mile city walk. As the sign said, love where you live. That is certainly what's happening in this neighborhood. Get out and check it out!