PERMANENT BUILDINGS FOR THE FUTURE

I look for permanent buildings the older I get.

It’s always a treat.

I’m older than the town I live in, older than the first house I owned, older than where I live mow.

Maybe I’m the permanent building? Naw.

Maybe you?

Going to Europe to look around means one thing: Old buildings, permanent buildings, the sort of buildings that have stood the test of time.

Turns out old isn’t always pretty, but once prettied up, old is amazing.

Take a look at buildings and woodwork. They didn’t have the tools and technology of today, and yet . . .

 

An overview of Portland doesn’t bring the same results.

This is a modern city on the rise. You don’t get the green light for Park Avenue West in a downer city.

 

From floor to ceiling and bed to bath, elegant finishes impress at Park Avenue West. Thoughtful amenity details fashion the perfect balance of comfort and intention. Luxurious urban living with studio, one, and two bedroom floor plans available.

Enjoy floor-to-ceiling glass windows in every apartment offering stunning city views, quartz countertops in both the kitchen and bathrooms, soaring ceilings and open floor plans, stacking in-unit washer and dryers, central heating and cool systems, and more.

Call our friendly leasing staff today, we can’t wait to welcome you home to Park Avenue West.

 

Will Park Avenue West join the ranks of permanent buildings?

The Fox Tower thinks so.

 

One of Portland’s preeminent office properties, Fox Tower offers the security and amenities required by downtown tenants: renovated fitness facilities, new tenant lounge, conference center, on-site bank, deli, clothing retailer, and state-of-the-art communications access.

Located next to TriMet MAX, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Nordstrom, a multitude of restaurants, retailers, hotels, entertainment venues, and housing. Fox Tower enjoys a Walking Score of 100, a Bike Score of 93, and a Transit Score of 98.

The building was awarded an Energy Star label in 2012 for its operating efficiency, and LEED certification at the Gold level by the U.S. Green Building Council.

 

The Fox Theater Thought It Was A Permanent Building 

It wasn’t.

 

The history museum I worked for got a call one day. The Fox Theater on SW Broadway was coming down and it had a few historical objects up for grabs.

At the time I was the main history grabber for an aging staff. It was a time of change, a time of reinterpretation.

The Fox Theater call came into a busy office, got transferred, re-routed, and I was off to the races.

The theater was a few blocks down from the museum on the west side of Broadway, a shuttered dump, an eyesore of poor urban planning awaiting its fate.

My business card got me past the front door and into the stinking lobby of the dank space. I was looking for the racial signs designating who could drink from which water fountain.

The signs were already gone, so Plan B was finding more material to gather. Always have a Plan B for real history.

Two shitty popcorn machines stood behind the snack counter full of aged popcorn. I added them to my new list.

Inside the auditorium people moved in the dim light, stooping between the rows of red velvet seats to unbolt them from the floor. I marked a row for history.

One wall had a gilt sunburst frame around a clock. I found a ladder, a shaky ladder, and pulled it for history.

Since the entire building was up for grabs, I walked it from top to bottom, side to side, and discovered why it was getting demolished. During the remodel in the fifties the place was retrofitted for air conditioning.

Huge fans in the basement pushed cool air through new duct work which was installed by chipping holes in important walls.

Once earthquake awareness rose around town, Fox Theater was deemed too expensive to save. The wall used for AC ducts were weight bearing and needed extensive supports.

 

Building codes change, public safety concerns get aired, and the best fix for permanent buildings is tearing them down?

Say it isn’t so.

It’s so.

 

Permanent Buildings On The Clock

Because of my age and experience, I’ve stayed in some shitty motels, the kind you drive by and wonder, ‘who would ever stay there?’

The answer? My wife and I.

Recently it was a series of funky rooms in England.

We stayed in them for one reason: Location.

Okay, three reasons: Location, location, location.

And it was fun in a camp-out kind of way.

We had a room connected to a pub in the Cotswolds, a room connected to pub in Cambridge.

Do you sense a trend besides being permanent buildings?

 

Swindon had a Magic Roundabout.

 

One of the major attractions when driving around Swindon is the Magic Roundabout, named after the 1960s television show.

This sprawling junction contains five mini-roundabouts, each situated around a bigger, but less obvious, central counter-clockwise roundabout (which houses a very bright street light for night driving).

Each mini-roundabout has three junctions, two leading on to the next and previous mini-roundabout, and one acting as an entry/exit junction.

Many visitors are immediately intimidated by local drivers who use it proficiently, but the local secret is to treat each mini-roundabout as normal, rather than looking at the daunting mass of concrete and cars.

 

Yes, I drove the Magic Roundabout during my 900 miles on English highways.

Twice.

A few horns honked, I honked back. No tires squealing or metal crunching like I heard in Beaverton, Oregon a few months earlier.

 

One mid-evening Beaverton night in the dark of an unlit stretch of feeder road to Scholls Ferry, my wonder car that had gone 4000 miles without a scratch got blindsided from the left.

We took a hit hard enough for a quarter spin snapper and a totaled rig by someone going fast enough to bounce off us and hit another car.

Did my five star safety rated crash car protect me and my loved one?

The common comment was, “The crumple zone did what the crumple zone is supposed to do.”

But no front airbags, no side airbag. No seatbelt tightener for me, but yes for the wife. She was cinched.

Wife: When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was a message on the dashboard screen that said ‘Air bag malfunction, see dealer.’

The official opinion was that the impact of the crash wasn’t severe enough to trigger the airbags.

Or there was a recall on the weight sensors in the driver’s seat to let the safety systems know they might deploy.

I’m wondering who in the land of Toyota could explain the consequences of soft recalls.

A couple of feet the other way in the crash and I’d still be picking glass out of my hair.

 

I wasn’t feeling so permanent after that.

 

The Best Case For Worst Portland Decision

The Portland Hotel once graced Broadway, the main Portland, Oregon street with movie theaters up and down it.

It faced 6th Avenue and the old court house.

 

In the Portland Hotel, they sought to build a facility just as refined and sophisticated and elegant as anything in St. Louis, or Chicago, or even New York.

And they got it.

 

The neighborhood had everything, including a whorehouse from this account.

The Arlington Club was close at hand as well — as was Madame Fanshaw’s establishment, the praises of which Stewart Holbrook sings as the “ne plus ultra of Portland parlor houses.” (“Parlor house,” of course, is used here as a euphemism for “upscale bordello.”

The last day of operations (for the Portland Hotel) was August 15, 1951, and two weeks later all the hotel’s fixtures and dishes and furnishings were auctioned off — including furnishings and sets of china used to serve Presidents of the United States.

Then the wrecking balls were deployed, and the rubble cleared away, and a double-decker parking lot arose where once the finest hotel on the West Coast had stood.

 

Portland Today

Today you could live in Park Avenue West and work in the Fox Tower just up the street.

Back in the Portland Hotel days you could work in the Oregonian building and have lunch in the hotel.

You could tell the wife you’re working late and stop for a visit with Madame Fanshaw on the way home.

It’s a parlor house, after all, not a whorehouse.

Who doesn’t think early Portland business leaders didn’t meet and discuss plans there?

Not everyone is a golfer.

Vice is as permanent as any building, which is why it’s called the ‘oldest profession.’

If you plan to leave your mark where you live, dive into the history to be sure it’s the right mark.

And while you’re at it, leave the ladies a generous tip.