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It never fails to amaze me how many people have lived in Portland, yes even lived here all their life, and have never been to the top of Rocky Butte.  Sure it’s easy to see as you drive in from Washington or the airport along I-205. It just looks like you regular run of the mill hill. To me there is so much more to the story.

 45° 32′ 48.2″ N, 122° 33′ 57.4″ W

First some history!

            Along time ago Portland was not the green people friendly place it is today. In fact it was hot.. red hot as matter of fact.. red-hot lava. Before we were stump town, bridge town, city of roses or the stripper capital of the USA we were part of the great Boring Lava Field. No it was not dull and uninteresting lava it was named after Boring Oregon, no really a town called Boring.

            Now this cataclysm started about 2.7 million years ago and finally came to an end about 300,000 years ago. This was a long period of time, more then the last five minutes of a NBA game. but not as long as political convention acceptance speech. Strange to think about it but 300,000 years ago this place was not forested green, it was burning red and smoking hot.

 

            This historical lava extravaganza left the East side of Portland with three very distinct cinder cones or as you may call them volcanoes. Powell Butte 614 Feet High, Mount Tabor 630 feet high and Rocky Butte 612 Feet high (that’s 187 meters for my fellow Nerds or the rest of the world)

            In the past Rocky Butte was known as Wiberg Butte but in my life it has always been Rocky Butte. It always had a magnetic effect on me even from a young age. Even now it draws me there at least four or five times a year. I can’t really explain it except to say that is an Icon. For me Portland is Rocky Butte just as San Francisco is the golden gate bridge, Seattle is the space needle and Detroit is crime.

            I grew up not far away, down by the airport. I can remember standing up in my bedroom window when even standing on my bed I could hardly see out, looking east and seeing the light on top of the butte turning, It’s amazing how far that light would travel and even lying in bed I could see its glow sweep the night sky. I didn’t know what it was then, it was a mystery, a beacon calling to me out of the night.

 

Growing up my parents took me up there one time and my brother another. Each time I went there they had to drag me away.  It wasn’t until I was a teen that I started going up to the butte regularly. I always loved going up there no matter the weather. My Friend Scott and I would drive up there all the time. While other teenagers were cruising 82^nd in the early 80’s we were cruising Rocky Butte.

One dark and stormy night we looked up and couldn’t see the light on the signal tower. That was strange enough to get us to divert from awaiting double dates to investigate. Once atop the Butte were struck in awe by the sight. As we parked the car we realize we were about ten feet bellow the cloud layer. It looked like you could reach up and grab a cloud. The light was up there but even from the road just bellow not more then fifty yards away we could not see it. All I can say is looking out across Portland at night in a soft mist from ten feet bellow the clouds is breathtaking.

  (Don't Climb in Formal Dress)

 For some reason I remember going up there after a school dance. We were all dressed up and for some reason we were possessed by the demon Pazuzu I think, we felt compelled to climb the rock walls in formal clothes and dress shoes. This was difficult and as I found out impossible after a long backwards fall down the rock face.

 Of the many things on your list of “Things to do in Portland” going up to the top of rocky butte should be one of them. Because it’s free, I’m cheap so I’m partial to free, it should move to the top of your list. Take a book or pack a lunch. Take your time enjoying the sights and yes bring a camera. Any season is great trust me it’s worth the trip. 

 

You will notice things about Portland you never knew, especially looking East towards downtown. You will only see a small sliver of the city bellow you, maybe a few roads and a few larger buildings. What you will see mostly is Trees when you look to the east.  In fact any lower and all you would see of the ocean of houses between you and the city center is trees. In recent years in our push for “Density” these trees have began to thin sadly. You cannot have Density and trees but there is still plenty to see still for now.

 Maybe I love Rocky Butte for its nostalgia, that one magic day I did the impossible. Before I tell you about this first you have to take two Tennis Balls in one hand and throw them. Watch how they fly apart and go in different directions. We have all done this at one time or another. Everyone knows that throwing two balls at the same time, from one hand causes them to drift apart

 

Now for the story

Traveling around Portland when I was in high school meant sitting in the back of one my friends trucks. Both Ben Roth and Ron Downey owned trucks and they were the first to know how to drive. All of my buddy’s were as use to riding in the back of pickup as we were to walking down the street. I know it’s horribly dangerous now and I cannot help but cringe when I see anyone riding in the back of truck but when you’re in your teens you are invincible!

On this, my day of greatness Ben was driving, Scott had called shotgun and was upfront with Ben.  We were up at the Butte when we spied one of the High School thugs walking around. We didn’t want to give him a ride so we made plans for a quick get away.

(Not Real Size)

Now there are two ways off the butte but our plan strangely involved swing past, honking and saying hi, but not to stop so as to avoid giving him a ride. Now we could have driven the other way and never had been seen but that was not epic enough for us.

As we prepared for our exit I found two dirty tennis balls rolling around the back of the truck. Looking out the back of the cab my friend Scott  made the throw motion and pointed at Mr. thug. Being a beast of Chaos without any thought for future cost or consequence I got ready.

So if I were to sit down and give all the statistics to physics class it would look like this. Get your slide rule ready

1. Truck is going around a corner fishtailing
2. Truck is accelerating.
3. I’m Leaning out the far side holding on for dear life
4. Gripping two, yes two tennis balls in one had
5. Throwing left handed when I’m right handed mostly.
6. Throwing back across the truck to the inside
7. Throwing side arm because the side of the pickup box is jabbing into my side because of the sharp turn.
8. Throwing from a seated possition
9. Target is walking in the same direction we are and accelerating to get on board.
10. Throwing back against the forward acceleration of the Truck.

            All of these factors should have made it impossible for me to hit my target. Taking all these factors into account I should have been lucky to hit Oregon. However, the great gods of Chaos were smiling on me that day. The two tennis balls looked like they were thrown by a Major-league pitcher, they curved as if on a missile track. They began to drop and I saw them strike him right in the baby maker one ball for each of his boys.

This turned him from “running, threatening menace” to “drop on your knees and pray to catch your breath cripple” so fast we were not even sure it happened. I raised my fist in victory and entered legend. I also got the hell punched out of my arm every time I passed this thug for a year.

There are secrets about the butte most people don’t know. A tunnel you can crawl in the goes very deep inside the hill. Better known is the Catholic grotto along the cliff face to the north. An old air raid siren abandoned on the hillside. I had a friend who wanted a bike only we were both broke. Knowing a little bit about Rocky Butte we spent an hour combing the ivy covered hillside finding a treasure trove of beer bottles, cans and half a dozen bikes. He was able to assemble two working bikes and make a killing on the deposit return. From then on this friend called me the “King of the Butte.”

 

I make sure whenever someone comes visiting Portland to take them up there on a clear day for an awesome view of SE Portland and the Columbia river. Yet still my favorite people to take up there are those from the Portland Metro area who have never been to the top of the butte.

I go to Rocky Butte to think. It’s not a place of creativity but a place of introspection. Here is where I go when I want to find out what I’m really thinking. After the birth of my daughter, after my divorce, I went there when I was younger to settle a debate on if I should move to Seattle. I ended up going and never gave it another thought.

 

 Not everything is magical about the Butte. There was my arch nemeses at Adams High School who was always causing me grief. One night he went up the butte while driving and drinking. On the way down he crashed and burned up with three other passengers. You cannot escape the fate of your actions even on my beloved hill.

One time a good friend of mine and I walked there, from my house all the way to the top just because we could. A long night to be sure, it was one of those hot summer nights when everyone had their windows and doors open. We talked about everything in the world, It was magic.

A few weeks later he sought to replicate this magic with three girls leaving from his house a scant five blocks form the Butte and hanging out there until night. He called me and I had to work so I could not make it despite having a crush on one of the girls. They found a clearing and made a campfire only they used stinging nettles much to the distress of their hands and the doctors in the hospital who notices they had inflamed lungs.

Oh well sometimes your there for the fun, sometimes your not.

I hope you add Rocky Butte to your list of things to do for free in Portland.

I hope you go back there every season to see the changing of Portland.

I hope you also take your visiting friends to this wonderful little secret right there in the plain sight.

I hope to see you there, if you see me. remember I’m the King of Rocky Butte. 

 

Portland Oregon is a great city, so great in fact that we manage to attract people here from all over the country and we don’t even have jobs for them.

Now that is great!

Most cities without jobs become ghost towns faster then you can say Detroit.

Portland on the other hand keeps growing along as wave after wave of newcomers show up and join the line at the coffee shops as either, customers counting change for one more Mocha or Barista with colleges degrees or as I call them Degreestas. 

Portland has natural beauty as long as you like green trees and hills/mountains. If you like blue oceans or the brown of the desert you may not like Portland. Portland has friendly people and crappy drivers who are very friendly as well.

When people ask me what is the difference between Seattle and Portland I will often say Seattle is the world smallest “Big City” and Portland is the worlds largest “Small Town” Both are fine places to live, again only if you like green and mountains/hills.. oh and beer, Northwesterners love their beer. 

Portlanders are not uptight about what we got. Go to New York or Boston or Baltimore and you will hear about how this drink is the best, or that restaurant is the best or this local food is the best… 

Here is my trip back east in a nut shell

Mr. Baltimore: Hey Dan you wanna try some Crab?

Dan: No, No thank you.

Mr. Baltimore: hey this is not like your crab, this is from the Chesapeake!

Dan: Hmm, tempting but I think I will pass if I may.

Mr. Baltimore: Oh come on, all you have out west is red crab.

Dan: I don’t really like crab, thank you though…

MR. Baltimore: (Waving steaming hot crab under my nose) see our crabs are blue.

 

Dan: I don’t like shellfish at all from shrimp to muscles to crab, don’t like it. No thank you.

Mr. Baltimore: Have you ever tried blue crab?

Dan: No, I don’t like crab, at all.

Mr. Baltimore: how do you know unless you try our crab.... 

and on and on and on.

No wonder there are so many drive by's on the east coast they are all fighting over food!

Now you can exchange Baltimore for New York and insert Pizza for Crab, In Maine you can insert Lobster for Crab. Whatever it is, people east of the Rockies seem to be on some sort of social food Jihad. When you announce that you don’t like their food you get the look that says “Maybe you would like it better back in communist Russia Comrade”

Here is a direct quote from Mr. Baltimore’s visit to Portland a few years after.

 

Dan: You like beer? Let's check out the Brew festival many Breweries with many types of beer.

Baltimore: No I don’t like beer.

Dan: Oh ok, lets go get some Pizza then.

This is what I call “The NW laissez faire” We really don’t care if you like it or not. We will respect what you say, were not going to shove it down your throat because we can’t be bothered with crusades.

That is Portland, Portlanders and the Northwest in a nutshell.  

Now there is something Portlanders get all fired up about. Now when I say Portlanders I mean not only the people born here but all of those who claim to be born here even if they are recent transplants. You see Portlanders love to preserve things. There is something about historical preservation that makes Portland go nuts. I don’t think it’s all Portlanders, it’s just enough of them to sway political opinion as the rest of us show the typical “NW Laissez faire” attitude and just turn the other cheek. 

Look at our sports teams

Timbers

Trailblazers

Beavers

Ducks

You would think form these names that we all pack siz-guns, while pulling our mules along with a few leg traps hung over our shoulder when in reality we all pack cell phones, have an I pod on and a satchel with a lap top strapped to our shoulder. 

This historic ideal preservation seeks to virtually freeze community development into a static low change concept. Low change is not a historic Portland value but a modern ideal. Back in the day if something wasn’t useful they tore that sucker down and made something new. Now though it is as if every fragment of Portland’s past has a value that exceeds ever opportunity that Portland Future has to offer.

It's as if the building in Portland today were the first builders made and have some sort of special status when many of them are second and third generation. Here are three broadway pics roughly thirty years apart. Notice how the buildings change.

     

So we have no development idea (82nd), Preservationist development ideals and yes we have the Monstrous Orwellian Nightmare developments. Armed with concrete and glass they obliterate entire areas of town, add in some huge tax incentives for builders, spend a load of government money and pray jobs show up so people can occupy their butt ugly buildings. 

This has led to what I call the “Portland Three Way” 

 

 1 endless strip malls (as in 82^nd Ave.)

 2 “Welcome back to the old days” (Hawthorne.)

 3 Monstrous Orwellian Nightmare

 It is hard to find a section of town not touched by one of these three horsemen of the civic apocalypse. 

I’m not against preservation. I love that fact that I can go drink beer in my third grade class room that was taught by the horrible Mrs. Skaggs who was convinced I was the second coming of Satan. I loved when I traveled abroad I slept in a hostel in Monmouth Great Britain that was older then the United States by a few hundred years. Preservation can be good. Do we need it all the time? 

Strip malls have their places as well I guess, I mean where are all the new 7-11's and tattoo parlors supposed to go? Strip Mall have a place as a first stage of commercial development. Could this not be followed up with incentives for redevelopment. 

Monstrous Orwellian Nightmares have their place and by this I can't see a way to stop these temples to concrete and glass from happening so I'm just moving on and pretending they are not there. 

I believe that Portlanders are stuck in guilt cycle. We allow the type three Orwellian development then to make up for such sin we go on a crusade to preserve as penitence for our sins. 

Here are the three elements I believe we are missing on a citywide scale.

Unique local Identity, Impact, Incentive

Or to put it bluntly building codes and investment and payoffs.

Unique Local Identity: taking existing unique identity and expanding it. Or development of a new Unique Local Identity as expressed though changes in building codes. Changing codes on building styles and structures to allow unique signs and structures.

Impact: development to create an area of aesthetic or commercial impact by city investment. This can be scaled to meet the compliance with the unique local identity. Meaning if 20% of the buildings meet the ULI then you qualify for maybe a unique lamp, or a fountain or a streetcar or something. Scaled civic response to private development investment over time means the city doesn’t need to front a big wad of cash.

Incentive: Tax breaks and the like. My least favorite but a useful tool to get things started. It doesn’t take much to interest developers.

This is not a fast way to change things. It will promote development evolution in an organic way over time. It will not be reconstructive anarchy. Every new building will grow a neighborhoods distinction and impact. Making our city not unique for one look or neighborhood but unique for all the neighborhoods and their many looks and styles. 

Missed Opportunity: East Burnside Between MLK and 12^th Ave.

This little gem in the rough was once a blight of bars and prostitutes but now shows every sign of coming gentrification. Three building stand out here. They are older but they show a unique design feature of overhanging the curbs. This was not common to the rest of Portland but in this area it thrived.

Examples of ULI

 

 

The above right pic shows two building with over hangs structures. So that's 4 buildings between in 6 blocks. This would be perfect for Unique Local Identity, or ULI,

If getting a building approved for overhang a curb was not the equivalent to drop kicking an M1 tank across the Willamette River it would be awesome. If the city had incentive for a land owner to maybe take out his strip of crappy underused buildings and develop something better how perfect would that be. If the city say made a metal arch or roses across Burnside at MLK when the half the buildings reflected this new/old look.

 This Building almost got it right

This Developer Opted For Glass Ugly Owellian Bellow 

 

 

I believe this approach used years ago may have preserved Chinatown before everyone moved to 82^nd. 

It could make inner SE, between grand and the river something people would come to Portland to see. 

 I'm not against preserving individual special buildings. However over all I think spending development money on preserving is silly. Let buildings stand or fall based on how useful they are. Development down the road should create something special that has impact. Not preserving that past build forward not backwards.

            Like it or not we are all children of our geography. Geography and place is something you don’t hear much about when people speak of our development as humans. You will hear a great deal about families, genetics and maybe a bit about community. You never hear much a city or a region.

            For most of us where we are is just a temporary place in our lives. Maybe that speaks more to who we are as Americans then we would like to admit. We are a nation that is not “on the move” so much as we are a nation “obsessed with moving”. Look at our movies and television, isn’t it always the friend of the hero, the lovable lug who stays behind while the hero moves on. We are convinced that we must move to ascend.

            Gone is the day when someone says I’m doing it here. I’m making my world, my place better. Here are the days when we pack up and move to where ever we perceive the latest temporary opportunity. No doubt staying put may limit some opportunities in our lives but one never knows what opportunities it may open as well. 

            Now I have lived in many places  Seattle Washington, Melbourne Australia and all these places have not changed who I am, but Portland, Portland effects me every day. I know that in some fundamental way I’m bound to this place where I was born. There is some connection that I find difficult to sever even when I’m a great distance away.

            This connection to place is hard to describe to most people. I think those that have given in to the religion of movement may find it difficult, as difficult to understand as I do to explain it. I seldom even try to explain it now days. I know it’s there as sure as I know there is a molten core deep in the earth, even if I can’t touch it or see it, it’s resinance the magnetic north of my life.

            I love Portland not in the egotistical belief that it is in any way perfect, it is not. I love it because I’ve grown with it, changed with it. I love it warts, it’s scars and it’s problems. There is much to be unhappy with about Portland. It’s corruptions and political myopia to name a few but there is much to see and love as well.

            I’m stupefied by the transplants who move here and try to ware Portland as t-shirts with a slogans or a bumper stickers of the Oregon flag with a green heart in the middle, or posters that say Keep Portland Weird, all these things seem so shallow to me. I know these People mean well I’m not faulting those who sport this slogans or stickers. I can’t help but think how little of what those posters, numerous stickers and t-shirts say really represents what has been the enduring core elements of this city

            I feel Portland in my bones, I wake with it, breath it, sleep it, When I work I drive her streets as a bus driver moving my fellow citizens. It pervades my soul and I feel it’s faults and failures, I rejoice in its achievements and firsts and I cry at its pains.

            I don’t feel reduced by the love others have for their places. I, in fact, rejoice in it. I find visiting other places with people who do not have a passion for their home to be boring. I want to hear the history, the love affair of a place, anywhere I go. I could give or take some edifice or structure but tell me of the people and the history and I’m sold.

            Over all I don’t think a place can really effect you, no great city like Paris, Berlin, Tokyo nor all the art and architecture of Italy can really be appreciated unless you have an appreciation for your place. I’m sure many feel the effects of these great locations but to feel them in a penetrating way you must know that deep passion of place that is your base, your home. Without it there is no north and though you may sail the same seas without a compass you will in effect be nothing more then a wanderer through your life.