Comments on Cafe Unknown: For the Love of Cars We know how the story e...

I had no had we had so many cast iron buildings at...

2010-08-22T17:48:01.274-07:00

I had no had we had so many cast iron buildings at one time. What a terrible loss. I'm sorry I didn't find your blog sooner, but I'll be back to catch up.

Great Post...I get so mad/sad when I see these pho...

2010-08-17T10:19:10.934-07:00

Great Post...I get so mad/sad when I see these photos...it's so very tragic. It's sad that it continues even to this day. Take for example the Rosefriend Apartpments, the Riverdale High School, and just today I noticed as I rode the bus past PSU that they are tearing down another charming brick apartment building...I'm sure to put up an equally-charming building :-(. The best part about the 2 apartment buildings is that there are surface parking lots adjacent to or very close to the locations. Sadly, the one building that the preservationists have latched onto is the building that exemplifies the mindset of the era when our city was gutted of it's history...Memorial Coliseum. Meanwhile, we continue to lose our historic fabric, which continues to be replaced by more soulless construction.

Theres a great NY Times article from 1970 written ...

2010-08-12T22:41:41.941-07:00

Theres a great NY Times article from 1970 written by architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable warning Portland about tearing itself down for parking lots and out of scale buildings. I get the sense the article may have provoked action in Portland to tame the auto given this was just before the Mt Hood Freeway and the Downtown Plan.

Its mindboggling both the amount of buildings and the quality of buildings destroyed in Portland for the automobile... between parking lots and garages, freeway construction, street widening, couplets, connectors, ramps, overpasses, etc.

I've created an approximation of a 2010 view o...

2010-07-19T12:39:59.535-07:00

I've created an approximation of a 2010 view of the 1968 photo using Google Earth. I'd like to send it to you but can't find your contact info. Please contact me at bob at peak dot org.

The first photo is interesting and sad. You can s...

2010-07-18T22:34:55.481-07:00

The first photo is interesting and sad. You can see the mostly demolished Journal building. Do you have a date for this one? I'm thinking early 70's.

Sheldon