The ‘hood has changed after a week of violent crime only a short walk from my Northeast Portland house.
Count them: two stabbings in two gang fights at the Lloyd Center Mall, another gang fight at the Applebee’s restaurant across the street from the mall, a bank robbery, and a gang-related shooting at an Asian restaurant-bar four blocks south of me. The victim survived four gunshot wounds. Read More
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No one is happier about Portland’s record December snowfall finally melting than our Irvington neighborhood Gnome. There was more than enough white stuff to fill his tree-trunk abode, so I’m assuming people kept his doorway sufficiently cleared so he could maintain his perpetual southeasterly gaze from our block. Read More
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Portland’s rapidly melting blanket of snow reveals how whacked out the city became during its record-setting bout of wintry weather. Many people who zealously clean up after their pooping dogs didn’t. The result: on the sidewalks there’s lots more to slip on than patches of slushy ice.
Were dog owners too cold and hurried to bother? Did they think the snow would make the droppings permanently vanish? If I was generous, I’d conclude it was snowing so hard that people simply lost sight of what Rover left behind. Read More
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Where did all the creeks go? That’s what I’m wondering, thanks to a Google terrain map of my Northeast Portland neighborhood.
Zoomed in as close as I can get, I see unlabeled squiggly lines in several parts of Irvington that typically indicate water’s fickle flow. One crosses my street a few houses to the south. Yet no creek exists.
The neighborhood has been developed for many decades. My house was built in the 1920s. The neighbor’s house across the street was built in the 1910s. I see no evidence of vacant land anywhere that once accommodated meandering water routes.
No doubt Google has access to maps based on contemporary survey data. So why the tease to what use to be?
Imagine if the creeks returned one day, adding geographic variety — and potentially rain-swollen chaos — to our neat and symetrically plotted urban lots. I feel a petition drive and bumper sticker sale coming on.
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