Economy

The Brooklyn intermodal rail yard, still chugging and causing a fuss

For more than a year in my 20s, I lived within a half mile of this large track of industrial land in southeast Portland, now run by the Union Pacific Corp. The yard itself dates to 1860s, and today serves as a Union Pacific transfer point, where cargo is either moved from rail cars to trucks for local distribution or vice versa to the rail system.

A huge fight broke out in the 1950s between the rail yard owners and neighbors in the Eastmoreland and Sellwood-Westmoreland neighborhoods. A more than five-decades long injunction limiting some rail yard activity was lifted in 2012, and the Union Pacific moved forward with a planned upgrade worth $75 million. However, pollution by the yard is being monitored with the help from nearby Reed College. In 2014, the head of the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association bought a drone to monitor activity at the yard. The association represents the upscale subdivision in southeast Portland that is next to the rail yard. I guess it remains, trust but verify in my part of this city. Seriously, a neighborhood association is now using a drone to promote its interests against a major U.S. corporation.

Grain Silos, Lincoln County, Washington
The sun was setting as I snapped this photograph in August 2014.

It was a hot August day when I snapped this picture as the sun was setting on wheat country in Lincoln County, Washington. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place indeed.

Port of Portland rail yard and grain elevator
The Port of Portland is an international port that ships grains and other exports globally.

My explorations of the industrial lands in north Portland uncovered some haunting images as the mist lingered for hours. I could photograph rail yards and shipping facilities forever, and the Port of Portland had some tasty visual morsels. I love the forms, the functionality, and total commercial nature of these places. They have one purpose, and that is to ship goods from one place to another. They represent commerce in its least packaged and purest form. You can see other photos I have taken of industrial forms on my web site. I also have documented a number of industrial sites in Portland on my blog.

This particular image is of the port’s Rivergate Industrial Park. The port’s web site reports Portland is the largest wheat export gateway for the country. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Working Portland, seen from Overlook Park
View of the Union Pacific rail yard, the Fremont Bridge (auto traffic only), and Downtown, all on a typically wet January day.
Forest Park looms on the hills behind the city’s industrial corridor on the Willamette River.
The yards are always busy with rail commerce.
Looking to mostly industrial lands and the historic Montgomery Park building

Portland’s riverfront, north of the Fremont Bridge (that big one seen in these photos), is utterly about work. Trains. Factories. Shipping and receiving facilities. Grain depots. Cement kilns. Factories. Fuel depots. The best perch to soak all that up is from Overlook Park. I took the photos from here, and also from another spot a block away at Overlook House. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

You know you made it when you move to University City Hills

 

Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

I grew up in University City, Mo., a municipality next to St. Louis. It is a diverse community with a rich cultural and architectural history. It remains a racially diverse community with an incredible diversity of wealth, but has remained cohesive unlike other communities where the gap between the haves and haves not continues to widen because of growing and historic income inequality in the United States. The swankiest subdivision in this town is University City Hills, located on the south edge of the city next to much more affluent Clayton, Mo., a mini-financial hub for the St. Louis area. Homes date from the first half of the 20th century and span a wide variety of European styles. It exudes money and power, even though it is quaint as moneyed neighborhoods go.

Growing up in areas far less affluent than University City Hills, I always knew a giant gulf separated me and the kids who lived here. Many of them are the type of kids who went to the best private schools, whose parents were professional and upper-middle-class, and who had better opportunities and health then the less well-off in my community. Yes, many of the kids who grew up here went to my public high school, which was a bit rough and tumble, but many more went to private schools and never experienced the world just outside their leafy suburb. One of my college classmates grew up in one of these homes. We had absolutely nothing in common, and I do not think he ever had to worry about college loans, not doing holiday ski trips, and even thinking about what a security net means to success. He was a lot like many young people I knew at my private college.

I still love how pretty the homes are in University City Hills. I know many of the people who live here are likely good people. But they still remain in a place that is worlds apart from the lower-income areas about two miles north. However because these homes are in St. Louis, prices are ridiculously low compared to, say where I have lived, in Seattle. A three-story brick beauty here is actually less than a single story wood shack in parts of Seattle.

Under the off-ramp, eastside Portland
Home sweet underpass in Portland’s eastside industrial area.

This is the underside to one of the Interstate 5 off-ramps on the eastside of Portland. Many homeless residents stake out spaces here to escape the rain and camp, like you see in the distance here. Warehouse businesses are found here, along with produce distributors and other enterprises that need cheap land for rent. This is also known as the Central Eastside Industrial District. I have known this place for decades. Today many services for the homeless and mentally ill can be found just of Highway 99 and Martin Luther King Drive. There is now talk about how this section of town may be redeveloped. Change is inevitable, and Portland is seeing this all along its riverfront. (Click on the photo to see a larger photograph on a separate picture page.)

Bethlehem, how it looked about 2,004 years later
I took this photo of trash-strewn Bethlehem, then under a security lock-down after a fatal bombing in next-door Jerusalem that killed Israeli citizens. The alleged bomber came from Bethlehem.

I visited Israel and the Occupied Territories in February 2004. It was a tense time. There was a terrorist bombing in the Jewish area of Jerusalem, and the Al-Aqsa Intifada was taking place.

Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Christendom’s name-sake savior, Jesus of Nazareth, was under lock down. I had to walk through the Israeli security perimeter, and there was almost no traffic getting in or out. Security forces almost prevented me from reentering back into Jerusalem.

Tourists were no where to be seen. Tourism businesses were shuttered. A pervasive gloom prevailed. Merchants were pleading with me to buy something, anything, when I came to see the supposed birthplace of Jesus, which is located in a grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity. Trash was everywhere, as the Palestinian Authority had no money or capacity to pick up the garbage. So this is what it looked like on my visit to the holy city we all sing about in carols around the world.

Today, Bethlehem and the West Bank remains isolated by the security perimeter, and tourism that supports many in Bethlehem is still suffering as a result of the last war in Gaza. All is not well in the Holy Land this Christmas season, again.

Barrel yard, near the Willamette River
A storage yard on the Willamette River is filed with barrels that proved irrestible, so I took a picture.

I passed by this storage yard several times on my bike, along Highway 30, which is the main arterial serving the many industries that line the Willamette River in north Portland. Barrels are normally used for storing and transporting chemicals, but I had no idea what these were used for. I found similar barrel yards in Seattle along the industrial Duwamish waterway, in Seattle. (Click on the photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Development along Portland’s Willamette waterfront
Looking south on the railroad tracks and Naito Parkway
Looking south on the railroad tracks and Naito Parkway
Development along Naito Parkway, in Downtown Portland

Downtown Portland, Ore., has seen a boom in high-density development turning industrial land into high-rise apartments and condos. This has taken place in large areas along the Willamette River, including near the Fremont Bridge, in what Portland calls Chinatown. I took these photos on Oct. 19, and was struck by the prevalance of homeless camps very close to these projects, including the one that is seen in the photograph of campers and vehicles that double as people’s shelters. The Portland area is expecting nearly 725,000 new residents in the next 20 years, which pales in comparison to what African cities like Lagos and Chinese cities like Shenzen have seen and will see. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Portland’s most scenic drive, Northwest Cornell Road
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

Northwest Cornell Road climbs up the city’s West Hills more than a thousand feet, with trails intersecting the two-lane thoroughfare. It is one of the city’s most popular bike rides, and hikers and trail runners access world-class Forest Park from here too. Two tunnels were carved out here during the Great Depression, as a Works Project Administration project. They have both that sturdy quality of craftsmanship and utliitarian functionality that typify the great building projects of this era of American history. They are, in fact, timeless in their beauty, and I like them. Here are a few shots of one, and the side path bikers taken to avoid tunnel traffic. I think I will be seeing these tunnel a lot in the months to come. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)