Oregon

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.

Manzanita Beach driftwood
Driftwood piles high on the south end of the beach of Nehalem Bay State Park.

On the northern Oregon coast, a lovely spit about three miles long juts south along the Nehalem River. The south end of the spit is protected as Nehalem Bay State Park. Driftwood piles high at the mouth of the Nehalem River, next to the stone jetty. It is a really nice spot.

Ross Island Bridge, Portland

 

Taken with a GoPro.

I cross over the Ross Island Bridge every day going to work. Here is an angle from below, taken from the Springwater Corridor. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

It is Super Bowl time, and the great American media event has us glued to our screens
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

The 49th Super Bowl is still being played. I am listening live on the radio, as the Hawks just went up 23-14. Here is how it looked at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which thoughtfully opened up its doors to the public and showed the game on its giant screen.

Home of the woodpecker
This dead fir tree is in the Mt. Hood National Forest.

High on the Columbia River Gorge, in the Mt. Hood National Forest, I found a number of standing dead trees that have been thoroughly scavenged by woodpeckers. Lovely place up here. Seven species of woodpeckers live in the forest, so I cannot say which ones may have hammered away here.

Cormorants on the Columbia River
Kelley Point Park in Portland is a good spot to observe a number of our avian friends who call the region home.

This is the last of my “photos in the mist” set that I published this week. I do like this one and the pure joy of watching birds being birds. You can listen to their calls on this web site run by Cornell Labs. I will anthropomorphize here and flat out say its an eery, almost haunting call. Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.

Kenton City, a Portland hood ready for prime time

 

Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.

I decided to visit Kenton City in North Portland after spotting the famous Paul Bunyan statue from the Max rail line. This is on the U.S. Register of National Historic Places, a giant slab of concrete reminiscent of miniature golf course art from the 1950s and 1960s. Across from Paul sits the stripper club, as Portland apparently has the greatest concentration of stripper clubs per capita after sin city, Las Vegas. Had a nice coffee at Posies, found a nice piece of large-scale sculpture, and generally enjoyed my brief visit. This place exists because of the large stock and lumber yards that thrived along the Willamette River in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I am guessing this spot will gentrify in about three to five years, max.

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.)

Kelley Point Park Mist
The mist was thick in the morning at Kelley Point Park, a popular dog walking and fishing spot in Portland.
A misty morning at Kelley Point Park.
Catching a sturgeon at Kelley Point Park.

I paid a visit today to Portland’s Kelley Point Park, a great fishing spot at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers near the industrial warehouse district that covers the old floodplains of northeast Portland. Sturgeon fishermen were casting lines, and a few drinking brews (hey, this is fishing). Best catch I saw was less than a foot, and it was all catch and release.

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.)