Unwelcome Visitors and the Gates

 

While we might quibble about the causes of human impoverishment, there is no need to hedge about the damage done to Portland buildings and parks by the revolving assortment of homeless campers.  Sadly, some of the worst damage has occurred at valued historic buildings.

 Going back a century and longer, many commercial buildings and apartments were designed with recessed doorways that sheltered people from Portland’s damp weather as they entered or departed.   Alas, the same recessed doorways became popular places for campers to unfurl whatever they slept on and to deposit their unpleasant human droppings.

 For employees, stepping over the campers and asking them to depart was an unpleasant task with responses ranging with varying degrees of disaffection.  Stepping over – and cleaning up – the human wastes was worse.

As a result, many buildings have responded to putting up gates that close off entrances.  The gates are effective, but not necessarily welcome aesthetic additions. And for certain they are an unwelcome albeit important expense.  

Three doorways at the AHC

The Architectural Heritage Center, a non-profit whose mission is to encourage preservation of Portland’s historic buildings and public places, added three scissor gates to protect recessed entries facing on S.E. Grand Ave.  The center hoped to find a more attractive design befitting the building’s 1891 heritage, but the spaces couldn’t accommodate more attractive cast iron gates.

Besides keeping intruders out, the scissor gates substantially fold back somewhat out of sight when the building is open.

Barber Block

A block north on Grand Avenue, the 1890 Barber Block found more attractive iron gates that are less disruptive to the building’s architecture.  But some of the additions on the building's southern facade don’t have to open and close, making the design decisions much easier.

 One of the most jarring applications of fencing and gates appears at the 1890 Immaculate Heart  Catholic Church on N. Williams Avenue.  The stark application of powder-coated steel shows that even an institution that values charity, benevolence and reformation has limits on its patience.

One assumes that contemporary architects working on new buildings have a new consideration to ponder, in addition to form, function, materials and environmental concerns.  Unlike their ancestors a century ago, they need to conceive of attractive means of keeping intruders at bay.

 -----Fred Leeson

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