The Fountain: Still the Answer

 

Portland’s City Council sits on the verge of making a terrible decision about a new large performance auditorium, with primary objections based both on urban planning and on formal financing plans.

Based on a July 28 hearing, it appears that the council on Aug. 11 is likely to endorse plans for a new auditorium to be built on the Portland State University campus to replace the aging Keller (nee Civic) Auditorium several blocks away.  These are the reasons the council’s prospective decision is wrong.

1) Urban planning.  The current auditorium is coupled with the famed Keller (nee Forecourt) Fountain that was heralded by the nation’s premier architecture critic of the era as one of the best public fountains built since Renaissance times.  It was intended to be a showcase front entrance to the auditorium, and it always SHOULD be.  Portland would be doing a disservice to one of its premier landmarks by moving the auditorium elsewhere. There is talk – and merely talk – of building a smaller auditorium adjacent to the fountain after the new performance center is built at PSU.

 2) Financial debacle.  There is no funding provided yet for the proposed PSU auditorium, nor for the smaller building that would replace the Keller Auditorium.  What makes more sense is a plan proposed by the Halprin Land Conservancy to renovate the Keller Auditorium to meet modern earthquake protection standards and upgrade the building with improved amenities for performances and audiences.  The Halprin solution makes much more financial sense, rather than subjecting the city and PSU to additional years of wandering forth with their hands outstretched.

 Lost in the financial discussion seems to the subsidies that the existing auditorium provides to other smaller public performance spaces.  Assuming that a new 3,000-seat venue would continue to operate at a profit, does PSU absorb all the benefit or continue to make contributions the other public spaces?  As PSU currently struggles financially by cutting staff and reducing programs, surrendering the auditorium to PSU makes wonderful sense for PSU but not for the city of Portland. 

 PSU administrators should to be told very clearly that they need to stick to their educational mission.  We have no assurance given the university’s financial position that it would not bungle auditorium operations if it succeeds in winning them.

 When the subject of moving the auditorium surface two years ago, this blog issued a post stating that “the fountain is the answer”  as to where the auditorium should be located. The fountain was the answer then, and the fountain is the answer now.

------Fred Leeson

 No AI is used in this blog. Join Building on History’s email list by writing “add me” to faroverpar463@gmail.com

Return of the Busy Corner

 

 A small neighborhood grocery that served Southeast Portland’s Woodstock neighborhood for nearly a century begins a new life soon after a long vacancy and a detailed building restoration.

 The Busy Corner Grocery, a two-story frame building erected in 1911, has sat mostly vacant since its closure in 2007.  The empty shell was bought in 2025 by Matt Froman, a Portland firefighter with a passion for restoring vintage commercial buildings instead of seeing them replaced by new developments.  The Busy Corner was a common type of neighborhood store built in its era, with living quarters above the store on the main floor. While similar stores once dotted Portland’s oldest neighborhoods, most are gone today.

 Froman wasn’t willing to see demise of the Busy Corner, which likely would have given way to a housing project.  Restoration meant peeling off the T-111 plywood on four sides and a partial rock façade that had been applied to the front façade a few decades ago.  The restoration was guided by historic photographs that indicated the original wood siding and clerestory windows in front.  Luckly, much of the original siding remained under the T-111 and Froman managed to find similar salvaged siding to replace what was missing.

 

The exterior’s preservation also included restoring large painted signs advertising Coca Cola on the building’s south side and 7-Up on the north.  Froman felt the signs “tell the story of the building and its place in the neighborhood.” He liked preserving an era when advertising was provided by sign painters rather than by printed signs that are common today.  In their era, the signs provided the building owners a small income stream. 

 Finding a new use for the building has been difficult since 2007.  Froman knew the Busy Corner was too small to compete with two larger modern grocery stores just a few blocks away.  Fortunately, another old building aficionado fell in love with it, too.  Deanna Reed, a well-stablished hair stylist, will move her Arabella Salon from Northeast Portland in August and rename it the Busy Corner Salon.  Like Froman, “I really like old buildings and their stories and history,” she said.

 

Circa 2007

Froman’s latest plunge into historic preservation is his third so far.  In 2022 he finished restoring the old Phoenix Pharmacy at SE 67^th and Foster Road into a retail space.  The next year, he added a single-story building offering multiple small storefronts on Foster between SE 59^th and 60^th Aves.  Froman calls his interest in saving old buildings a “glorified hobby,” but warns that “it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme.”  Challenging as these projects are, Froman is not giving up.  He said he has another project in mind, this time on the west side of the Willamette River.  For now, the rest of us will wait in suspense.

 ------ Fred Leeson

No AI is used in creating this blog.  You can join Building on History’s email list by writing “add me” to faroverpar463@gmail.com

 

 

Good News, Bad News

 

People who appreciate the value of Portland’s historic architecture have reasons to be both glad and sad these days.  The good news is completion of renovations at the St. Johns branch library, where a renovation project added 2,900 square feet without damaging the ambiance of the 1913 historic building that fronts the new addition.

The sad news is that Portland State University has begun demolition of the Blackstone Apartments, a 1920s building facing the South Park Blocks that has been used as a student residence since the 1970s.  The troubled university, facing big a financial deficit and a drop in enrollment, is cutting programs while hoping that a new dormitory on the Blackstone site will help attract and retain students.   Regrettably, a nearby building with a historical pedigree that that housed single women in Portland’s boom years early in the 20^th Century also is scheduled for demolition. 

The St. Johns library, easily recognized by its classical pediment supported by four Ionic columns, was one of seven branch libraries built with money donated by the wealthy steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.  Two other Carnegie branches remain as libraries – North Portland and Albina – while the others were sold off or converted to other uses.  St. Johns is the last of the three Carnegie branches to undergo improvements funded by a bond measure in 2020.

 The historic St. Johns building was among the smallest of the seven branches.  Its budget allowed for no fancy interior details and the latest round of improvements added no inappropriate details. Walking through the heavy oaken doors into the interior provides a genuine feeling for its original design.  The building was designed by Folger Johnson, who, before his arrival in Portland in 1911, had spent two years studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, the world’s leading school at the time for classical and Renaissance architectural studies. If he could walk into the library today, Johnson would feel right at home.

 A new children’s library and meeting room was added behind the historic building.  Designed by Bora Architecture, the addition is clad in a dark, heavy composite material the presumably offers many years of service regardless of weather.  From a distance, it appears to be metallic but a finger test proves otherwise.  The clear distinction between old and new, while somewhat jarring, establishes that the new design is not trying to fool its users with phony blend of historicity.

The sadness at Portland State University involves more than the demolition of two historic buildings. While higher education faces new challenges from the internet and artificial intelligence, PSU finds itself losing students and now facing serious budget problems.  PSU’s upper management hopes that a new dormitory replacing the old buildings will attract and retain more students.  The university paid no attention to advocates who urged preservation and renovation, instead.

The Blackstone was designed by Elmer Feig, who did several Portland apartment buildings in the booming 1920s before the Depression ended his career here.  The Martha Washington was designed by A. E. Doyle, who remains to this day one of the most prominent architects in Portland history.  No other architect has had fingers on as many downtown buildings than Doyle.  Shiny though it may be, an undistinguished new dormitory is a poor substitute for what we are losing.

 ----Fred Leeson

 No AI is used in in this blog.  You can join Building on History’s mail list by writing “add me” to faroverpar463@gmail.com