A New Era at the Architectural Heritage Center

Heather Flint Chatto

A new era of community-based architectural preservation advocacy in Portland appears to be in the offing with the hiring of Heather Flint Chatto as the new executive director of the Architectural Heritage Center.

 After engaging in the proverbial nationwide search for a new executive, directors of the non-profit heritage center found Flint Chatto close by in Southeast Portland, where she has been deeply involved in neighborhood planning.  The center's mission is to encourage preservation of important historic buildings and public spaces.  

 Flint Chatto brings 25 years of experience as a professional planner She brings over 25 years of experience as a professional planner and urban designer, with special interests in green design, planning for resiliency, zero energy buildings and sustainability policy.  Heather is known to many in the preservation field through her work as owner of Forage Design + Planning and as co-founder and Director of PDX Main Streets, helping communities to create main street design guidelines and identify their important historic buildings.

Flint Chatto is a strong advocate for creative ways to reuse vintage buildings as a key to curbing carbon emissions. She also values preservation for the social value of retaining a historic sense of place. 

 Most recently, Flint Chatto was principal of Forage Design + Planning and director of the not-for-profit PDX Main Streets, assisting neighborhoods in creating design guidelines that identify and retain important historic buildings. 

 Flint Chatto assumes her new post on June 1, succeeding Peggy Moretti, an interim executive who managed the AHC for the past 10 months.  Moretti will remain as a consultant during Flint-Chatto's first few months as executive director.

“I envision AHC as a convener of community thought leadership, fostering inclusive engagement, new partnerships, and expanded programming around diverse histories and cultural identities,” Flint Chatto said. “I look forward to advancing how preservation and rehabilitation of special buildings can be a catalyst for cultural placemaking, social uplift and economic vitality.”

 In 2015, and 2019, the Daily Journal of Commerce honored Flint Chatto as a Woman of Vision for her passion for education and design literacy, community planning work for main streets, and creative community engagement. In choosing Flint Chatto, AHC directors were impressed by her range of professional involvement and connections with many figures involved in Portland’s planning, design and development communities.

 She holds a master’s in urban planning from the University of Washington and early in her career worked as an urban planner in Santa Barbara, CA. While community outreach and education will be key elements of Flint Chatto’s new job, she also will be responsible for management of the AHC’s historic building at 701 S.E. Grand Ave., a staff of four and fund-raising and financial management. It adds up to a very full plate, indeed.

 ---Fred Leeson Join Building on History’s mailing list by writing “add me” to fredleeson@hotmail.com

Can There Be New Chapters?

Loyalty and Hamilton Buildings

The recent auction of two historic Portland office buildings offers further evidence of the economic trauma affecting a downtown now lacking the employees and shoppers that used to dominate the central city.

 Bargain hunters had chances to bid on the 12-story Loyalty Building at 317 SW Alder St. and the adjacent Hamilton Building at 529 SW Third Ave.   Both are designated Portland landmarks and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 The Loyalty Building was erected in 1928, under the direction of Claussen & Claussen architects, a firm tht is now largely forgotten.  The six-story Hamilton Building dates to 1893 and was designed by Whidden & Lewis, the city’s best-known firm at the turn of the century. 

 A California investor bought both buildings late in 2013 for $12.45 million.  Today they stand vacant.  Results of the auction, which presumably ended on May 15, are not yet known.

 

A closer look at the stylish Hamilton

Given frontages on both Alder and Third Avenue, one has to wonder whether the Loyalty Building could be converted to apartments.  Conventional wisdom says “no,” the work would be far too expensive. 

But wait!  An article in the May 6 New Yorker magazine, “Design for Living,” discusses in detail how  a New  York developer, Nathan Berman, has found success transferring obsolete office towers “into warrens of one- and two-bedroom apartments.”  Since 1917, Berman has converted eight former office towers into some 5,000 apartments.  The tallest is 30 stories. 

 Berman targets his developments for young tenants who likely are renting for the first time, and who likely will stay no more than a few years.  The apartments are small, eccentrically shaped, and offer minimal kitchens, based on the premise that most young tenants won’t be doing extensive cooking.

 But Berman also knows his tenants want some shared spaces in the building – places where they can meet with others for exercising or socializing.  He also doesn’t scrimp on lobbies, recognizing that tenants and their guest will appreciate an attractive, welcoming space.

 Of course, Portland isn’t New York.  Is downtown Portland a place where young tenants hope to begin and advance their careers?  One also wonders: Would the same formula – small apartments, minimal kitchens, elevator access and social spaces – be an attractive environment for seniors?

The Loyalty Building seems to offer an attraction lacking in newer office towers.  It has operable windows on both frontages, which should be a bonus for residents liking fresh air that isn’t blown in by machinery.

 Coming months should tell us what the new owner (if there is one) of these two buildings has in mind for their future.  From the preservation perspective, three buildings on the western side of Third Avenue – the Loyalty, Hamilton and Dekum – offer one of downtown’s best examples of an interesting urban streetscape dating to the late stagecoach and early automobile era.

 One can hope that these charming structures can find useful new lives.

 ---Fred Leeson

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Celebrating the South Park Blocks

 

Robert Wright, Wendy Rahm and Brooke Best celebrate a rare achievement

Several of Portland’s most dedicated preservation enthusiasts met in the South Park Blocks for the celebratory unveiling of a plaque recognizing the park’s addition to the National Register of Historic Places.

 It was the happy culmination of a three-year effort led primarily by volunteers to provide documentary evidence of the park’s 153-history as a centerpiece of graceful natural beauty and respite in the heart of downtown Portland. 

 In a city as big and convoluted as Portland, citizen-based initiatives always face a huge challenge.  The Downtown Neighborhood Association took on the task of earning national recognition for the park, and stayed the course right down to buying two new bronze plaques, located at each end of the 12-block park.

 Not surprisingly, perhaps, no one from the municipal government or Portland Bureau of Parks bothered to attend the ceremony.  Just as well.  It would have been a long stretch to find anything positive to say about their role in the detailed designation process.

 As Brooke Best, one of the key authors of the National Registration nomination noted, the city government had talked on a few occasions dating back to 1985 about seeking national recognition for the long, narrow urban park.  But never bothered to follow through.

Under direction of downtown residents Wendy Rahm and Walter Weyler, the Downtown Neighborhood Association took on the task in 2021, summoning volunteers to take on the necessary detailed research.  Ultimately, preservation consultants Best and Kirk Ranzetta steered the nomination through the state and national channels.

 As the process unfolded, the Parks Bureau tried to derail it in public meetings.  The bureau had begun its own 50-year masterplan that would change the historic planting scheme and allow some of the historic elm trees to die out without replacement. 

The 50-year plan also would remove on-street parking in front of four churches that face the South Park Blocks.  The planning committee that approved that recommendation did not include any representatives of the churches – certainly some sort of breech of reasonable planning policy. 

What happens to the 50-year plan is not known.  The city lacks funding to start carrying it out at present.  The National Register listing would prevent use of any federal funds for making changes without a formal historic review.  And one wonders if a new 12-member City Council that comes to power in 2025 might decide not to carry out a flawed plan approved by its predecessor.

 In the meantime, the five axial rows of elegant elm trees as laid out by pioneering horticulturalist Louis  Pfunder will continue to rule the blocks with their welcome canopy of spring, summer and fall foliage. 

 While no one from the Parks Bureau attended the celebratory event, the bureau did issue a press release in advance.  “The park remains one of the city's most distinctive, valued, and significant historic open spaces – a place for respite and enjoyment of all,” it said.

 On that point -- if the Parks Bureau truly believes it -- the preservation community can joyfully agree. 

 ---Fred Leeson

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Trying to 'Fix' Rosemont Commons

 

Despite its 107 year history, many Portlanders have never seen one of the city's most charming Georgian revival buildings that sits at 597 N. Dekum St. 

 Known at various times as Villa St. Rose, St. Rose Industrial School, Home of the Good Shepard and Rosemont School, the former convent and school for orphans and “troubled young women” became a preservation success story 20 years ago when it was converted to 100 housing units for low-income seniors called Rosemont Commons.

 Alas, trouble arose in 2021 when water in the building proved to be carrying Legionnaire’s disease and all residents eventually were forced out.  Since then, efforts to find enough money through some combination of city, state, regional or national funding have fallen short of the $6 million repair price.

 The latest grim wrinkle is a request by the building operator, Northwest Housing Alternatives, to ask the City of Portland to remove an affordable-housing covenant that would open the door to a potential sale.

 

The building itself probably is not in jeopardy.  One suspects that condominium developers would relish a chance to convert it to market-rate units.  Designed by one of Portland’s best-known architects of the era, Joseph Jacobberger, the building stands as “an excellent example of twentieth century Georgian style architecture,” according to a history compiled for the National Register of Historic Places.

 Jacobberger open his Portland office in 1910, and two years later added a partner, Alfred Smith.  The two designed numerous churches and other buildings for the Catholic Church, including St. Mary’s Cathedral.  Jacobberger also designed the North Portland Branch Library which bears many features architectural features of church of the era.

 During the Catholic Church’s tenure, an estimated 7,500 girls received a combination of housing, education and job training at the building.  The church moved out in 1979 when it no longer could provide a staff.  The building fell vacant in 1993 after another non-profit school departed.

The city’s development arm, then called the Portland Development Commission, acquired the site in 1998.  The PDC engaged in extensive talks with the Piedmont Neighborhood Association to devise plans for the 7.6 acre site.  The neighborhood pushed hard for senior housing, and the PDC complied.

 A large wing was added to the west end of the historic building and 65 market-rate housing units were constructed.  The planning process was considered a marvel at the time, and served as a model for subsequent redevelopment of New Columbia, the former World War II housing site called Columbia Villa.

 The neighborhood association would like to see the Rosemont apartments returned for housing by the seniors.  Needless to say, so would the seniors who were forced out.

 While some bureaucrats have not given up hope on finding a solution, it is a sad commentary for the public and for the former residents to think that their layers of government can’t figure it out.  The cost of repairs is chump change compared to the cost of funding 100 new units elsewhere. 

 ----Fred Leeson

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Famous Long Ago

 

The building above bears no formal historic designation.  Still, it truly is a “landmark” in the dictionary sense of being a prominent feature of a particular place.  For roughly 40 years, it helped define Northeast Portland’s Hollywood thriving business district as much as the grandiose Hollywood Theatre across the street.

The single-story building with basement was the first Fred Meyer retail store built to the specifications of Fred G. Meyer himself after World War II.  It was the first of three Meyer one-stop-shopping venues to feature rooftop parking, a concept he no doubt borrowed from the unsuccessful Portland Public Market that opened downtown during the Great Depression. 

 A preliminary design for Meyer’s Hollywood store was completed in 1936.  However, the Depression and World War II delayed its completion until 1947.  Until then, Meyer’s nascent retail empire had grown through the remodeling of older buildings he purchased during the Depression.

 Meyer followed the Hollywood store with a rooftop parking store at Rose City (now destroyed) and at the Hawthorne store, which still retains about half of its original upper-level parking.  His rooftop parking plans died a few years later when he learned about a faster, cheaper construction process that did not allow the weight of vehicles on the roof.

 By the time Meyer died in 1978, his newer suburban stores were several times larger than the Hollywood store.  The company closed the Hollywood store in the late 1980s after building a far larger emporium a half a mile away on the former Hyster forklift manufacturing site.  For a while, the bigger store was a place you could buy all your food, drugs, clothes, shoes, garden supplies and hardware, in addition to a table saw and a Barbie doll.  (Kroger Inc., the current owner, has scaled down the inventory compared to the old days.)

 The drug chain Rite Aid renovated the old Fred Meyer store and operated a pharmacy until moving out last year.  The bulk of the building remains vacant, although a bank and a couple small businesses operate on its edges. 

Empty racks and assorted retail debris still clutter the former Fred Meyer/Rite Aid space.  Several other vacancies dot the Hollywood district as well.  What once ranked as one of Portland’s busiest neighborhood commercial centers is in apparent decline.  One of the most notable vacancies is the old Poor Richard’s steakhouse that enjoyed an ample parking lot.  The Poor Richard’s site, just a couple blocks from the former Fred Meyer store, has sat vacant now for several years.

Drive right up...but why?

Oddly, perhaps, rooftop parking is still available at the old Hollywood Fred Meyer store.  The monthly fee is $90, should you live in the neighborhood and need a place to park.  It is also possible to walk up the ramp to get an interesting and rather close-up elevated view of the Hollywood Theatre's amazing terra cotta façade across Sandy Boulevard. 

While the fate of contemporary retailing remains heavily in question, the Hollywood business district will remain a shadow of its former self until a successful enterprise reincarnates Fred Meyer's vision from long ago.

 ---Fred Leeson

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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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Reconfiguring the David Campbell Memorial

 

Potential renovation (David Campbell Memorial Association)

Occasionally, someone with no preservation expertise steps forward to make a huge difference is protecting an important piece of Portland’s built environment.

 For Don Porth, devoting countless hours to protecting and repairing the David P. Campbell Memorial at 18th Ave. and W. Burnside is a no-brainer.  “All I’m acting on is passion and duty.”

 A retired firefighter, Porth is president of the non-profit David P. Campbell Memorial Association, named in honor of the Portland fire chief who was killed while saving other firefighters from a terrible waterfront conflagration in 1911.  At his funeral, tens of thousands of Portlanders turned out to honor the well-known citizen and athlete.   

The memorial plaza was erected in 1928, based on the design by Paul Cret, a Pennsylvania architect who was a national master of Beaux-Arts design of that era.  Over time, the names of other fallen firefighters were added to the memorial, although many other names were not. 

 The memorial has taken a horrible beating from vandals and graffiti taggers in recent years.  Working with retired preservation architect William J. Hawkins, Porth has devised a plan to add a plaza that would include an interpretive description and honor all 76 firefighters killed in action to date.

 

A historic view before the triangle was enlarged in 1963

Given the attention and effort Porth has contributed, “It’s amazing what one person can do with the will and tenacity to do it,” Hawkins told the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission recently.  Porth is appreciative of Hawkins’ help, as well.  “I’m just a retired Portland firefighter,” he said.  “This is way above my pay grade, let me tell you.”

 The biggest design challenge at this point is how to protect two large bronze electrified lanterns that formerly graced each of the memorial’s two wings.  The elegant fixtures have been vandalized and their glass panels broken many times.  The lanterns have been removed and are currently being restored at a cost of $48,000.

 Porth’s idea is to raise them on three-foot pedestals to make them less accessible to harm.  Hawkins isn’t keen on altering Cret’s original design.  He said Cret was one of the nation’s most highly-regarded architects at the time, and that “Portland was lucky to get him.”  As for the lanterns, Hawkins said, “There is no easy solution,” he said.  “All of them are problematic.”

 Ultimately, the Landmarks Commission will be asked to approve a final design.  At an informal hearing, Commissioner Kimberly Moreland offered another potential solution for the lanterns.  She suggested that they should be retired to the Fire Bureau’s museum where they could be protected but still be available for public viewing.  “They are so beautiful it would be great to see them saved and preserved.”

Indeed, one solution might be to craft bronze lanterns similar to the originals, but without lights or glass panels, while the originals retire to a secure setting.    

After more than two years of work and planning, Porth will return with a final proposal sometime in the next few months. In the meantime, this devoted preservationist will be thinking….and thinking... about  lanterns.  The rest of us can ponder the famous quotation from C.E.S. Wood: "Good citizens are the riches of the city." 

 ----Fred Leeson

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A Life-Saving Design Challenge

 

In its latest annual chat with the City Council, the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission urged the city to find suicide prevention devices that are more compatible with the elegant design of the historic Vista Avenue Bridge.

 Incredible views from 120 feet above Canyon Road attract many tourists to take pictures.  Alas, the height and beauty also attracted many people using it to end their lives -- sometimes as many as three a year -- giving it informal moniker of Suicide Bridge. The consequences were grotesque for nearby residents and for anyone else unfortunate enough to encounter them.

 The current “dropper stoppers,” added in 2013, were intended to be temporary while a permanent solution came into being.  Now, more than a decade later, the same heavy black chain-link fencing and poles that stand nine feet tall remain firmly bolted in place and no other solution is anywhere on the horizon.

After the Landmarks Commission’s presentation seeking a more attractive solution, Commissioner Mingus Mapps, who is in charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said, “I’ll make sure my team works on it.” But that doesn’t mean anything will happen soon.

 First, a new city government takes control next January, and there is no guarantee that a prospective project will be carried over into the new administration.  Second, Mapps is currently wrestling with a major transportation budget shortfall ranging into tens of millions of dollars. As city streets continue to deteriorate – as many motorists already realize – Mapps faces a deficit that likely takes anything “new” off the table.

Design and construction of the Vista Avenue Viaduct, as it was originally called, was an impressive feat for Portland.  The arched concrete structure was designed by Fred T. Fowler, who graduated from the University of Oregon in 1912 and became Portland’s bridge engineer in 1921.  The city government paid half of the $197,000 construction costs, with Southwest residents taxing themselves for one fourth of the bill.  Portland Electric Power Co., which operated the Council Crest streetcar line, added the remaining fourth.

 The new bridge replaced the steel Ford Street Bridge had carried pedestrians and streetcars since 1903.  Rather than scrap it, the city moved it to Terwilliger Boulevard where it served for several decades before being replaced by a "modern" concrete overpass over Interstate 5.

Creating suicide barriers that would be compatible with the classical detailing on the Vista Avenue Bridge would be a challenging assignment, indeed.  Someday, perhaps motorists and pedestrians high above Canyon Lane (as it was first known) will be able to enjoy a more attractive solution created by bright minds.

 ----- Fred Leeson

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An Interesting New Spin at Troy Laundry

One vital tool for saving historic buildings is finding new uses when their original functions no longer survive. The shorthand term is “adaptive re-use.”

An interesting new example of adaptive re-use is at 1025 SE Pine Street, where a 1913 brick structure that once housed Troy Laundry, home of the Pacific Northwest’s largest laundry businesses before the advent of convenient home washing machines, has been converted to into an upscale private athletic and social club called Soho House of Portland.

 The target clientele for membership is “young creatives” – or at least creative young people with the financial means to support dues that many of us couldn’t countenance. Amenities include a roof-top swimming pool, which one presumes could lead to jokes about getting soaked in a historic laundry, a 4,400 square-foot exercise space and upscale eating and drinking facilities. 

We’ll let social media debate whether Portland can support this financial trendiness.  Membership also entitles visitation to scores of other Soho locations around the world. You can learn more about the organization and see pictures of the completely revamped interior at Soho House Portland | Soho House.

 

Pine Street frontage

For Portland architecture buffs, the Troy building was an early work by prolific architect Ellis F. Lawrence, who later commuted by train on a regular basis to Eugene where he was dean of the University of Oregon’s architecture school. 

 Lawrence’s client in 1913 was James F. Tait, a Scottish immigrant, who opened his Portland laundry service in 1889.  In the following decades, Tait pioneered technological and managerial innovations to make Troy Laundry the biggest residential and commercial laundry company in the Pacific Northwest.

Lawrence’s colonial revival design reflected an era when even muscular industrial buildings could include attractive materials and architectural details. 

It is said that Troy Laundry served as many 10,000 customers on a regular basis.  In the following decade, Tait also built a major laundry building in Seattle.  The Troy Laundry building as added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

 Renovations to the 1913 building included seismic bracing, all-new mechanical systems and removal of awnings and a main-door canopy that were not original to the building. 

New apartments on SE Ash Street; Troy building to the rear

The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission approved plans for the Troy project in August, 2020.  The commission also had jurisdiction over the other half of the block because a proposed six-story apartment building planned by the same Chicago developer encroached on some of the Troy building’s lot.

 The new apartment with 132 units facing on SE Ash St. is nearing completion.  Its dark brick facades are a welcome addition to the neighborhood and should be pleasing to those who have grown tired of metal panels and faux wood paneling so common in contemporary apartment construction. 

---Fred Leeson

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Welcome to the 'New' Central Library

 

The red brick bones of architect A.E. Doyle’s stately Georgian-style Central Library that have graced downtown Portland since 1909 remain largely intact after an extensive renovation, but the gran dame’s cosmetics and accessories are substantially different.

For instance:

 -- The lobby now includes a bright white unisex (multisex?) restroom with 10 stalls complete with full-length doors.

-- Nearby, a kiosk offers 48 laptop computers than can be signed out with a library card for up to two hours of use in the building.

-- Dozens of soft easy chairs dot the main reading rooms.

-- Scores of sit-down computer portals offer internet and library reference access.

-- More open spaces are available for community gatherings or meetings.

-- New carpets and brighter colors are found throughout.

-- A small, closed space is “reserved for writers,” in case anyone does that sort of thing anymore.

-- Tall bookshelves are gone, except for those backed up to walls.

-- The non-profit Friends of the Library organization has a glass-enclosed lobby space for selling library-related mementos.

-- New landscaping allowing for outdoor seating and gathering spaces.

-- A new, gentler weheelchair ramp.

-- Men roving slowly with identity badges hanging from their necks appear to be plain-clothes security, who, in the absence of the old tall shelves, have largely unobstructed views of patrons sitting or standing.

Brighter color, fewer shelves

And something else that’s different?  “There seem to be fewer books,” I said to a kindly librarian.  “About half,” he replied.  Presumably the other half are in storage and can be recaptured as needed.

In essence, the changes tell us that a modern library is as much a social service agency as it is a place to read books, magazines and newspapers.  The renovation acknowledges that people from all walks of life need computers not only for entertainment but for survival, even if they cannot afford to own one.

 Anyone in recent years who has been in the crowd waiting for the Central Library’s doors to open in the morning recognizes that many of those waiting made headlong rushes to the restrooms, not the reference desk.  It is a benefit that a library that is “free to all,” according to an inscription on the façade, can provide in a time of increasing need.

Check out a laptop here

There are those among us who see a public library as one of society’s greatest agencies for its ability to provide information, truth, pleasure and entertainment all at once to everyone with no admission fee.  Let’s hope that all who use it will enjoy it, respect its advantages and protect it.

 ---Fred Leeson

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Another Hit on the Public Weal

 

Recent years have been tough on Portland’s works of public art.  Protests of one sort or another toppled statues of Presidents and damaged (seemingly permanently, at first) the beloved Elk statue and fountain.

 The latest victim is the smaller Shemanski Fountain located in the South Park Blocks between S.W. Main and Salmon Streets.  The attractive monument with the bronze statue of “Rebecca at the Well” is now surrounded by temporary chain-link fencing.

 “The fountain has been vandalized and has damage to the stonework – plus two of the three dog bowls are missing,” reports Mark Ross, a Parks Bureau spokesman.  “Portland Parks & Recreation is currently exploring restoration options with our partners at the Water Bureau and Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC).”

The monument was given to the city in 1926 by Joseph Shemanski, a Polish immigrant who founded the Eastern Outfitters store that served as a major Portland clothing and department store for more than 40 years.  The store closed about 1953, a few years after Shemanski’s death. 

In better days (Regional Arts & Culture Council)

 

Portland architect Carl Linde designed the trefoil stonework, and the sculpture by Oliver Lawrence Barrett, an art professor at the University of Oregon, was added in 1928.  Rebecca, shown with a water jug on her shoulder, was a Biblical character noted for her kindness to strangers and animals.

The monument has two layers of three fountains with bronze bowls, the lower three being at ground level intended for dogs or small animals.  Water service has been sporadic over the years as the Water Bureau places more importance on revenue-generating service than on public fountains.  The bronze bowls likely were stolen by people wanting to sell the metal as scrap.  The monument has been vandalized on earlier occasions and was substantially renovated in 2007.

Ross said figuring out a restoration plan might take a few weeks.  How long the repairs take after that is yet unknown.

 

Should you stop by in the near future, take a moment to remember how irresponsible behavior of the few can impair the beauty of the city and the enjoyment of all -- in a world of supposedly intelligent creatures. 

----Fred Leeson

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