The Building Formerly Known as Taylor Electric

Recently I biked over to the former Taylor Electric warehouse in the Central Eastside. It was destroyed by fire a few weeks ago. As we speak, a demolition crew is cleaning out the charred remains.

I remember a few years ago walking to a burned-down warehouse at or around Southeast 11th and Morrison the day after it burned, and there must have been scores of us there: some taking photos like me, others just staring blankly, almost meditatively.

What is it about burned buildings that draws us? Some of it is obvious: destruction is always full of action and drama, what with the giant flames and all. Moreover, there's a kind of perverse attraction one has to the aftermath. One feels sympathetic towards the victims, naturally, for their physical, psychological and financial loss. But there's often a child-like voice that wants to blurt out, 'Whoa!', as if doing a Keanu Reeves impression. At the same time, I think there's also something deeper involved when gazing at the burned remains of a building. I'm reminded of a Tom Waits lyric "All the rooms they smell like diesel/and you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept there." Or in this case, I guess, it would be the ones who ran forklifts there, or who took inventory. The burn destroys that history.

Luckily there remain, at least for a few more days, some rubble worth noting. As you can see in this photo, the paint has been burned away to reveal outlines and shadows of old signs and decals. It's like discovering a kind of urban 20th Century hieroglyphics. How's about saving a chunk of that wall like we did with the Lovejoy Columns? This wall isn't artwork per se, but I think it's a beautiful little piece of a pop-archaeology.

While taking photos of the warehouse, I stopped briefly to take a photo at the open gate, where vehicles were coming in an out of about every minute or so. I heard this disembodied voice from far away yell "Hey!" in a hostile voice, and when I looked around to try and figure out where it was coming from, the guy yelled sarcastically, "Who? Me?"

I then realized he was inside the loading dock of an adjacent warehouse, which seemed to be the owner of the burned building. Within a few seconds, another guy approached. By that time, I was moving away from the gate, and he politely explained they just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to go inside the fence. So, crisis averted. But that cranky blowhard inside the warehouse took me back to reality, that these poor guys' warehouse burned down, and now they're having to deal with annoying, unpredictable gawkers like me. Not that he couldn't have bellowed a little more politely. But I digress....

Comments

[jj]

It's funny but I took a wrong turn down there last weekend and saw the same thing.

Gehry prefers unfinished buildings to finished ones but I agree this building although destroyed is really stunning. Your last picture is the view that really caught my eye as well.

[matt mc]

i think that any building which you know is soon to be torn down suddenly becomes much more interesting. and when it has been effected by something like a fire, it becomes even more temporary and intriguing. it's the final days of a time and place that will soon be altered. you want to suck it in, remember what it looks and feels like, because soon there will be an entirely new structure built in it's place, with no record of the past. it is good to take a moment and commit things to memory.