Office Cleanup: Possibility and Loss

This morning, it being the Monday after a long holiday weekend, instead of working I decided to tackle the giant pile of assorted papers, printouts, brochures, and other crap threatening to take over my desk. In so doing, I found three items related to local architecture which gave me pause.

First there was a pair of photocopied Oregon Historical Society photos of the St. Francis Hotel, the four story white brick building that stood at Southwest 11th Avenue and Main Street downtown before it was demolished in 2002. A new building of similar scale stands there now, designed by GBD Architects, and it seems nice enough - a fabric building. But back when the original St. Francis was still around, I wrote a Willamette Week article about it and had a special passion for it. The St. Francis was a nice old piece of the urban fabric, nothing exceptional like the similarly-fated Rosefriend Apartments but nevertheless attractive.

Of extra importance, though, was Gus Van Sant's classic movie Drugstore Cowboy having been filmed there. The St. Francis serves as the halfway house where Matt Dillon goes clean and William S. Burroughs aspires to do the opposite. There are a few other great Portland locations in that movie, incidentally, such as the Lovejoy Columns (in their original location beneath the now-replaced Lovejoy Bridge ramp) and the old drugstore at NW 21st and Glisan.

My winter cleanup also yielded a printed version of a powerpoint presentation from seminar I attended in New York three years ago about daylighting (the use of natural light to supplement or replace electric light by optimum window placement and other means). The hosts were Joel Loveland and G.Z. "Charlie" Brown, who head the Seattle and Portland BetterBricks daylighting/integrated design labs and also teach at UW and UO, respectively. At the time I was writing a New York Times article about daylighting. I also traveled to the Lighting Research Center in Rensselear, New York to learn about research into how natural light affects our biology and psychology. I've never thought about windows and natural light the same. You couldn't pay me enough to work in a basement or any other windowless room.

Finally I found a map of Portland designating seven of the Portland Development Commission's urban renewal areas: Downtown Waterfront, South Park Blocks, River District, Interstate, Oregon Convention Center, Central Eastside, and North Macadam. (Obviously Lents and the Airport renewal areas are missing.) Obviously these have not been a good couple of years for PDC on many fronts, from lawsuits to management to second-guessing on projects. But looking at the map with its individually color-coded renewal areas, my mind immediately began to fill in PDC related projects that exist there. I mean, after a while it really adds up. At the same time, I also imagined on the map much architecture and infrastructure that is yet to happen or now never will. One thing I think that has really hurt PDC is having a mayor like Vera Katz taking a strong leadership role with individual projects, especially in less well-to-do areas like Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's not too late for Tom Potter, and I like what he's trying to do with this big Vision PDX project, but he's at least late in showing that kind of line-item leadership.

What do these three miscellaneous bits of detritus from a writer's desk have in common? Well, the daylighting guide and the map to me are filled with possibility, and the St. Francis photos a relic of something lost. Two out of three isn't bad, but naturally it's that third item, the lost building, that registers most.

Comments

[brad]

Drugstore Cowboy was a great survey of the city of Portland in that it touched on some of the special places. Besides St Francis, I also like the walk through the Park Blocks by Matt Dillon to shows off some of our city planning as well.

Gus Van Sant has used the architecture of Portland well in My Own Private Idaho, too. The old warehouses added grit to the film.

I always here about New York City architecture playing a strong role in particular film makers vision. I enjoy seeing our city, Portland, play a part in movies and take pride when it is done well by artists like Van Sant. Are there other films that do Portland architecture justice?

[ws]

Check out the movie with Burt Reynold; "Breaking In" or something like that.

I think the Jupiter Hotel experimented with daylighting in the room they let out for seminars. Maybe their example might more accurately be defined as accent lighting. It was very helpful in my opinion.

The replacement for the St Francis isn't bad. If only something as good could be arrived upon for the Rosefriend should it finally have to go.

[crow]

Gus Van Sant has an innate skill of capturing the grit of the city. Drugstore cowboy is a classic. As i recall the movie also has some scenes through the old brewery blocks, 13th street docks with glimpses to the city beyond. The old St francis may have been a part of that grit he captures so well, but lets be honest, it was a pit and I saw it firsthand. It was an unsafe cockroach infested building. Furthermore it was not an uplifting place for people in our society that need care that architecture can help foster. The new St. Francis is still low income yet does so with blending many demographics, and not marginalizing. As for the bblocks. I am from Portland and saw boxcars next to the brewery pumping in grain. Later in my life I spent many late nights walking home from the office through the old brewery district. A very cool and gritty area, but also not a very safe place. It is easy to become nostalgic about the past, but things change, and it seems more productive (especially when discussing architecture) to strive for improvement. We certainly learn from our past, but not everything new is bad and not everything old is or was better. Nostalgia has a way of always making the past look better than it would if in the present.

[ws]

Nice eyewitness account of the St Francis and the bewery district Crow!

There's some truth in what you say here: "We certainly learn from our past, but not everything new is bad and not everything old is or was better. Nostalgia has a way of always making the past look better than it would if in the present."

One of the challenges for they that take responsibility for making improvements on the old, is to not over-react to the worst that has come to be assciated with the old, consequently throwing out the good with the bad.

[Eric Berg]

I'm suprised you didn't mention Golden China, the restaurant connected to the first floor of the St. Francis. A scene in Drustore Cowboy was filmed there, too, I believe.

I moved to Portland in 1985 and lived in a crappy studio for a few years just up SW 11th Ave. from the St. Francis. I loved going to Golden China and didn't stop until I moved from Portland in 1998. When I returned in 2001, Golden China was no more. If anyone knows if the family who ran it has another joint in the area, please post that information on this blog. Hell, I'll even treat you to meal there.

Here's something from Willy Week's "Best of Portland 2000." (a Brian Libby is listed as a contributor):

"BEST PLACE TO RELIVE A SCENE FROM DRUGSTORE COWBOY (WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME)

So you're hitting some of the "Mandarin-style" food at Golden China Restaurant (1102 SW 11th Ave., 790-9036) and nature calls. You ask the woman at the counter for a bathroom pass, and she gestures wordlessly at a nondescript door. You step through it, you see the craggy faces of gritty old men, you feel the dark weight of years of hard living downtown. And it hits you: "Holy shit! This is totally that hotel where William S. Burroughs imparts the wisdom of an aging junkie priest to dewy reprobate Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy!" And you're right. You have stepped through the looking glass and into the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel, one of a small fleet of residential dives keeping it real in the face of the metastasis of Pearl District values. Local celluloid hero Gus Van Sant tapped the St. Francis for its echt noir vibe and made it the fictive home of Burroughs, who basically played himself in the grungy drug classic. Even now, the lobby of the St. Francis is populated by salty types who have seen a thing or two, and it's not hard to imagine the hawk-faced prophet of the world's underbelly in their midst. If you want this vicarious thrill, though, you'd better land a table at the Golden China soon, since the hotel's demolition has been mooted in discussions of the forthcoming social re-engineering of downtown's west end. Must get those anachronistic poor folk out of here, you know."

[Brian]

Eric, I'm glad you menioned the Golden China. How could I forget it? I used to live on that block and enjoyed many a fine meal there. And yes, having seen Drugstore Cowboy recently for the first time in awhile, I was reminded that it's in the movie.

[Ray Whitfor]

Isn't there a URD in Gateway also?