May 10, 2005

A Funny Thing About Where We Almost Moved

This Town Is Too Damned Small

Back at the beginning of February, we first indicated our intention to move, and mentioned that we had considered the Rose Friend -- "across the street from The Oregonian, one block away from the Oregon Historical Society, and a very short walk to City Hall".

To no small degree, we never pursued it because, as that February item mentions, the building resides on the same block as the historic Ladd Carriage House, and the First Christian Church wants to raze the entire block to make way for new development, possibly moving the Carriage House to some other location.

In via email this afternoon is a news release (pdf) from the office of Mayor Tom Potter, announcing that is looking to explore ways to save the Carriage House, and expressing concern over the loss of the Rose Friend, which provides affordable housing in downtown Portland "to individuals at 60% of median family income".

What struck us in the release, purely for the bizarre coincidence of it, is that the other party involved alongside the Church in the plans to move and/or demolish the historic structures in favor of new "mixed-use residential and commercial" redevelopment of the block is none other than (wait for it)... Opus Northwest.

Our fine City's infamous two degrees of separation strikes again.

For the record, on the subject of where things currently stand on these issues, according to the press release the Church and Opus have indicated that "at least two parties have made tentative proposals to move the [Carriage House] to a new location", and the Church/Opus "have said they will work with the City to help residents find new housing".

Posted at 04:35 PM | PermalinkComments (14) | TrackBacks (0)
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Comments (14)

  1. Darby on 10 May 2005

    Do you want to blog about your neighborhood? I'm creating neighborhood pages for Portland neighborhoods and am hoping to find some folks on Portland Communique who may want to contribute. News for the people, by the people! Email dcave@oregonlive.com if interested.

  2. The One True b!X on 10 May 2005

    Fortunately for OregonLive, the only thigns that tend to be removed as comment spam here are ads for pharmaceuticals and pornography.

    That said, since I'm not deleting their solicitation, I also encourage parties interested in blogging about Portland to remember that Blogger is free, and TypePad is cheap, and if we like you we'll put you on the blogroll here.

    (Yes, we do also blogroll the neighborhood blogs that are actually hosted at OregonLive, just to be clear.)

  3. tomhiggins on 10 May 2005

    Not to make this a portlandhoodie blog thread, but I have found some good stuff on http://www.news4neighbors.net

  4. thinkbigPDX on 10 May 2005

    the only infamous thing striking again in this post is the one true lack of objectivity and willingness to continue to push a personal agenda. B!X, get off the OPUS thing--they are capitalists and see an opportunity. If you don't like it, why don't you buy the building and save it? I bet all your advertisers would support you in this effort and certianly if it would play to a momentary political advantage with at least 20 memebers of the neighborhood Eric Sten woulod propose that city council take over the approval of your purchase, demand that you are allowed to apply some new market tax credits, get the city to pay for any investment shortfall as long as you tell them it won't be much up front and the two of you could work together to make the tax payers understand why you should be allowed to pay for everything in Chinese Yuan (I hear they are thinking of floating it though so watch the exchange rate).

  5. The One True b!X on 10 May 2005

    Here we see thinkbigPDX finally jumping the shark. The worst critics are the ones who are apparently humor impaired.

    This was a throw-away post, dude. I found it amusing, not somehow nefarious, that Opus is the company on this.

    Also note that after noting my amusement, I specifically made sure to point out the Church's and Opus' position both on moving the Carriage House, and helping to find people housing. Oh, look -- fairness on my part! Too bad you didn't notice it.

    But the obvious thing I hope my readers take away from your latest is that you will never be happy with anything, and are only here to play the troll.

  6. myrln on 10 May 2005

    I think it's interesting that thinkbigmouth, I mean, PDX is the only commentor who's inaccessible. Says a lot about the person's self-esteem. Also makes one wonder who's encouraging or supporting his rants since if he doesn't like bix's work, he's free not to read it.

  7. The One True b!X on 10 May 2005

    Glossary:

    Jumping the shark:

    Jumping the shark is a metaphor used by television critics since the 1990s. The phrase, popularized by Jon Hein on his web site www.jumptheshark.com, is used to describe the moment when a television show or similar episodic media is in retrospect judged to have passed its "peak" and shows a noticeable decline in quality. Hein also uses the "jumping the shark" concept to describe other areas of pop culture, such as music and celebrities, for whom a drastic change was the beginning of the end.

    troll:

    An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion.

  8. tomhiggins on 10 May 2005

    ThinkTroll has shown is BIAS against b!X time and again. Each post is an arrow sent to somehow puncture b!X as if it was now ThinkTroll's job to do this day in and day out. It is to be expected one would suppose, that as the mainstream looks to alternatives for voices, views and alternatives that the old school and its denfenders would send out mercinary types to do as much damage as possible as often as possible

    And thus we have ThinkTroll, whose every post is an Objective arrow sent to derail the Communique and its inhabitants. We wonder in whose pay ThinkTroll is, we wonder if we looked a bit under the hood of IPs and traffic whose trail we would find slime covered from that user id.

    We wonder, and we wait for the eventual plethora of verbage that ThinkTroll will lossen like so many aimed projectiles. Who pays for those arrows? Eyes open folks, lets peek (no pun intended) at this trolls origins.

    -tomh

  9. thinkbigPDX on 10 May 2005

    The facts of the site, the editor and the lack of objectivity remain. A throw-away post is an interesting way to fill your time. Maybe they are all throw away and really the only value is in the comments. Just because I disagree with B!X bias towards OPUS does not make me disagree with B!X on everything and I have said so. Call me what you like, I am jumping on the objectivity thing until it changes and one can read both sides of a story in what the one true has to say.

  10. tomhiggins on 10 May 2005

    ThinkTroll, rather than dictate your personal ethics on someoneelses personal blog, why not show b!X how its done and spin a blog of your own. Given the voluminous meanderings you have posted I get you would have no problem filling it with what you would consider Objective material.

    www.blogger.com its free, its easy..heck even my kid at 9 was able to do a blog.

    Show us ThinkTroll, show us whatchya got.

    "I am jumping on the objectivity thing until it changes and one can read both sides of a story in what the one true has to say."

    Ok, since we are into jumping on things, Tag your it...

  11. thinkbigPDX on 10 May 2005

    Tom, if you promise to read it, I'll think about it.

  12. DimWitt on 10 May 2005

    You know, thinkbigmouth, it's traditional to wait until someone says something even slightly mean or daft before flaming them for it. You seem to have jumped the gun along with the shark.

    I gather you're new to this whole internet thing, but the tradition is somewhat older. Golden Rule or something like that... maybe you've heard of it. No?

    I'm glad to see you openly hoist the Jolly Roger of Trolldom, though. It makes me feel more wholesome about the (almost) polite but firm online ass-kicking I've been giving you the last few days. For a little bit there you almost had me fooled into thinking you might be a good guy and I was being too harsh.

    Guess not!

    Have a nice day, Nate. Good luck on the job search.

  13. Miles on 11 May 2005

    That's very generous of you to leave Oregon Live's commercial solicitation up.

    I think most people will recognize that what you trade away if you become an Oregon Live blogger is (1) ownership and (2) control.

    What you might get in exchange is (3) fame... since they are moving aggresively to create neighborhood blogs and will no doubt have a presence. Have you noticed they are creating blogs for every neighborhood in Portland?

    Who reads those blogs? Do they have editorial freedom? Will people feel a contradiction between reading a corporate blog and the very reason some people turn to blogs... the desire for independent views?

    And how will the content providers feel about providing free content that they never own?

    Unless I missunderstand the deal, you'd be working for free for a large for profit corporation, as a free content provider.

    If being a free content provider so they can sell ads works for you... go for it.

    I think they are trying to figure out how to leverage the blogging energy and spirit for commercial purposes. It will be interesting to see if they succced.

    If I've missunderstand the bargain they're offering I welcome clarification.

  14. myrln on 11 May 2005

    Also ever notice how someone subjectively shrieking for objectivity often means we should adopt his particular pov, objectivity being the farthest thing from his mind? It's a control issue and nothing more than that.