North Portland
Paul Bunyun
The Interstate Bridge
USS CLI (713)
The Veterans Memorial Coliseum

North Portland is a diverse mixture of residential, commercial, and industrial areas. It includes the Portland International Raceway, the University of Portland, and massive cargo facilities of the Port of Portland. Slang-names for it include "NoPo" (classist pun, shortened from North Portland) and "the Fifth Quadrant" (for being the odd-man out from the four-cornered logic of SE, NE, SW, and NW).

North Portland is connected to the industrial area of Northwest Portland by the St. Johns Bridge, a 2,067 ft (630.0 m) long suspension bridge completed in 1931 and extensively rehabilitated in 2003-05.


North

Portland, OR.

Paul Bunyun Statue 2016 Close up of Paul Bunyun's upper body 2016
Paul Bunyun Head 2016

Paul Bunyun Statue

Paul Bunyan Statue is a 31-foot-tall concrete and metal sculpture of mythical logger Paul Bunyan in the Kenton neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It was built in 1959 to commemorate the centennial of Oregon's statehood during the Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair, which was held in the Kenton area. The sculpture was originally prominently placed at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue (then U.S. Route 99) and North Argyle Street, and now stands at the corner of North Interstate and North Denver, about 15 feet south of its original locarion. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in January 2009.

The statue was the Highlighted Property of the Week when the National Park Service released its weekly list of February 6, 2009.

The Interstate Bridge

The Interstate Bridge is a pair of nearly identical steel vertical-lift, "Parker type" through-truss bridges that carry Interstate 5 traffic over the Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

The bridge opened to traffic in 1917 as a single bridge carrying two-way traffic. A second, twin bridge opened in 1958 with each bridge carrying one-way traffic. The original 1917 structure is the northbound bridge. As of 2006, the bridge pair handles around 130,000 vehicles daily. The green structure, which is over 3,500 feet long, carries traffic over three northbound lanes The Interstate Bridge 2015and three northbound lane and three southbound lanes. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, as the "Portland–Vancouver Highway Bridge.”

Since 2005, proposals for replacing the bridge have been produced and debated. The bridge is considered responsible for traffic congestion of road vehicles and river traffic. Plans for a replacement bridge, known as the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project, estimated to cost at least $3.4 billion, had come together by 2012 after many delays, but were very controversial, with both strong support and strong opposition. In late June 2013, the CRC project was canceled, after the Washington state legislature declined to authorize funding for the project.

The Interstate Bridge's name is a simple descriptive one based on its location, as a bridge connecting two states. In 1917, the new bridge gave its name to a Portland arterial street. Shortly before the bridge opened, a pair of streets through North Portland that were planned to be treated as the main route to and from the bridge, Maryland Avenue and Patton Avenue, were renamed Interstate Avenue.

Vintage Interstate bridge after completion vintage Interstate Bridge with crowds waiting to cross for the first time.

USS LCI(L)-713

The LCI(L)-713, (a round conn, bow ramp) is located in Portland, Oregon, now moored in the Swan Island Lagoon. It is currently owned and being restored by a non-profit 501c3 group, the "Amphibious Forces Memorial Museum.” Built in 1944 in Neponset, Massachusetts, the ship was transferred to the Pacific Theater where it saw action in making two assault landings: Zamboanga, Philippines in March 1945 and Brunei Bay, Borneo in June 1945 (as part of the Battle of North Borneo). Purchased as war surplus initially for use as a log hauling tugboat, the engines were removed and it was relegated to a floating storage hulk in Stevenson, Washington until the late 1950s when it was abandoned and sank into the river mud on the shore of the Columbia River. In the late 1970s the ship was refloated and restoration began on the ship. LCI(L)713 has changed ownership until finally sold to the AFMM in 2003. The LCI(L) 713 has been continually restored with the goal of becoming a historically correct operating museum ship.

vintage USS CLI 713 USS CLI 713 at current location in Portland vintage USS CLI 713 crew photo USS CLI 713 at current location in Portland
vintage Veteran Memorial Coliseum with full parking lot
Veteran Memorial Coliseum 2017 Veteran Memorial Coliseum Entrance 2017

Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Financed by an $8 million bond approved by voters in 1954, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was completed by Hoffman Construction in 1960. It was dedicated on January 8, 1961, to the "advancement of cultural opportunities for the community and to the memory of our veterans of all wars who made the supreme sacrifice." The facility is 100-feet tall and has a footprint of about 3.1 acres. It is sometimes referred to as "The Glass Palace" in Portland. The building was designed by architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Original plans called for a building made of wood, a material that is plentiful in the region, but cost and safety factors precluded that. The structure instead consists of a modernistic gray glass and aluminum, non-load-bearing curtain-wall cube around a central ovular concrete seating bowl. Four 70-foot concrete piers support the steel roof, with no interior columns required. The exterior appearance, with 80,000 square feet of glass, is of a skyscraper laid on its side. The curtain-wall windows inside offer views of the city in all directions. The 1,060-foot-long black curtains can be closed to block sunlight in 90 seconds. Seating includes 9,000 permanent seats expandable to 14,000 with portable chairs and bleachers. At its opening, it was called the largest multipurpose facility of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.

The war memorial consists of two black granite walls below ground level and near the main gate. The names of the dead are inscribed in gold paint, now faded with age. There are no dates given, only the names and an inscription: "To the memory of a supreme sacrifice we honor those who gave their lives for God, principle and love of country.”