Ok… so, uh… since when does the Portland Development Commission produce slick little videos setting discussion of development projects to indie soundtracks?
Seriously, watching this new video about the resurrected Burnside Bridgehead made me feel like renting Garden State and smoking a clove. That’s not a bad thing. This is definitely the first city outreach video I watched voluntarily start to finish that didn’t involve “Officer Chauncey Curl” and action-packed reinactments of cyclists getting hit by a cars.
The results are in!
Portland’s love list: parks, bike lanes, soup kitchens, restaurants, “clothiers”
And hate list: Starbucks, gyms, parking lots, condos, corporations
Meetings about the new Bridgehead start in January.
So, I guess I figured that since they’re already tearing up that lot, somebody had already bought it and was planning on building something.
The one lady who said, “A soup kitchen,” reminds me of how long ago Baloney Joe’s was. In some ways, despite how many “restaurants and clothiers” are now in that neighborhood, it still could use a homeless shelter.
Not that you couldn’t also hold “public events” there,like the one guy said. Depending on what he actually meant by that.
Not one black person in that video. Not one.
I must have been unavailable.
“Do Portlanders have any idea what they’re talking about?”
No.
“Does that stop them from having an opinion?”
No.
Classic. That should be etched on City Hall.
(I wonder how much we paid to put that little video together.)
Hey Matt,
You can’t really hold the lack of black people in the video against the PDC. I’m a “clothier” on east burnside (I sold you clothes once!) who was working the day they sent the crew down there to shoot that video. I’d imagine there would be a black person in the video if they could find one. The truth is that I’ve worked down there for about 3 years now, and we have white people in every day, latin american people 2 out of 3 days, asian people maybe twice a week, and black people maybe once every one to two weeks. Lower east burnside seems to represent Portland as a whole pretty accurately as far as racial diversity goes (which is to say… not very diverse).
Actually I take that back. Not the black people part, but if they were to randomly sample the people down there for footage, they would have definitely had a couple latin americans. Also, half the commercial space on my block is rented to the businesses by asian owners, so you’d think they’d make an appearance too.
ahhh, the unbearable whiteness of being.
that said, i really like that song by the band Headlights.
At least they gave up on the “Anzio Bridgehead”: fuckin’ up the *mos’ regulated* hang-out spot for Home and Les under the Burnside MAX overpass by-a Portland Saturday Market [*those burghers* are good, and thorough, at determining who needs to “take a chill” and who needs to move on to stable, varm housing *they could probably somehow have*]. In late-breaking and slightly related news, the AFL-CIO — up in here, and not by the “good graces” of “Ted K” — says FUCK YOU, PEOPLE GOTTA LIVE.