In 2007, the place I work for was based in industrial Northwest Portland ... well, it was then. I remember walking around getting a breath of Stadt luft on lunch breaks and such, wandering the edge of the rail yards when they were rail yards and not full of condo silos, and such. Of all the talk of old Portland evolving into new Portland and the Manhattanization of the city center, I must say that from my temporal viewpoint I got to watch development slowly creep that direction like rising sea levels from climate change.

I guess I should have known that the landscape was really about to change when the old tire warehouse across the street became a Montessori school. I wonder if the Dandy Warhol's clubhouse is still in the area and if it is ... congratulations to them. The lease on that thing must be astronomical by now. Courtney Taylor Taylor may have had to sell off one of his Taylors. 

Times are tough all around.

What I lay before you here is a view eastward down NW Thurman Street, looking from NW 19th Avenue. In those days, after hours, nobody went there. Then, eventually some people went there. Now everyone goes there. 

But then? This part of Thurman used to be a through-route with businesses and a tavern or two. In 2007, it was still something of a commercial interregnum.

Just ahead on the right was a place called Premier Gear Works, a commercial machine shop. I understand it's removed to Tualatin or somesuch, maybe Clackamas, I dunno. And it was so deserted that I could stand in the middle of this street pretty much as long as I wanted and compose to my heart's content on that old ViviCam 3705 (3.3 Mpx!) and not be in any danger from any traffic whatsoever. Up and above all this are the ramps tying I-405 and US 30 to the Fremont Bridge.

A thing that was already a relic at that time is just out of shot on the left. And that's something I will exhibit in the next entry.