Lovejoy Columns

I sometimes miss driving the Lovejoy Ramp. Remember? you could drive across what is now the pearl without stopping. no stop lights, cross streets… you were above all of that. It connected the Broadway bridge to the Alphebet Nieghborhood. OK it looks better now but the traffic…
Anyway these two columns used to help support the ramp. When the decision to demo the ramp was made the powers that be decided to save these two columns as their decoration deserved it (see other reviews for the details) The columns eventually ended up here. I like them as art, as history… It is nice with all the history that is going away that there are these glimpsess that are being saved.

The Pearl District manages to preserve their maritime feel with the likes of the Lovejoy Columns. It is two large, four-​sided displays nearing many commercial buildings. The two columns are similar at face value, but they differ significantly. It’s words indicate that these are replicas being shown with the original being preserved on the inside.
Having been attracted to this several times, it took awhile to even get an ounce of comprehension as to these columns. It is tempting to demote them due to their status as showing replicas, but it is free to see and elegant. Some of them look as if they display ancient mythology despite their twentieth century creation. I wouldn’t go out of my way for them, but I am happy that they are here.
It just has the right application of juxtaposition.

Cool reuse of old building structures, however, i don’t understand why they are listed as being Architects…

Anna B wrote a beautiful review of the Lovejoy Columns and got the history entirely correct, so I’m not going to cover the same ground. I was just thinking about the columns and my dad as we are so close to Thanksgiving. My dad was a Portland native and history buff. And I was introduced to them at an early age while they were still under the Broadway Bridge. If we were anywhere nearby, we always visited them, and he always told us a lot of stories about our Portland history during those times. He always worried what might happen to them between urban renewal and the rain. He was elated when they were placed in their current location.
The Lovejoy Columns are as dear to me as say The White Stag sign. They’re the kind of landmark that can be privately cherished but equally collectively loved by a whole city. If you’ve not visited them, do so soon and start your own personal Portland history with them.

Possibly my favorite spot in the Pearl District.
An easy to pass up little piece of Portland history, these columns were saved during the redesign of the Broadway Bridge in 1998 and placed here. There are several murals by a Greek immigrant rail worker, who painted them in between trains passing.
Tom Stefopoulos was his name, and I always wonder if he ever thought his handiwork would be noticed, saved, then relocated to what would turn from a purely industrial area to a chi-​chi model of upscale gentrification, where one can by a $ 400 t-​shirt and a box of fancy macarons on the same block.
The next time you’re walking through the Pearl, take a moment to stop and notice these neat-​o structures, in their home at the base of the Elizabeth Tower. Think of olé Tom and his artistic foresight from way back when, a small piece of Portland history thankfully saved for us to admire.

Cool history before the Pearl became what it is today, a train yard/​industrial area. The history of this neighborhood is interesting!

This is a little piece of Portland history. It’s the work of architects, who usually are building things. Instead they saved them from being made into gravel. Unilocal is expanding the scope of its reviews and this fits in with bridges (no longer here).
Northwest Portland where the Pearl District is today had rail yards and warehouses. It was the part of town where no one bothered campers and artists rented studios where they could make a mess and make as much noise as they wanted without disturbing sleeping Portland. In particular the warehouses along 11^th were notorious in a good way.
Where NW Lovejoy joined the Broadway Bridge was a long viaduct over the railroad tracks, much longer than today’s, extending to about NW 13^th. Greek immigrant and folk artist Tom E. Stefopoulos worked in the yards as a night watchman. In his spare time, he drew with chalk and painted figures from Greek mythology on those bridge supports. In a way, he may have been Portland’s first recorded street artist, working between 1940’s and 1952.
When the City decided to tear down the viaduct to build condos in late 1990’s, a group of architects organized a project to preserve intact 10 of the columns with the least graffitied paintings. Two have been restored and stand in the courtyard at the address above.
You can search around the Interwebs for more on the «Lovejoy Columns» which appear in the opening sequence of Drugstore Cowboy:
. They are also the background for a short film which Elliot Smith did some songs for:
. Or check
for some pre-​Pearl photos and the architect’s story at
and
So I guess this is a review of a bridge that is gone, an artist who is gone, a music video by a musician who is gone, a local film — before the director gone great, railroads that are gone, artist spaces that are gone. But also of the symbol of all that, which is very much with us.