A Century of Progress

Howard Frank Bowers, Jan. 10th, 1916

This week was so super challenging I felt anxious for the first time in weeks. Generally in the off-season of the Market I feel a sweet and gentle winter retreat, just as if I lived in some snow-covered cabin far away from town. But I live downtown. In a town that is rapidly becoming a city. Have I mentioned that I struggle with development? This week I had five meetings in two days and so many things came at me my head is still spinning.

Tomorrow is the 100th birthday of my house, or at least the signature of two men who signed a board that I found in the wall of my house, and I may say more about that. This little 60x90 property has seen a lot of change in that century, to be sure. In 1916 the houses around me were also new, or new-ish. There's one that was in place since a few decades earlier, and this one is actually much older too, I think. My current theory is that it was hauled here from a nearby farm and fixed up
, but I know that at least two on my corner were built new in that year or right about then. Reconstructing the history is almost as hard as reconstructing the parts as they need it.

I lamented already about the neighbor's fence and it is effectively finished now. I thought to post an "after" shot to balance this before one but really it is too heartbreaking. This photo shows my two houses and the neighbors a few years ago before it changed hands.

My rebuilt house on the right.

My house before I rebuilt it

It looks not at all the same next door today, and now that open space between us and all the many plants are gone. There is a cedar-lined box with a dirt parking space at the back and somehow I will have to adjust. They took out a weedy Bigleaf Maple that was under the utility pole, which pretty much had to happen, though I had pruned it all these years and liked using the branches of it. I saved quite a few of those branches but in the process of scouring the space of any life the overzealous builder-guy actually removed all of the raspberry supports from my five foot strip garden along the side of my shop, as well as the old boards from my OCF booth that I was using to walk on, and a holly log I wanted. Nobody asked me if I wanted help "cleaning" my side yard. I was livid and still am upset, although I recognize that he was probably thinking he was being helpful to the old lady next door (yes, me) and to be fair I was not home that day to ask. I somehow hadn't conveyed the fact that I am not the type of old lady who likes "help" and that I actually wanted those boards right where they were. It is actually a bit miraculous that they didn't level the strip all the way up to the street and take out everything. Maybe I intervened just in time. Once a road, a road forever.

There's another section across in front of that car, now.

But that is probably going to happen anyway. They will next take out the ash that is right next to their house (that crooked one that curves over their roof) and they will take off that bumpout that is the only remaining piece of the century-old exterior and build something there, which will reduce the rest of the easement to a muddy trail they'll use for construction right next to my pear trees. I have to be prepared to just stay serene and adjust to each change even though they seem so invasive to me. Just because I have taken care of their yard for three decades for a succession of renters who didn't, I have no real claim to the space. They are trying to be kind to me as I thrash around with my sense of loss.
You can't really stand in the way of improvements, can you?

So this is on top of the gleeful development plans for the little corner of downtown where I have my other home, the Park Blocks where I spend so much time selling. There will be a building squeezed into that alley just south of the west block, the one I use to enter and exit the Market with my bike cart. I'll need a new route. That I guess I can handle although I hope there will not be any blocked streets or alleys during the construction phase, a vain hope I know. It's going to be inconvenient at minimum and then Kesey Square will also be removed. I know that's a done deal. I know how developers and builders work all too well. They like clean, clear spaces to work with every old thing tossed in the dumpster. The remodel of the house next door was mild compared to what will happen around the Park Blocks. But it is another thing over which I have absolutely no control. At least they listen to my concerns about my garden and my own yard (except for stealing my boards) and respond to some of it. Downtown developers are not going to care what I think.

Me shortly after we bought the place in 1989

Which is not going to stop me from trying to think it. I'm writing a group letter to the city right now trying to articulate Market's concerns for the Park Blocks and Kesey. Mostly we feel that the loss of open space in Kesey will compromise the remaining open space and hurt our use of it. It's hard to separate the projection of our fears from useful ways we can participate and get our needs met. My strategy is pretty much to articulate the fears and then try to link them to city goals and the Master Plan for the Park Blocks, which actually honors Saturday Market quite thoroughly in its visions, and then take most of the fears out of the letter so they can't use that as a way to dismiss our concerns. Our job may just be to get them to tell us before they toss those visions to be replaced by those of the developers, who have a very different idea of what Eugene needs or they wouldn't ask for loans and muptes and waivers and all the things they do to maximize their take and pass their costs on to us, the people.

I feel that people like me are being pushed aside because we don't want to fight against change, that we tend to just feel helpless and resentful in the face of the takers. When they started this fence project next door I clearly told them what the map said about the seven-foot easement but the builder complimented my "pretty hair" while I tried to convince him to scale back his plans. They were hoping to put that fence right on my line, which is, thankfully, right in the center of my pear trees and runs right through my blackcaps and raspberries. I've pulled my plants back really far out of the easement over the last two years, but the fence would have been so oppressive as to kill all of my plants. So I did get a huge concession when they located the fence on their side, in fact, way inside their property line. If they hadn't put in the parking space it wouldn't look as bad. I guess it is the change from jungle to scoured wasteland that upsets me. Fortunately plants will grow and I can make it okay back there in a couple of seasons. Downtown, once the open space goes, it won't be back.

Interior of the old place, pretty untouched since the 1940's. 

 

 

So, whatevs. Fears are generally not realized in quite the negativity that they are generated. Maybe the new building in the downtown alley will greatly improve my access to and from the Market. Speaking up now could help that cause. All things are possible. My house has been here a hundred years, and if Grace Bowers and Tillie Van Harken could see what I have done to it they probably would demonize me too. Those kitchen cabinets were hand-built by somebody and me using the wood to hand-build mine doesn't really bring them back.

I know I gave this house another fifty years at least by all the work I did on it over the last twenty. If I could go back I might make different choices. It doesn't really matter in the big giant picture, does it? Responding to change is something we do every day and cultivating some grace around it is the challenge of all of us, especially old people like me. It isn't going to stop. Fortunately, I have a lot of tools to work through it. One of the best is satire and I got the best little movie in my head last night about the Jell-O Art Show possibilities. Think of The Wiz and sing along as we "Move Kesey down, Kesey down the ro-oad,". Stay tuned.