Plane Trees Popular in 1930s

In the meeting packet for the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on Thursday the 11th are some interesting notes on tree matters.

The proposal to designate the lower Oak Grove at Bush Park is back on. You may recall some discussion back in November. Then it was delayed a little in December for more discussion with Tribes. One of the agenda items for January is:

Endorse staff recommend designation of an approximately 10-acre grove of Quercus garryana (Oregon white oak) in lower Bush’s Pasture Park.

There's no Staff Report or other material, unfortunately. This seems like a pretty obvious case, but it would be nice to learn more about the specific elements and history of the grove that are understood to make it important, and what came out of the conversations with Tribes.

A recent early stage candidate for designation was the cluster of Plane trees at North Salem High School. Parks and Recreation Board members had been making preliminary inquiries. At the December meeting of the Board minutes indicate that the School District signaled disapproval of any designation for the trees. It would be interesting to learn more about their reasons. Maybe drawing attention to the school campus is not welcome, maybe they want to have more flexibility to cut them down at some point. Could be lots of things.

One of the Plane Trees at North High (2012)

A decade ago there were some nesting Sharp-Shinned (or possibly small Cooper's) Hawks in them, and the bird-watching was grand for a season. Maybe there have been more since.

April 9th, 1932

More than this, the trees have a place in urban parks and landscape history. Also a decade ago, On the Way had a two-part series on Plane trees associated with Lord & Schryver. In landscape plans Lord & Schryver had specified the trees at the Courthouse (planted for the old Courthouse, and retained in the landscaping for the current Courthouse) as well as the trees at North High, both in the 1930s. Six of the seven original trees survive at North.

There might be more of a social and natural history of the Plane Tree plantings in Salem, not just at one site but at multiple sites and over a period of time. They seemed to be popular in the 1930s and associated with L & S. Almost certainly there are other sites where L & S proposed them. Maybe others planted them also.

Interest in them preceded L & S's activity.

Bush Park Cultural Landscape Plan out in Draft for Review

The City's announced a draft is out for review of the Cultural Landscape Management Plan for Bush Park and Deepwood.

Draft Plan out for review

From here, while the plan touches on the way the parks are embedded in the larger Gaiety Hill and Bush Park Historic District, the plan does not give sufficient attention to relations across the park edges, especially the question of how people travel to the park.

Strictly speaking, this is outside the scope of the plan, but when we talk about trip end facilities like better bike parking, or of "gateways" at park corners, we should give more thought to how people arrive at the bike parking or at the gateways. Instead, the plan assumes people have already arrived.

Yew Park and Corner at Mission & 12th

This is most apparent in the discussion of Yew Park. Yew Park at Mission and 12th really lacks its own identity as a thing separate from Bush Park and Deepwood, and it's also very disadvantaged by traffic. The draft plan specifically calls out "noise and auto pollution at this corner create an unwelcoming pedestrian environment." The Mission Street overpass, the 12th/13th couplet, the start of the Pringle Parkway, the railroad, and a wild spaghetti of multiuse paths together create a formidable barrier for people who might like to walk or bike. It's hard to reach the park area from the northeast, east, and southeast especially. This deserves more attention.

Our Public History of Lord and Schryver Remains One-Dimensional

Salem Reporter had a nice notice about an Oregon Heritage Excellence Award and retrieving the history of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, "Salem woman honored for her role preserving legacy of trailblazing women landscape architects."

Society announcement a few months after
they first moved in together
April 7th, 1929

Lord and Schryver are always understood as "the first women-owned landscape architecture firm in the Pacific Northwest." But never anything else. The primary lens is always a kind of elite, white feminism, their entry to a professional class and attainment, and the aesthetics of their garden productions.

That's a big deal! 

But other dimensions are left untouched, and there is much more to say about them in Salem history. A book has been rumored for some time, but it seems to have been delayed or disappeared. It was to have been published by now, as I recall. Maybe it is still in progress and will discuss some of these things.

Queer History and the Closet

At top is a large clip from the society page not long after Lord returned with Schryver and moved back into the family home, which she must have inherited after her mother died in 1924.  (That house is not still around and Gaiety Hollow dates from 1932. More on Juliette Montague Lord in obituaries here and here.)

The paper nearly frames the move as entirely two separate instances. There's even a physical gap between them in the page layout.

January 20th, January 31st, April 28th all in 1929

And yet they are constantly in the society pages appearing together, sometimes as what sure looks like a unit!

Power and Wealth at Bush Park and Deepwood: A Cultural Landscape Plan at the HLC

The Historic Landmarks Commission convenes on Thursday the 16th and they've got an unusually meaty agenda.

The most interesting item on it is the outline and work plan for a Cultural Landscape Management Plan for Bush Park and Deepwood. Beyond the practical aims of a management plan for the two parks and associated houses, it will be a chance at a deep dive on urban ecology, geography, and history. Beyond setting policy, it could be fascinating! The area is such a layered mash-up. Indeed, collage might be one of the best ways to look at it.

Oaks and Camas in Bush Park, a Kalapuya legacy,
 the second week of April 2014

There are two major Oak groves, one of them with Camas, and these have direct and indirect links to First Peoples and their own technology of pyroculture. These were never "natural" and already depended on human intervention.

Not far away, the Lord & Schryver formal garden at Deepwood
via Oregon Encyclopedia &
Univesrity of Oregon, 2010_VRC_06197

Less than a block away, just across a creek bed, is a European formal garden, with its roots in early modern fortifications.

That juxtaposition is a little amazing, really.

An Arid Garden? No Love for Lord and Schryver at the Mill!

"Romance: Stories of Love and Passion"

Teasing the new collaborative show at the Mill, featuring contributions from area historical societies and museums, last month on social media they wrote:

Come see "Romance: Stories of Love and Passion in the Mid-Willamette Valley" to experience a close look into the romantic and passionate lives of those who came before us.

Very clear, right? Romance and passion. Valentine's Day is the implied peg.

Certainly that's how the paper interpreted it in today's piece on the show.

They even start with the word:

Love is in the air as you walk into the gallery on the second floor of the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, with pieces of history are in every corner of Willamette Heritage Center's current exhibit.

Toward the middle of the gallery lies a black telephone, and the faint sound of piano is audible before it's picked up.

Love songs written by members of the Bush Family play through the receiver, located next to the actual sheet music.

So it is very strange to see the way the Lord & Schryver Conservancy interpreted the directive and theme.

Change at Fairview, Tour Gaiety Hollow: In the Neighborhoods

Well shoot. Yesterday's news that the Managing Partner for the Lindburg Green project at Fairview had passed away seemed sure to bring other news, and it turns out some of that news was already discussed at the Morningside Neighborhood Association. They meet on Wednesday the 11th, and in last month's minutes there's information on the transition:

Richard Berger, with Mountain West Investment Corp., announced his firm's plan to develop a 180 unit multi-family apartment complex on (Sustainable?) Fairview land (Sam Hall's group.) They plan to name it "The Grove at Fairview" in deference to the many trees the design is intended to save. This will be a three-story design, and will be exclusively for rental occupancy. It will be of similar design to the new "Fairway on Battle Creek" complex developed on the old Battle Creek Golf Course. It will have amenities such as a clubhouse and a swimming pool for its tenants. Questions posed: Does the plan/design address Reed Road impacts? Some discussion ensued on the topic, including use of System Development fees, and the planning process.

This makes the whole southeastern half of the former Fairview project, the part paralleling Reed Road, look pretty cookie-cutterish.

Simpson Hills July 2012 Refinement Plan (detail)

Here's part of the last public plan for the Simpson Hills project (about which I have not written much since it was more conventional and less interesting than the other projects at Fairview). It's got a ring road system enclosing a compound, "streets" that are really just pieces of parking lot, and walkup apartments in various configurations. It remains very autoist.

The piece just north of this at the top of the map would be part of the "grove," and its pattern appears to be heading towards something like this Simpson Hills project.

Presumably a new refinement plan will need to be approved and at the Planning Commission we will get to see the new concepts in much more detail.

100 Years ago: Roses for City Beautiful Project

March 5th, 1917

One hundred years ago, the Salem Floral Society announced a

project of beautifying the parking of Marion Street...another plan will be taken up soon to plant a rose hedge along the parkings of some promenade street leading to the fair grounds this will likely be either Capitol or Summer Street...

You may recall that "parking" used to mean not something for temporary car storage on the paved margins of a road, but instead meant the curb strip planting area and its landscaping.

An old rose on Marion Street at a driveway
between Winter and Summer Streets
DAS Yellow Lot in background (2013)

Here's an old rose bush that might have been associated with one of these beautifying projects. Now it is a forlorn reminder of a time when we valued our urban fabric and land more highly than as a gravel lot for cars.

Streetscape Concept Starting Point, but not Finished

Over at SCV they're talking up the "streetscape" project from a few years ago. (Part 1, part 2, part 3.)

Unfortunately it has what look like some holes, and while elements from it might be incorporated into a winning proposal for reconfiguring our downtown streets, if it is considered at all a "final" concept, it still could benefit from some refinement.

There's no Family-Friendly Biking Yet

Billed as something that would "make downtown both more attractive, and also more pedestrian/cyclist friendly," it might offer some improvement for people who already feel confident biking in downtown traffic, but it doesn't quite represent improvements for family-friendly cycling. It is a great help that auto traffic lanes would be in some cases reduced, of course, but there are no protected bike lanes for families or people who bike irregularly.

Court Street Concept, June 2013

In fairness, the Downtown Mobility Study's recommendations also retained the angle parking and had no bike lane for Court Street. It doesn't attain "family-friendly" either. But if we aren't going to have bike lanes and we are going to keep all the angled parking, I'd rather have two-way travel lanes than to retain the one-way directionality.

Bike Parking at Gaiety Hollow is Substandard, may not meet Code

Gaiety Hollow, the museum for the gardens and landscape architecture of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, secured final approvals and opened this spring. They held their first formal public open house a little over a week ago.

One of the matters outstanding had been the dispute over bike parking. On an appeal the Hearings Officer ruled against the Lord & Schryver Conservancy, and they elected not to continue an appeal. (For the history of it, spanning a full year, see notes here.)

So now we have some bike parking.

Frankly, it's awful.

If it is deemed to meet code, whatever City process we have that allows something like this to meet code is strong evidence that we need to rewrite our bike parking code - as was envisioned in Bike and Walk Salem! - and perhaps even change the process.

If this is "success" for bikes, we should want no part of it.

New bike parking on east side of driveway and SRC 806

Comb and Toast
Racks - not
Recommended

First off, it's an old-school wheel-bender toast rack. It barely accepts a wheel, and offers nothing by which to secure the bike frame. The narrow slot for the wheel also makes it easy to torque and bend the wheel itself - hence the disparaging name "wheel-bender." It has fallen out of fashion and professional groups like the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals do not recommend them.

The slots are also spaced too closely together and almost certainly don't meet City code for dimensions on individual bike parking spaces:

From SRC 806.060:

(c) Dimensions. Bicycle parking spaces shall be a minimum of 6 feet by 2 feet, and shall be served by a minimum 4-foot-wide access aisle.

Same model of rack on west side
does not appear securely fastened

There are two rack units, one on the west and one on the east side of the driveway. The one on the east looks certain that it also lacks a four-foot access aisle. Imagine trying to reach your bike with a car or truck parked there. The rack puts you and your bike also in the door zone.

Finally, the racks do not appear to be securely fastened to the ground. So they're pretty mobile.

Lord and Schryver Museum Needs Convenient Bike Parking, rules Hearings Officer

On Friday the Hearings Officer published the decision on the appeal of bike parking at Gaiety Hollow, the home, museum, and garden of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver. The Officer affirmed the City's denial of alternative parking not to code.

Not Lord & Schryver, but maybe a helpful way to think.
Myrtle Card and Ernestine Levy in Salem, circa 1900
(Detail, Oregon State Library)

The Lord & Schryver Conservancy had contested the requirement that the parking be located near the front entry, saying it threatened to violate the historic integrity of the house and garden, which when it was established in the 1930s as the home and offices for Lord & Schryver would not have had bike parking.

Beginning and End of Decision

But the code is fairly clear, and since we routinely allow elevators, drip irrigation, wheelchair ramps, and wireless communication antennae on or at historic buildings, it's hard to see bike parking as any more disruptive.

Fred Meyer Gas Station, Lord and Schryver Parking, Cherriots Funding at Legislature

At the Hearings Officer on Wednesday the 13th is the appeal on the gas station near Madrona and Commercial. (See previous discussion here and here.)

On the matters of the appeal itself, I suspect the Neighborhood Association making the appeal will have a difficult time. I don't see errors by City Staff - do you?

Within the framework of the existing regulations and process, the proposal seems licit and the outcome likely to affirm the Planning Administrator's decision.

But the framework itself has serious shortcomings.

At the highest level, the proposal amounts to demolishing existing mid-century cottage housing and a somewhat later office building and replacing them with a gas station.

That seems like it's a clear downgrade in land use, the kind of thing the regulatory environment should inhibit rather than allow or encourage.

The office building to be demolished in grey at arrow,
Clark Creek running underneath.
(Color juiced from City stream map for clarity)

It's also over a culverted creek that immediately runs through a City Park, and fuel and creeks seem like a very bad mix. Even with a "Stormwater Pollution Control Plan," which Public Works could require of the gas station, the baseline is an assumed level of pollution - which still might be unwise. It seems like we already have plenty of pollution from surface run-off with the parking lots and Commercial Street, and that risk of the concentrated kind of pollution from a fuel spill nearly directly into the creek and park is a classic "bad idea." Additionally, as we seek to transition the whole consumer and residential fleet to electric cars, why invest in gas now? Petroleum fuel just seems all wrong in this context.

Proposed Fred Meyer Gas Station Site, Possible Median, and
Commercial Vista Corridor Study proposals (June 8th Memo)

Finally, it's in an area slated for improved crosswalks and medians, and all the turning movements for entry and exit for a gas station seems like a move in the wrong direction for Commercial Street safety and attractiveness.

So just at the summary, policy level, this project seems like it is a failure on multiple grounds.

But it probably meets the letter of the law.

City Council, December 7th - Zoning and Encroachment

This was going to be more about the proposed demolition of Le Breton Hall, but that was pulled from Council agenda temporarily. So instead, maybe a few more general remarks, and then a couple of interesting zoning and conditional use questions.

Demolition earlier this year at the "Crescent"
That's Kozer Cottage (Fred Legg, 1920) with the mural

On the demolition, it's not like anyone is saying "save all the buildings!" Because plainly they cannot all be saved. At this site it is completely reasonable to demolish many, even most, of the buildings. And a lot of demolition has already been done. That's ok.

But because Le Breton is the oldest, it has the greatest historic value, and it deserves a much larger measure of care, attention, and effort. For the City to give up on it after just four months seems very premature. It may yet be necessary to give up on it, but that should have a time-line measured not merely in a few months. Did the City really think it was going to be quick and easy and not assign sufficient resources to see it through?

(Apparently the McMenamins already turned down an opportunity to redevelop the Dome Building at the State Hospital, and may not be interested in Le Breton, but in light our of own romanesque City Hall, this still seems apropos and a relevant if unflattering comparison.)

Tacoma's Old City Hall could be renovated into a McMenamins hotel. Live now: https://t.co/3JsnXUQdjm pic.twitter.com/j545MMR87W

— Jeff Dubois (@JeffKIRO7) December 1, 2015

Bike Parking at Gaiety Hollow - Tempest in a Teapot!

So on the 25th of last month a formal appeal was filed on the question of bike parking at Gaiety Hollow, the home and garden of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver.

Bike Parking Remains Lone Issue Outstanding at Lord and Schryver Museum

The Lord & Schryver Conservancy's fall newsletter came out last month, and in it is an update on the "change in use" proceedings to convert the home and garden into a kind of museum.

November 2015 newsletter

Buried in that update is news on the lone "outstanding issue": bike racks!

November 2015 newsletter

Geez.

Holy Smokes that seems like a crazy disproportion to the actual effect of bike racks. Is this really the bridge on which to make that last stand?

Briefly, here again is why the Conservancy's proposed location is not very good: There's not enough clearance on the alley.

Detail from site plan above; red comments added;
bike parking standards from Portland added as insert

The alley is very tight in places, and bikes and riders
could get clipped - via Gaiety Hollow

It's also of course not within 50 feet of the primary entry.

Open Houses at Gaiety Hollow Opportunity to Plot Better Bike Parking

Over at the Gaiety Hollow blog, there's an announcement about an set of three Open Houses so you can acquaint yourself with the house and garden of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver.

Shows the alley, but says use Mission Street

The first one is this weekend. They will be:

• Sunday August 9th from 2-5 p.m.
• Saturday August 15th from 7:30-10:00 a.m.
• Sunday September 13th from 2-5 p.m.

In the photo and announcement, there's an interesting mismatch between the image and the instructions, though, that points to one of the questions about the museum project.

The photo in the blog post shows the house and garden from the alley.

But the invitation says to enter from Mission Street:

Wander, absorb, reflect. Garden only…the house will be closed. Please enter from Mission Street…(545 Mission Street…right across from Bush’s Pasture Park.)

There's some ambiguity, really, about which entry should be primary. The formal house address is on Mission Street, so that is the official primary entry, but if you are on foot or on bike, the alley gate and entry might be more attractive, especially as it opens directly onto the business part of Gaiety Hollow, the garden.

You might also recall that there is a question about where to locate bike parking.

Lord and Schryver Group Appeal Bike Parking at Gaiety Hollow

The Lord and Schryver Conservancy has appealed the recent terms of approval for Gaiety Hollow.

Lots of interesting things going on in the appeal set for a July 21st hearing before the Planning Commission.

Most of them, as I read them though, are matters in dispute with the neighborhood association, and I'm not sure they are very relevant here. There is a question whether the project is best identified in zoning and for permitted uses as a "museum and interpretive garden" or as a "cultural center." This impacts how often the site can be rented out and how meaningful is the corresponding revenue stream. There are also questions about how many people can attend events. The neighborhood association wants quiet, the Conservancy wants to ensure a sustainable revenue stream.

One of the matters, though, is totally relevant here: Where to put the bike parking?

The initial proposal - and the proposal renewed in the appeal - is for bike parking on the alley.

Proposal to put bike parking in back, off the alley

This clearly fails the requirement that the bike parking be 50 feet from the main entry.

Lord and Schryver Museum also Shows Mission St in Transition

Mission Street near downtown is in transition.

While the Hospital's actions at the Blind School and then across the street on the corner house have been in the news, more quietly the work on the museum proposed for Gaiety Hollow, the home and garden of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, is also evidence for the change.

Garden Conservancy News, summer 2014 clip

Later this month on the 22nd there will be a hearing on some of the zoning and parking matters for the museum.

Hearing on April 22nd

By formulas in code, this small museum requires five off-street parking stalls for cars. While two of them can be supplied by the driveway, the other three will be supplied by the Derby/Bush House parking lot across the street. The museum will have to execute a formal lease with the City for these three stalls, it looks like.

Tidbits from Lord and Schryver's Gaiety Hollow National Register Listing

The State Historic Preservation Office has posted the nomination form for the house and garden (and tool shed!) of Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver. The complex was approved for an individual listing on the National Register of Historic Places, so that's a neat thing to celebrate. (The "recently listed" page scrolls for about six months or so, and soon it will fall below the fold.)

Preservation Work at Gaiety Hollow
a half block from Howard Hall

In the nomination are a number of interesting details, but one stood out here. In an early plan view of the property, you can see the little cut-out that remains today at Mission and High (lower left).

High and Mission before the house on the corner!
You can see the bite out of the corner in lower left

The tree canopy conceals the corner on the satellite view, but there are several other "bites" scattered around town. Here's a full set of four at Cottage and Union (also the location of the venerable honeysuckle).

Similar bites on Union Street at Cottage

Looking at High and Mission, you might think the "bite" was merely a product of plat jog and the need to align streets that didn't actually line up. But the strict rectilinearity of the grid at Union and Cottage shows that plat jog is not the cause of them.