Remember River Crossing Open House; Historic Commission to Evaluate Alignments

Don't forget about tonight's Open House and Public Hearing for the Salem River Crossing.

It runs from from 3-7 p.m. at the Chemeketa Center for Business and Industry (626 High Street NE, Salem)

See the details for yourself! (Here's info on the first one.)

Historic Landmarks Commission

No one can get away from the Bridge! (We can laugh now...) At 5:30pm the Historic Landmarks Commission will also be looking at the potential impacts to historic places in Salem.

You can see a bunch on Edgewater, Glen Creek, Wallace Road,and scattered around Downtown and the Highland neighborhood.

Buildings already on the National Register of Historic Places, like the Boise Building, the Manning Building, the pre-Statehood Harritt House, are potentially impacted.

So would the Union St. Railroad Bridge.

Other buildings not on the Register could also be impacted. The Wilson Building that houses Santiam Bicycle is potentially impacted. This old farmhouse in Highland is potentially impacted.

Impacts can range from taking some front yard for a wider street and new sidewalk, eliminating a yard with a giant viaduct, or outright demolition.

Here's the Marion Street Bridge and the Gilbert and Rockenfield houses. As lovely as the gothic arches are, the brooding mass crowds the houses and park. The River Crossing would place viaducts like this on both sides of the bridge approaches, and especially through Wallace Park and along Edgewater.

For more on the River Crossing see a summary critique and all breakfast blog notes tagged River Crossing.

The Commission will also be discussing the proposal for a cremains memorial at Oregon State Hospital.

The matter is quite contested, but in the big picture it's hard to imagine either side truly losing. At issue is the fourth, inner wall. It is in shadow here, and has already been altered with a large squarish opening. This inner wall used to have a building attached and so it had a large passage punched through. The original window forms - the fenestration - were lost.

The other three walls everyone agrees will be restored. But for some preservationists total integrity is paramount; for others the integrity has already been lost and the artist/architect proposal represents a sensitive compromise that retains the historically significant bulk of the building.  (For more, see the previous note.)