Check out these car names for girls images today:
Day 226: I Am Blessed
Image by amanky
So my day was ka-raze-eee!
I started it out with a slow start… and an interview for an actual full-time position within the hospital. The interview went longer than I’d expected, but you can’t rush these things too much now, can you!? Then I was off to PTown again, for more comp training (this time it was Star: the patient interface used throughout the hospital)
Meanwhile, on my way to the interview, I’d realized my cell was 100% dead. No battery. Nada! So I ran by the Taylor’s to nab up Andy’s spare/switch them out. He was actually there, but on the phone with his girl’s mom… anywho (rabbit trails) I switched batteries, and promptly noticed that his spare was just as dead as my pila so… yeah. nevermind. I flew right back out the door, and straight out of town.
I pulled up at the outlet mall to nab up a couple pair of Vans (Liz picked up 2 for and I was bound and determined to find the same deal, for kicks and use in the ER possibly, as one pair was perfectly black!) I reached over to my passenger seat for my purse: empty! Yup. No purse… I had left it on the floor in the room I’d interviewed in (way to assure a sense of organization, huh!?)
Now. I’m 62 miles from home. No driver’s license, no identification, no cash, no credit/debit card, no checkbook, no cellphone… no food… no camera!
I walked in, mostly defeated, explained my situation… in complete desperation, almost tears. They assured me they could put a couple pairs on hold for me, as I’d be back again tomorrow.
I found two pairs, just like Liz’s, in my size/s. w00t-esque.
My mind was completely brain-storming/problem solving for survival. Praise God I had enough gas to assure myself the trip back home and I have my work ID that doubles as a direct debit from my paycheck at Providence cafeterias, so food was covered as well!
I trekked more toward Gresham and drove up a main drag, praying for a USBank, and some mercy/grace to be found within its doors. I found one. Walked in. Explained my situation, and said that I could offer up all sorts of information, as well as noting the fact that I have a pretty distinct name… so!?
The girl went through plenty of personal info/inquiry to make me feel pretty safe about her handing me cash from my account sans ID. So yeah, I pulled out enough to make myself feel a smidge more "safe", especially since I’m still running around without a cell.
As I arrived at the Portland Providence locale, I soon notice it’s barely 10 blocks from Hans’ house. Since I still had time to spare, I drove over and… well, woke him up and used his phone to locate my purse. There’s something assuring about knowing that it’s really where you’re pretty sure you left it, and that it’s now not just sitting there, unbeknownst to others… yeah, after a mess of phone extensions, and someone even going in to find it and not seeing it… it was found (it had been discovered and tucked away by someone who had called me, not that I knew that!)
ok. so I take my first session of class, understandably excel (I’ve been working in the system for a month now, while everyone else is still new and plunking…) and get let out a bit earlier than expected. I fly, hoping to miss rush-hour traffic, and go to stop by the outlets so that I don’t have to tomorrow night (when I have to be back in time for worship practice.)
As I’m waiting for the line to dwindle, so i can retrieve my set aside items… Britny waves/flags me down. Yup, girl is shoe shopping with mom and little sisters. In the end, she also got the same set of shoes as Liz & myself (we can be foot triplets!)
Oyg, ok, then I drive home… (oh yeah, through all of this, my sweet ipod integration system has decided to be dumb and now won’t load up, nor shut down, so I’m back to the jimmy-rigged ipod system in my car, but at least I still have my tunes!) stopping by the hospital to get my purse *happy cheer* yay! And figured I ought to check my messages while I’m there.
And guess what!?
Yup, I got the job!
[blogged]
Delridge Overpass (1961 and 2010)
Image by Rob Ketcherside
In the distance is Youngstown Cultural Arts Center nowadays or Frank B. Cooper Elementary School back in the day. Behind us are Delridge community center, playfield and wading pool.
The overpass was opened in April, 1960. The old photo (scroll down or click through) is from January, 1961. Why wait so long to photograph the students?
The Delridge bridge opened to little fanfare — it wasn’t mentioned in the Seattle Times at least. But a year later in April, 1961, a copycat pedestrian bridge over Aurora Avenue at 102nd warranted a number of articles, even a January 1, 1961 page 3 photo of children crossing Aurora to get to Oak Lake Elementary School. I’m guessing that this photo was taken as a counterpoint.
A couple of features of the Delridge bridge make it a remarkable structure. First, it’s purposefully, uncompromisingly beautiful. In 1955 Seattle created the Municipal Art Commission. When Mayor Gordon Clinton took office the next year he instructed all department heads to run new facility design past the commission. The first to heed his word was City Engineer Roy Morse.
A 2/18/1962 page 117 article titled "Beauty and Utility" in the Seattle Times focused on the Art Commission’s contribution to pedestrian overpasses. In addition to this bridge and the one at Oak Park, two other examples can be seen on Montlake north of Hec Ed Pavilion. The commission gave feedback on the profile of the bridges, design of hand rails, and other elements.
The pedestrian overpasses stood in stark contrast to automobile structures, even to contemporaries. 62 year-old landscape architect Noble Hoggson (not making that up, he’s worth looking up) wrote a letter to the Seattle Times which was published on April 17, 1961 page 10. I’m including it here in full:
"Editor, The Times:
"It seems fashionable at this time to criticize bridges, viaducts and other parts of our new freeway complex, and, I might add, with good reason.
"Just to be different, let me offer praise for what I consider an excellent piece of design which could well be emulated by our State Highway Department.
"I am referring to the very fine work of City Engineer Roy W. Morse on the recently completed Oak Lake School overpass over Aurora Avenue.
"This is a bridge of charm and grace. Even the rhododendrons, skimmia and other shrubs massed at the base of the spiral ramp indicate a thoughtful appreciation of the value of planting.
"I wish that more of our highway structures showed such use of good design."
If he liked one spiral on Oak Park, he would have loved the two spirals on Delridge if he ever had reason to get down to that part of town.
It’s time to name names. The Alaskan Way Viaduct had been completed in 1953. Interstate 5′s Ship Canal Bridge was completed in 1961. The 520 Evergreen Point Floating bridge and especially the Portage Bay connection from Roanoke to Montlake was looming on the horizon with completed design plans. Seattlites were sick of highways, and proceeded to blaze trails with fights against R. H. Thomson Expressway and then Interstate 90. The continued fights against highways — led now by Mayor McGinn — may seem like naysaying or NIMBYism, but really it’s part of a 50 year legacy of never again.
It would be interesting to find out just how much the commission changed the pedestrian overpass designs created by Seattle structural engineering firm Worthington & Skilling (now Magnusson Klemencic Associates, by the way). Were the original designs completely utilitarian like the freeways?
It’s also not clear to me how the second key feature of this bridge came about: accessibility. Morse went back to the city council to ask for a 30% additional appropriation for bridge costs. The money would cover "a new curving ramp-approach design" instead of stairs, in order to offer "many advantages to users".
We need to put this in context. The first accessibility standard for architecture in the United States didn’t come out until the year the Delridge overpass was built, 1961 (ANSI 117.1). The first federal legislation dealing with disabilities – the Architectural Barriers Act – wasn’t passed until 1968. And that act wasn’t enforced until the creation of the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board in 1973 as part of the Rehabilitation Act.
It seems like a complete anomaly that Seattle built an accessible pedestrian bridge in 1960, but perhaps we were incredibly forward thinking or there were students at Cooper Elementary who would be unable to cross the street with their wheel chairs? I’m baffled.
The Montlake overpasses feature stairs on the east side, but it’s not surprising because they date from 1958, just before Delridge’s "new… design". Oak Park, on the other hand, looks completely off-balance with a spiral on the east and stairs on the west. Property records clarify the reason. The buildings on the west side of the street predate the bridge — to the north of 103rd dates from 1929, while the Chinese restaurant just to the south is from 1940. The stairs were the only way to get the bridge finished under budget and without closing down 103rd to cars.
And that is the proverbial elephant in the room. The only reason these bridges were built was because of dangerous automobile traffic. They were a white flag or thrown-in-towel, surrendering the street to automobiles once and for all.
An oral history by Cooper student Karin Freeman begins to shed light on the problem on Delridge. She mentions how one of her classmates was hit by a car and broke her leg while crossing to the playfields. Another by Pat Schille gets to the heart of the matter: "There was a little girl that was killed in a car accident right after school… I don’t even remember who the child was… There was no street light at all. You’d cross and sure hope. All the way from Youngstown clear up. I mean, there were none!" Ms. Schille points out that the death galvanized the PTA to take action to improve safety.
The child was Wayne A. Detwiler, four years old. The accident happened on May 11, 1957 as the child was returning from the playfield to his home back behind the Cooper School (5/14/1957 ST p3). Just a month earlier the PTA had taken their overpass request to the City Council. The council said that money was tight and an Engineering Department official said that street construction money probably couldn’t legally be used for a pedestrian bridge (4/17/1957 ST p29). The PTA had gotten a similar answer from the Seattle School Board when it was decided that school money couldn’t be used to build streets (2/28/1957 ST p21). Little Wayne’s tragic death provided the catalyst to finally get the overpass built.
But we’ve had five more decades to dwell on the issue. Perspectives have changed. How can it possibly be a good idea to spend tens of thousands of dollars (1950s money!) to engineer our way out of the auto mess? We ended up putting a stop light at the Cooper School intersection anyways. The Oak Park bridge is even worse. Why is it okay to remove a crosswalk and replace it with stairs? How are elderly supposed to cross the street, or folks in wheel chairs? What about bicyclists?
That’s the cause of the sudden change in designs for the new Montlake crossing to be built with the light rail station in front of Husky Stadium. For years Sound Transit has planned to put in a new pedestrian bridge, inanely causing riders to leave the tunnel station and keep heading up to the causeway. Just in the last few months the University of Washington has led a seemingly successful push to just have people cross at street level. The design is called "Rainier Vista extension". It extends out the original campus plan by the legendary Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, leveraging existing pathways rather than compromising them.
Hoggson preferred our pedestrian bridges to what we were making for cars — and I bet he’d appreciate returning streets to the people even more.
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From the Wikipedia errata file (ya can’t trussit)… Cooper School was never Riverside School. Their source seems to be the school district’s school history page but it clearly says that Riverside served as an annex. Riverside was on the Highland Park & Lake Burien Railway (aka Lake Burien Line or White Center Line) over on West Marginal. I believe the building is still there but haven’t gone to check (KC property details claim the building is old enough).
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