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Portland Streetcar Central Loop Grand Opening Celebration (22-September-2012)

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Portland Streetcar Central LoopThe Portland Streetcar Central Loop Grand Opening Celebration takes place Saturday, September 22, 2012. The celebration at the OMSI Plaza starts with speeches and a press event at 10 a.m. At 11 a.m. the first, ceremonial train departs.

The Central Loop will connect with the existing streetcar on 10th & 11th in Downtown Portland. From there it will cross the Broadway Bridge traveling along Broadway, Weidler, 7th, MLK and Grand connecting to the Rose Quarter, Lloyd District, Oregon Convention Center, the Central Eastside Industrial District and OMSI. This is the first streetcar project in the country to be funded with a Federal Grant and includes new vehicles made by United Streetcar located in Clackamas, Oregon.

As part of the celebration, streetcar rides are free all day Saturday and Sunday, September 22 and 23, 2012. Catch a ride to OMSI between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. to attend the celebration. Visit the Portland Streetcar website for a full schedule of celebration events.

Village Building Convergence 2012

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Village Building Convergence 2012The 12th annual Village Building Convergence (VBC), a ten-day placemaking festival that combines crowdsourced activism, creative community development, hands-on education and celebration, takes place in Portland from May 25 through June 3, 2012.

We will come together to create benches, community kiosks, gardens, street paintings, tile mosaics, and more! Come join your neighbors as they bring to life the natural building, permaculture, and public art projects that they’ve been planning. Learn valuable skills for urban sustainability and social regeneration while celebrating the creativity and diversity of our wonderful city!

This event is hosted by City Repair, an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live.

During the day, participants have the opportunity to participate, for free, in creative, community designed placemaking projects all over town.

Speakers, presentations, and food fill the evenings – Tickets are available at the door (the central venue is St. David’s of Wales at 2800 SE Harrison).

Download the The Village Builder event guide, and visit the Village Building Convergence website for more project and event details.

November 15, 1973: Fremont Bridge Opens to Traffic

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Fremont Bridge photo on front page of The Oregonian, 16 November 1973Portland’s Fremont Bridge, the second longest tied arch bridge in the world after China’s Caiyuanba Bridge, opened to automobile traffic on Thursday, November 15, 1973 (The Oregonian, 16 November 1973).

It was raining hard, so they opened the Fremont Bridge a little early Thursday.

It took longer than expected, however. The 1919 Chevrolet “Baby Grand” touring car, owned by Carter Helming of Tigard, which was to be the first vehicle over, wouldn’t start.

Helming’s passengers were Glenn Jackson, chairman of the State Transportation Commission, and Frank Branch Riley, 98, an attorney and longtime advocate of better highways in Oregon.

The old car leaned into the Highway Division’s blue and yellow ribbons across the bridge’s four traffic lanes. Then it wheezed, wheezed some more and finally had to be pushed through the ribbons by bystanders.

There were no speeches and a plaque commemorating the occasion was passed hurriedly to Jackson and Riley, who also signed a Portland Rosarian’s log for the event.

Some 30 autos, most of them more than 25 years old, followed the 1919 Chevrolet off the bridge’s west end before Highway Division personnel removed barriers at either end.

Until the Tilikum Crossing bridges is completed the $82 million Fremont is the newest bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland. The bridge’s completion was the death knell of Harbor Driver along Portland’s west bank of the Willamette River, which is now Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

November 1, 1889: Portland’s First Electric Street Railway Line Makes Inaugural Trip

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Morning Oregonian headline, 2 November 1889The formal opening of the Portland-St. Johns electric railway line, the first electric line in Multnomah County, took place on Friday, November 1, 1889 (Morning Oregonian, 2 November 1889). The line extended from Downtown, across the original Steel Bridge, and then North to St. Johns.

The construction company, required by its contract to turn everything over in good running order, invited about a dozen gentlemen to take part in the inaugural ride. The men boarded the well appointed car, elegantly furnished in cherry and ash . . . provided with electric lights, which made a beautiful effect at 3:30pm.

In a few minutes the words, “All right; go ahead.” was spoken, when the young man manipulating the lever, turned on the subtle fluid, and away the car sped. It ran rapidly and with scarcely a jar. There was none of the jerky motion so common to the horse, steam or cable car. “How very smooth she runs,” everybody exclaimed when the car got fairly under way and went spinning across the bridge. A few moments delay was occasioned by the swing to and fro of the ponderous draw, to enable a steam to pass through. Then away the car went whirling along. The eastern approach of the bridge was passed, terra firma was speedily reached, and then the electric motor car went “kiting” around the acute curve and shot away down the street toward Albina. After running about a half a mile, another car, upbound, was met a switch. The car coming south was loaded “to the guards” with people of Albina.

The new line, replacing old horse-drawn streetcar lines, would open for regular traffic soon after. The Morning Oregonian writer speculated, presciently, that the enterprise would open up a large section of the country, and will doubtless be the means of rapid settlement on the peninsula.

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