Portland Walk: Lair Hill Neighborhood

 

Earlier this week we took a walk through the Lair Hill neighborhood. It sits below the Aerial tram (which we have yet to take) up to the OSHU Health Center. The bottom of the tram begins in the recently developed South Portland area. We did some walking through that area a few months ago, blogged about it here. Our walk this week took us to the edge of the neighborhood, with a nice overlook on that area.

  

Chicken coops are allowed in Portland but we live downtown so it's not something I'm used to seeing everyday.This coop had five chickens and was a pretty nice size. Black and golden, and fairly interested in me as I taking pictures. Maybe it was close to feeding time?

 

So Portland-y: Moss & Graffiti. As the leaves were falling off the trees this year, we've noticed little lumps of moss are falling too. There hasn't been much snow yet this year, but there are little balls of moss all over the ground. The garage door on the left gives you some idea just how much the moss takes over here. The tunnel is from a pedestrian underpass that was a little wet and dark, fortunately it was not a very long tunnel. And it made for a very Portland looking shot of Chuck.

 

Most of the homes in the neighborhood looked historic, but we did pass this modern condo building near the end of our walk, the Lair Hill Condos designed by Rick Potestio. There's a post about the project on the Portland Architecture blog.  On the right is an historic 1890 building known as the Corkish Apartments. My googling to figure that out lead to learning that there was recently a fire at the landmark, which might explain why we saw evidence of some work going on.

We walked back through the city, past some of the PSU buildings. I've walked past this one several times, but I don't think I've stopped to take pictures before. These are some large books! And I also can't help but wonder how they decided which books to use. It's bright and colorful, and makes me want to go home and read.