Flip 11--Whitwood Court

7/19/10 5:20 PM  Monday
Location: NW Ogden and Springville Road

The steep-sloped hillside faces North and Northeast Portland with a commanding view of the St. Johns Bridge.  Far below, at the bottom of the hill, Highway 30 is a faint whoosh.  The main road through this secluded neighborhood is called Springville, and later I learn that the name of the neighborhood itself is Whitwood Court, an old subdivision linked to nearby Linnton (read more here).

After locking my bike and trudging up a steep slope, I enter a network of both paved and gravel streets, many with amazing views of the bridge and the river.  On the odd telephone pole flutter "MISSING" fliers for Kyron Horman.  The style of the houses ranges from impressive modern to shabby bungalow.  It's quiet here, with only the occasional dog bark or car passing.  I can hear a train whistle in the distance.  A woman with her mother pushes a baby stroller.  Or rather, on account of the steep hill they descend, she's holding on tightly to the handlebar as it rolls down by itself.

Though I never leave the public street, the neighborhood is remote enough and secluded enough that I still feel as though I'm doing something wrong by walking through here.

Near the top of the neighborhood, the pavement gives way to gravel, and I hear the familiar crunch underfoot, like walking through heavy, wet snow.  I pass a City of Portland Water Bureau facility, an underground tank.

After the last house, one with a "No Trespassing" sign in the yard, I come to an open gate.  It's the beginning of Forest Park.  I stop for a moment, and hear a rustling in the brush and trees to my right.  I wait for a while, thinking a deer may emerge, but none does and the rustling stops.

Even in Portland, it's rare to stand at the very boundary of the relative wilderness and the ordered landscape, but here it is, a ragged line between the green and the gray.  The midsummer sun is just starting to descend behind the hill, and I like how the light plays through the trees and onto the leaves.

I walk back down into Whitwood Court.  When the gravel turns back to pavement it startles me for a moment, the sudden absence of crunching underfoot.  I explore up one street a few yards to get a good look at the gorgeous green bridge that connects North and Northwest Portland.  On my way down I pass an old boat on the shoulder of the road, its little wheelhouse strung with Christmas lights.  Buried in the brush next to it is an antique artillery piece.

There are so many ways of living inside an "urban" area that defy the common perception of the word.  In this neighborhood, by virtue of its topography and vegetation, residents can almost shut out the rest of the city, and even their nearby neighbors, if they so choose.  It's a level of seclusion usually reserved for rural areas, or at least unincorporated suburbs.