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The Lesser City

This is the Robertson Tunnel on the MAX Blue Line in Portlandia:
51369516_480104b540_m.jpg The train enters the 3-mile tunnel after the Goose Hollow stop and exits it shortly before the Sunset Transit Center. What is significant about this tunnel, what constitutes its monstrous power, is that it transports the riders from the city above to the city below.

The train leaves the sunshine of the city’s center and takes passengers down to its underworld, its suburb. Indeed, while in the rushing train, which has one stop in the tunnel (Washington Park Station), you can hear a thousand witches screaming from, and scratching with metal nails the concrete walls of, hell.

The haunting experience brings to mind a passage in Diana George’s short story Park and Ride Home: Greater Redmond 2099:

Formed in horror of the city, the suburb carries the city’s ghostly imprint… The word suburb, meaning “there where there is no place else,” is often thought to derive from the name for “lesser city.” In truth, the suburb was never the lesser city but that which had always slumbered or festered or shimmered beneath the city. This underside of the city retains its hold on us today, in the suburban buildings we drift in and out of in a state of inattention.

The basic and mythical movement from city to “lesser city” is, nevertheless, powerfully felt in the Robertson Tunnel, and it will take years, a new generation of city beings, a Copernican revolution of experiencing urban space, to weaken or eradicate the structure of this feeling. A Copernican revolution of urban space is precisely Mathew Stadler’s present mission. And it’s curious that the city he picked for this revolution has such a stable and convincing distinction between above-city, Portland, and below-city, Beaverton.

Comments (11)

1

I wish I could get high at work.

Posted by elswinger | April 12, 2007 12:30 PM
2

Honestly, Charles, sometimes you are just too painful to read.

Posted by Michael | April 12, 2007 12:42 PM
3

I was into it.

I've never rode that part of the Blue Line, but train riding in general is so conducive to these types of overly poetic daydreams, I can relate to this thinking.

Posted by Dougsf | April 12, 2007 12:51 PM
4

I found it fascinating. May I also suggest www.matthewstadler.org

Posted by Matthew Stadler | April 12, 2007 1:10 PM
5

I was in this area last weekend.
I get it.

Charles, do you read BLDG Blog? You must. If not, you must.
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

Posted by Colin | April 12, 2007 1:12 PM
6

Wow. Now I look like link spam.

Posted by Colin | April 12, 2007 1:14 PM
7

Or, alternatively, trains make lots of noise that is amplified in tunnels. Seriously, how does Charles not wind up on the news as the focus of a police bust of some massive amount of extremely strong pot?

Posted by Switzerblog | April 12, 2007 1:21 PM
8

I used to live 5 minutes from the Sunset Transit Center. MAX was a great way to get downtown (especially in high school!)

I think something like the MAX would be great in Seattle.

Posted by Chris | April 12, 2007 1:27 PM
9

Great story, Stadler. I have dreams like these. Usually, they are of Seattle, and they feature looming, concrete building that never fade. In one dream, a tremor was followed by the rise of sleeping giant who rose over a lake; in another, I arrived as a hero in the city with a jeep and machine guns. There were also statues of heroes around the city, and fancy administrative buildings.

Posted by Justin | April 12, 2007 1:57 PM
10

Charles, the "sub" in suburb/an is shorthand for "beyond," i.e. 'beyond the city' not the more commonly used "below" which you try to make sense of as you talk about trains.

Posted by MoTown | April 12, 2007 2:59 PM
11

What did I miss here?

I'll tell you though, riding around on subways (and I guess that thing counts) definitely feels like being in some kind of crazy underworld.

Posted by john | April 12, 2007 3:04 PM

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