Architecture Wednesday: The Pittock Mansion

The Pittock Mansion, a 16,000 square foot French Renaissance style home, sits high atop a hill overlooking downtown Portland and the Cascades; it’s by far one of the best views of the city I have ever seen, though I imagine it’s quite different from when the house was built over one-hundred years ago.

As a result of wanting that view, the home has a unique oval shape with wings attached at a 45-degree angle. It’s not an excessively large house—it’s no Biltmore—but there are some 23 rooms, including a Library, Music Room, Turkish Smoking Room, Sewing Room, five large bedrooms, and two sleeping porches.

The mansion was designed by architect Edward Foulkes who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the French École des Beaux-Arts. Foulkes had a challenging client in Henry Pittock—Henry wanted an architecturally impressive house with the latest technology, including modern conveniences such as thermostat-controlled central heating, indirect electric lighting, refrigerator room, elevator, and central vacuum system.

In 1914!

Henry Pittock was born in London, but grew up in Pittsburgh; in 1853, when he was 19, Henry Pittock headed west on the Oregon Trail. His is future wife Georgiana Burton left Missouri with her family and headed west a year later. In those days Portland was a frontier “stumptown” so called because in those days the city's growth led residents to clear a lot of land quickly, but the tree stumps were not immediately removed; in some areas, there were so many that people used to jump from stump to stump to avoid the muddy, unpaved roads.

In 1860, Henry and Georgiana married, and he began working as a typesetter at The Oregonian, a local newspaper. The newspaper industry was financially risky, and five months later Henry Pittock was given ownership of the newspaper in exchange for back wages. He went on to transform The Oregonian into a successful daily newspaper that is still printed today.

While a successful newspaper publisher, Henry Pittock also built a financial empire by investing in real estate, banking, railroads, steamboats, sheep ranching, silver mining, and the paper industry. He was an avid outdoorsman, bicycle enthusiast, and was among the first group to climb Mount Hood. Georgiana Pittock became a founder and fundraiser for many charities and cultural organizations, such as the Ladies Relief Society, Women’s Union, and the Martha Washington Home, a residence for single, self-supporting women.

After forty years of marriage, Henry Pittock started planning his “mansion on the hill”; construction began in 1912 and Henry and Georgiana moved into the home in 1914 with eight other members of the family. Sadly, the Pittocks only lived in the Mansion for roughly four years before they died, but their family continued to live in the home into the 1950s. In 1958, Henry Pittock’s grandson Peter Gantenbein and his father, Edward, moved out and put the Mansion up for sale.

Sitting empty for four years, the Mansion was hit by the Columbus Day Storm in October 1962. Hurricane-force winds damaged roof tiles and window panes and allowed water to infiltrate the Mansion. By 1964, the Mansion was in poor condition and developers expressed interest in tearing it down and turning the estate into a subdivision.

Luckily the people of Portland weren’t having that, and they raised the funds to purchase the property for just $225,000. They then set about restoring the Mansion and transforming it from a private residence to a public space and in 1965 the Pittock Mansion opened to the public as a historic house museum.

Story via Pittock Mansion

Forty-Nine Years Ago, Today

It was forty-nine years ago today … a lifetime to some of us, a minute to some others … but it marked a turning point for the LGBT community. It marked one of the first, and definitely the loudest, times that gay men and women stood up en masse and said:

“No. We will not be treated like this any longer!”

The weekend of June 27-29, 1969 began what is considered to be the modern-day LGBT movement. Oh sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, over how it started, over how it ended. But the main thing we need all remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBT community to be considered equal in the eyes of America.

It all began Friday, June 27, 1969, when the world was still mourning the death of Judy Garland a week earlier. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day LGBT Rights Movement?

There are many people who have speculated that Garland's death did push the gay community into the streets of New York City that night, but it was also hot, and some folks say it was the heat that spurred the fight.

I think maybe it was both Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that our brothers and sisters had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how to live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough; finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city was routinely raided by the police, and, typically, the more “deviant” patrons — the drag queens and the butch lesbians, especially if they were black — were the ones who were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one into the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar.

But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars … or maybe it was seeing drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons.

Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian, but someone defied the police that night … someone had finally had enough.

The crowd — well over a hundred people by now — suddenly exploded; people began hurling coins at police officers, and then moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed-into-submission homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks, but this group was too sad and too hot and too angry to be pushed down again, and police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, raced down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall; someone began chanting:

"Gay Power!"

And then the riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration; it took them over an hour to disperse the crowd and, in an effort to taunt their attackers, a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls

We wear our hair in curls

We wear no underwear

We show our pubic hair

We wear our dungarees

Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29. The crowds fought, rioted, screamed and chanted, and the police squads worked to arrest who they could and send the others home.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense in the gay community of what could be accomplished if we banded together, if we came out, if we were seen, if we were heard.

Being angry created a new day, and a month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days and weeks following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. We were no longer marginalized in society; we were out; we were proud; we weren’t going to sit by and watch our brothers and sisters be treated as less than any longer.

Since that weekend, marches have taken place in New York City — and all over the world — every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged in Greenwich Village to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary and in 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started; the death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

Forty-nine years ago, today.

Still, the march, and the fight goes on; we’ve seen so many changes in these last decades; equality; marriage; non-discrimination laws. But we’ve also seen hatred, and, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen our brothers and sisters gunned down in another club, another bar, perhaps simply for being gay and out and open.

And so, we’ll pick up again, and we’ll continue to fight against that hatred, and we’ll continue to stand with, and for, our community, and let everyone know that we are here, and we are queer.

Get used to it.

Tuesday Thought #4

Tuesday Thought #3

Tuesday Thought #2

Tuesday Thought #1

In Case You Were Wondering,THIS Is White Privilege

Last week Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke sentenced former University of Wisconsin-Madison student t Alec Cook to three years in prison for sexually assaulting three female students and choking or stalking two others.

He physically assaulted five women and gets three years.

Oh, yeah, he’s white. Oh, and Judge Ehlke also sentenced Cook to eight years of extended supervision once he's released from prison.

How.Awful.

Prosecutors were seeking 19 years behind bars; defense attorneys sought probation. For assaulting two women, and sexually assaulting three women.

Judge Ehlke, who is clearly an asshat, says he gave Alec Cook credit for having no criminal record, no bail violations and for sparing the victims a trial by pleading guilty.

Wait. What? Um, he has a criminal record, because he’s a rapist and assaults women; and he clearly asked for no trial because he’s clearly guilty.

And there’s more than just these five women. Cook was initially charged with more than 20 crimes against nearly a dozen women, including disorderly conduct and felony sexual assault for incidents between September 2014 and October 2016.

So, um, Judge Ehlke, he did have a criminal past, right? But Ehlke also said this sentence, this light sentence, this slap on the wrist, would give closure to his victims.

Yes. Seriously. Even more insane is that, in court, Alec Cook cried a little as he apologized to the women he attacked and told them that what happened was not their fault. So, clearly, he thought, or thinks, that women sometimes “ask for it”:

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. You told the truth, and everyone should believe you. This is my fault. You didn't deserve this. And neither did your families. To them, too, I'm so sorry."

One victim said told the court:

"Part of me died in order to survive that night with him and that part of me will never grow back." 

But Alec Cook will be out of jail in less than three years.

Meanwhile … also last week, Judge Ruben Gonzalez sentenced Crystal Mason, a Texas woman … a black woman … to five years in prison for voting illegally because she was a felon on probation.

See, that says to me that, in America, if you’re a white man, you can stalk, harass, assault, choke, strangle or rape up to a dozen women and get three years, but if you’re a black woman on probation for a felony and you vote in an election, you get five years.

That’s white privilege in America.

And it’s ugly.

Alec Cook

Crystal Mason

Finally, Some Justice For Gabriel Fernandez

I first wrote about 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez about three-and-a-half years ago—see that post HERE.

One day Pearl Fernandez and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, caught Gabriel playing with dolls; the next day they sent him to school in a dress.

After that Gabriel Fernandez was regularly beaten by his mother and Aguirre; they hit him with a baseball bat—knocking out several of his teeth—and they shot him in the groin with a BB in the groin; he was doused with pepper spray; he was forced to eat his own vomit; he was locked in a cabinet with a sock stuffed in his mouth; he was whipped with a belt.

All because Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre thought he was gay.

On May 22, 2013, Gabriel was taken to his room by his mother while Isauro followed with a baseball bat. One of his siblings later said you could hear Gabriel screaming, and then suddenly it stopped.

Pearl Fernandez called 911 that day to report that Gabriel was not breathing, and when paramedics arrived they found Gabriel in his bedroom naked, with a cracked skull, several broken ribs, and BB pellets in his lung and groin.

Gabriel Fernandez died two days later.

And now, finally, all these many months later Isauro Aguirre has been sentenced to death for Gabriel’s murder, while Pearl Fernandez was given life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Now, normally I am no proponent of the death penalty but in this case … I am not very bothered by it at all.

He was eight. He was brutalized by the one person who should have loved him the most, and he was brutalized by her boyfriend while she watched.

Several California children and family agencies investigated abuse allegations leading up to Gabriel's death, and investigators concluded there was no evidence of abuse.

Prosecutors have since filed charges of child abuse and falsifying records against four county social workers in Gabriel's death.

Good.

Doing nothing is the same as handing Isauro Aguirre a baseball bat.

Take just a minute today and think about Gabriel, especially with all those children at the border who have lost their families because of this administration.

We must do better, if only for the children. 

NBC News

The Funny Papers

Clay Bennett, Matt Davies, Darrin Bell, Kevin Siers, Steve Sack, David Horsey, Chris Britt, Ed Hall, Michael de Adder, Rob Rogers

It's Snarkurday!

Poor Catherine Zeta-Jones. I’m so glad she’s taken her life back and decided to finally stop feeling bad about being a beautiful rich white woman.

While promoting the Facebook series Queen America … whatever that is … the 48-year-old [?] CZJ is finally taking off the shackles of being humble:

“One thing I’m not is humble any more. I’m sick of being humble. I really am. ‘So sorry I’m rich, so sorry I’m married to a movie star, so sorry I’m not so bad looking. No sorrys. Enough. All that is important to me now is my work. That’s what I love and the rest of my life is a joy because I’ve got two beautiful kids and a healthy, happy husband. It’s all good, and I’m not going to be humble for that either.”

Sorry you’re a self-entitled bitch. Now, go.

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Speaking of going, Liza would like anyone who wants to talk about Renée Zellweger playing her Mama, Judy Garland, in the upcoming Judy, to step aside as she has no time for you.

Recently Radar Online posted a story entitled Renée Zellweger Bonds With Liza Minnelli While Playing Mom Judy Garland In Biopic and Liza decided to Oh Hell no that yarn because, as Mimi once said famously of JLo:

“I don’t know her.”

Liza says:

“I have never met nor spoken to Renee Zellweger… I don’t know how these stories get started, but I do not approve.”

Radar has since removed the story.

Liza didn’t explain why she’s opposed to Judy, but maybe the continued exploitation of her Mama is still too much … or maybe the post was actually written by one Anne Hathaway, who’d hoped to play Judy in her own d-i-sastrous film.

Just sayin’.

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Roseanne Barr is still trying to defend being a racist Twitter troll.

First was the Ambien defense.

Then came the It was a joke defense.

Then there was the idea that she thought Valerie Jarrett was of Saudi and Jewish descent which makes it okay to call her a Muslim ape.

And now this …

“Thomas Muhammad has agreed to speak for me, as he knows the work I have done in civil rights against racism ALL MY LIFE & understands my tweet was about Iran's regime, not race-The website is: http://www.bbunity.com.”

Then she added:

“Rod Serling wrote Planet of The Apes. It was about anti-Semitism. That is what my tweet referred to-the anti-Semitism of the Iran deal. Low IQ ppl can think whatever they want.”

Or people who know a racist tool when they see one.

Go sit by CZJ and wait for the bus to nowhere; you have a seat in the back.

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Clearly this is about keeping the Cosby Coins, but rumor has it that Camille Cosby is finally ready to divorce her sexual predator husband, Bill.

Once upon a time, Camille tried to say the dozens and dozens and dozens of sexual misconduct and rape allegations against her husband were a witch hunt akin to the murder of Emmet Till—yes, she sank that low—but now Camille has apparently left Bill’s side and is staying in their Massachusetts manse all alone …well, alone with her chef, her drivers, and her three grown children.

Bill is staying in Pennsylvania awaiting sentencing.

It smells to me like the divorce is a ploy to get the Jell-O money and hand it to Camille and the kids so when those dozens and dozens of civil suits are filed Mrs. C won’t be a broke-ass b*tch.

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Neil Patrick Harris wasn’t at the Tony Awards last weekend, but he still shot off a series of live Tweets, one of which was one of those Mimi-JLo lines … “I don’t know her” … things aimed at “backstage host” Rachel Bloom. Sadly, the joke fell flat and Bloom wasn’t feeling the NPH hate; she told GQ:

“No, no, no. It wasn’t a joke  … I saw that tweet. And I was kind of devastated. I was actually going to tweet, “This makes me sad.” But then I was like, “Ehhhhhhhhhh … I don’t want to give him that, necessarily.” Look. I’ve met him a couple times. Very recently, backstage in the dressing room of a Broadway show. And we hung out for a solid 15 minutes with the star of this Broadway show. It was just bizarre to me that it wouldn’t ring a bell. And also, that he wouldn’t Google it.”

Oh, and Bloom’s husband was a writer on NPH’s old show How I Met Your Mother And the two have met … several times. But then Bloom threw her own shade back at NPH:

“But look, he’s not a writer, so his version of a Twitter joke is to just kind of … live-comment to Twitter followers with kind of random, unformed thoughts. And fame does that to you—where you think every kind of random, unformed thought is a gem, because you get 10,000 likes from it. “

NPH felt the heat and, of course, Twit-pologized:

“Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet. I failed to research her before pressing ‘send’, and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have known better.”

Rachel has accepted his apology and once again all is right in the universe! At least on Broadway!

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Judith Nathan Giuliani is about to quit a bitch … a bitch called Rudy …and she is talking no prisoners.

See, according to Judy, Rudy has ALLEGEDLY been boning one Maria Rosa Ryan since right before he kicked Wife #3 to the curb. Judy filed for divorce five days after Rudy and The Side-Piece were spotted getting cozy at a ­hotel in Maine. No word on whether Maria has filed for divorce, though.

No word on why anyone would ever marry Rudy Giuliani, much less him anywhere near you. I get the skeeves just seeing his picture.

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So, speaking of marriages on the Rocks … the rumor going around is that after 19 years of marriage, Victoria Beckham and David Beckham are done after a rumor broke that Beckham had bent it into one of their daughter’s teachers.

Now, both their reps—they each have their own, nothing to see there—have denied the tryst, and point out that Posh and Becks, and their brood, are set to do a photo shoot for Vogue. And, while that may seem like they’re staying together for the kids, others say they’re staying together for the coins … 500 million of them.

Anyone can have kids, but it takes a lot of work to earn a half-billion dollars and who wants to part with even half of that?

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Oh Jeff Lewis, that mouth of yours.

Lewis, the star of Bravo’s Flipping Out and his partner, Gage Edward, hired a woman to be their surrogate and carry their daughter Monroe. It all worked out fine and made for a Very Special Episode of Flipping Out but … now the surrogate, Alexandra Trent, is suing Jeff and Gage, and she has a mighty fine case.

It seems that the relationship between the Daddy’s and The Surrogate went south after Lewis made an off-color joke about Trent’s vagina while she was giving birth to his child:

“If I was a surrogate, and I had known there was going to be an audience, I probably would have waxed. And that was the shocking part for Gage. I don’t think Gage had ever seen a vagina, let alone one that big.”

So last week, Alexandra Trent filed suit claiming that Lewis and Edward had humiliated her and left her “deeply damaged” by making the “disgusting” comment on the show; she also accused Bravo and Flipping Out producers Authentic Entertainment of filming her vagina without permission, claiming that she had never given consent to have her delivery filmed and that it “caused incredible anguish, self-loathing, contempt and depression.”

I think she has a strong case, though I cannot imagine that she had no idea that Jeff Lewis is kind of a pig who says inappropriately rude things to anyone and everyone all the time.

Still, I sense Jeff Lewis will be a surrogate for Alexandra Trent’s bank account.

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Another shocking marital break-up in Hollywood.

Jenny Garth’s third husband, actor Dave Abrams, has filed for divorce just shy of the second anniversary.

Jennie and Dave met on a blind date in late 2014 and were engaged four months later, then married two months after that, so they’re used to doing things fast … date, proposal, marriage, divorce in under four years!

When Dave filed for divorce he requested that Jennie be denied spousal support though he said that, ahem, “everything is chill” between the splitting up couple and that they would “remain friends.” 

Maybe not; last week Jennie filed a response to Dave’s divorce and asked the court to terminate any ability Dave might have of requesting spousal support, citing that the 37-year-old actor signed a prenuptial agreement.

She still has 90210 coins, you know, and doesn’t want Dave’s greasy hands on them because, well, who the f%k is Dave Abrams? Dave’s acting resume is slim at best; he has played “cool guy” on one episode of 2 Broke Girls and has a few “uncredited” roles …Hollywood-speak for “extra.”

Meanwhile she was Kelly Taylor! Know what I mean?

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Wait, what? Jason Mraz is a bi guy?

Well, the 40-year-old Mraz has been a longtime supporter of the LBGTQ community and recently wrote a love poem to our people for Billboard and Pride Month in which he includes the line:

“I am bi your side.”

Play on words or into more than one gender? Jason’s hinted several times in the past that he’d be fine with trying out a gay … raises hand … and was maybe, kinda, sorta, about dating his gay best friend back in 2005:

“It wasn’t until we were out for dinner on Valentines Day that I realized we both we’re having a very romantic time together. Right before I moved to California he gave me a strong-willed kiss goodbye, which I have never experienced before. Unfortunately, he had a little bit more facial hair than I like.”

Here’s Mraz’s full poem:

“Dear You,
Thank you.
You have inspired me.
Re-wired me.
You showed me what strength is.
You demonstrated courage over and over again.
You risked so much for love.
You never compromised your expression
Even when
Your rights and freedoms were being compromised.
You stood up for me.
You stood up for the world.
And now the world is better because of you.
We still have a long way to go
But know
I am bi your side.
All ways.”

Am I gonna have to head to the warehouse for a toaster oven, Jason?

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Go ahead laugh, but we’ve already elected one dimwitted asshat of a reality star as president so is the idea that one Kim Kardastrophe-West might run for office one day too far-fetched?

Kardastrophe-West recently stepped into the spotlight of the ACLU by getting herself some airtime as the savior who freed Alice Marie Johnson, non-violent drug offender who was serving a disproportionate-to-the-crime life sentence without the possibility of parole. And she …or maybe it was her giant ass … convinced _____ to commute Johnson’s sentence and now she has told CNN that she wouldn’t say no to running for POTUS.

Seriously. Don’t think it can’t happen?  And think about Kanye as the First Lunatic!

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