Glenwood Outta Sight
Secret
gardens among trailers and tire shops
By
Orna Izakson
Many people think they know Glenwood. Maybe
you're one of them.
Maybe you think the Glenwood is just the ugly strip
along Franklin Boulevard you see driving between Springfield and Eugene.
Maybe you know it as used car lots, pawn shops, a pizza place, a cut-rate
auto parts store, a bar. Maybe you bring stuff to the dump. Maybe
you don't even stop.
Or maybe you've heard about Glenwood's people, and
maybe what you've heard is bad. Maybe you've heard about poverty and
drugs and trailers and run-down houses with peeling paint.
But if you thought to turn down one of the streets
you barely notice from Franklin or Henderson or Glenwood Boulevard,
you might catch your breath. You might find little bits of magic.
Glenwood's façade hides its heart and happy secrets: The gardens.
The neighbors. The big old trees. The big old lots with (relatively)
affordable houses on them. The way we watch out for each other. The
way we watch out that the powers that leave us alone.
But maybe the biggest secret is this: If you knew
Glenwood, you might wish you lived here, too.
Peas
and Outlaws
Dave Carvo had been on the road in
his mobile home for five years, working construction for five years
when he discovered Glenwood.
"I took a wrong turn one day, ended up in Glenwood,
and it was home," he says. "It has an air of you don't have to fit
a mold. It's always been a place for non-mainstream culture."
The union plumber saw his two-bedroom, 1930s house
listed for sale on the Internet, and put money down without ever seeing
it.
"It would've been bulldozed if I hadn't gotten my
hands on it. By today's property and investment standards, our dirt
in Glenwood is worth more than our houses."
More than anything, living in Glenwood is about the
community here.
"It's a community like the good old days that everybody
wants to go back to," he says, "where you can go over to your neighbor
and borrow something. Most communities today, people don't even know
who their neighbors are."
If you think he's exaggerating, try this: My neighbor
Lisa, who has turned all the open ground on her property into garden
space, walks to the houses of her friends carrying baskets of her
overabundant peas, other produce or flowers. Two neighbors have keys
to Dave's house so they can use his high-efficiency, front-loading
washer and gas dryer.
That community spirit is also what my landlady, Joan
Armstead, likes about Glenwood. She moved away a couple years ago,
but at the end of the summer she says she's coming back. "When you
drive down on Franklin you would never realize that there was a nice
residential area tucked away behind the businesses, where a lot of
the streets give you the felling of walking down a country lane,"
she says.
For Ted Russell, who grew up in Eugene and moved to
Glenwood eight years ago, it's about the old trees. "This is why I
decided to move here, is all the diverse trees. I mean, it was a conscious
decision that I needed to live here."
From his small deck, the handyman/craftsman can see
something like a dozen different species: noble fir, grand fir, Douglas
fir, cedar, quaking aspen, giant native cherry, red alder, black walnut,
a bunch of apples, plum, maple, willow, bing cherry, plum, filbert,
black locust.
"This is one of my favorite places to be," he says.
"Even though you can hear the freeway… or the train going by,
it's still one of the most peaceful, serene places in or around the
Eugene/Springfield area. And we're just right
off Franklin."
The neighborhood is, most people agree, an "eclectic
mix." It's old people and students, hellraisers and artists, classical
musicians and students, activists and teachers.
"Glenwood is where the outlaws go to retire," says
Steve Moe, a lifelong Glenwood resident who lives in the house his
parents built before he was born. He means that in a good way: "It's
people who've been out there and have raised some hell and picked
Glenwood. And they're not going to let it happen any more, the things
they did."
Steve is mostly talking about drugs, but the outlaw
mentality is pervasive here. And while it is mature, it's definitely
not in retirement. For years the area has housed activists, but here
the activists are grownups who generally get along. Glenwood for the
most part gives its residents the respect and tolerance we don't get
from neighbors in Eugene.
Is
it Contagious?
 |
| Dorothy Westover |
In 1954, Dorothy Westover and her husband, Ralph,
saw an ad in the paper for a house on an acre with good garden soil
going for $7,500. Oregon wasn't building housing during World War
II, and the young couple had been living all over, in rented rooms
and the Creswell-area cabin provided to workers like her husband who
built Dorena Dam. They moved in the day before Easter.
"It was the happiest day of my life," she says over
root beer in her immaculate kitchen.
But when her daughters finished their years at the
Glenwood School and went on to Roosevelt High, Dorothy found out what
neighbors in Eugene thought of her bit of paradise.
They called her daughters "Glenwood grease" and "Glenwood
scum." One of the girls skipped school to avoid the taunts. When Dorothy
came to speak with the principal about her daughter's absences, she
heard that her children's dresses were just as nice as the other girls'
— as if that were all that mattered.
"I didn't know Glenwood had such a bad name," she
says. "It always has. I don't know why. I don't like people who are
that judgmental."
She herself found people would shrink back from her
as if she had something contagious when they learned she lived in
Glenwood. As if it were catching.
"But really, anymore I couldn't care less," she says.
"They're not my kind of people."
These days, Dorothy own a big chunk of the heart of
the little residential area that's the core of Glenwood's neighborhood.
She could easily sell it and buy something fabulous up on College
Hill. Given that, would she really rather stay put?
"You bet I would," she says. "I want to live here
the rest of my life. I love my little home."
Knocking
on Doors
There's an axiom here that you have
to live in Glenwood to find a place in Glenwood. You hear through
the grapevine that a house is up for rent, up for sale, and you walk
over and knock on the door. I found the place I live now when I lived
a block from here. Dave, who told me about it, makes a point of knowing
what's open and who's looking.
Dave's house is a good example of the Glenwood Way.
Blacksmith Bear Diriwachter used to live there, but the person he
rented from lost the house to the bank.
"We did everything in our power to keep anyone from
buying it," he says. "We did a good job, too."
As a renter, Bear and his partner were notified whenever
a prospective buyer would come around.
"The neighbors would basically orchestrate chaos,"
he says. "A lot of it just happened naturally. You know, it's Glenwood."
Bear and his partner are buying a house down the street,
from one neighbor and with the help of another.
 |
| Stone worker
Keith Schneider works on a backyard project. |
Then the house behind Dave's, with which he shares
a yard, came up for sale.
Chaone Mallory, her partner and their 2-year-old daughter
were looking for a place they could afford. They couldn't afford very
much, so they ended up in Glenwood.
When Chaone got out of the Realtor's car, Dave was
working on his roof. She called up to him, asking how the neighborhood
was.
"Just fine if you don't mind old hippies, old bikers
and Earth First!ers," he called back down.
Although it would sound good to say so, that's not
why they bought the house. Chaone, who is working on a Ph.D. on ecofeminist
political philosophy at UO, says she had nightmares thinking about
moving to Glenwood, because of its reputation, but it was the best
house in their price range. Since moving, though, her concerns have
faded.
"The neighbors watch out for one another," she says.
"I feel at ease here now."
Some neighbors worry that Glenwood will be discovered
and gentrify. Others aren't afraid.
"Yeah, I want to gentrify Glenwood, but by my standards,"
Bear says. "Gentrification to me is artists and hippies, for this
situation."
Skating
and Zoning
Once upon a time, Franklin Boulevard
was the Pacific Highway, the main drag connecting Seattle and San
Diego. It curved through vineyards and orchards where the Willamette
River turns south in Glenwood.
The area remained largely undeveloped for years because
of the flooding that came before the dams locked up the river. The
area was something of a Seavey Loop with car campgrounds for the travelers
— a business that could easily survive the floods by simply
moving the cars on.
In 1935, residents built a four-room schoolhouse on
Franklin. Nearby James Park was the first in the Willamalane Park
District. In 1940 there were 1,800 people living in Glenwood. Across
the river, Springfield's population wasn't much higher, just 3,800.
In the 1940s, one of Glenwood's three grocery stores was the number-two
grossing market in all of Oregon.
Children spent their summers in the social scene of
the bean fields, picking their money for school clothes, or skating
in circles at the hexagonal roller rink near the school. All around
were orchards of apples, peaches, filberts and grapes all in a row.
The big supermarket burned down on New Year's Day
1950. The auto courts morphed into trailer parks. In the 1960s, an
agreement with Eugene closed the school and began busing the children
to Laurel Valley, then to Eugene proper, and taking a piece of Glenwood's
heart away with them.
As Springfield grew, Glenwood stagnated. The school
ground is now the drain field for a river-front trailer park where
few residents can actually see the water. Midway Manor, another trailer
park, covers soil that fed Davidson Bean Yard in the '40s. Only a
handful of new houses have been built in the last three or four decades.
Senate Bill 100's land-use rules were implemented
in the early 1980s, Glenwood ended up under Eugene's jurisdiction
because of its historic relationship through the schools and because,
Steve Moe says, Springfield couldn't afford it. "It was sort of a
joke over there that the loser would get Glenwood." A Nov. 30, 1997
Page One headline in The Register-Guard called Glenwood
the "area's urban orphan."
Eventually Glenwood moved into Springfield's urban
growth boundary, slated to fill in eventually as population grows.
Commercial parts of Glenwood that already had sewer lines —
along Glenwood Boulevard and some of Franklin — have been annexed,
but the residential areas retain their independence.
The fight over moving Glenwood into Springfield's
jurisdiction was a clear sign that even if the area lost its school,
its roller rink and its supermarket, Glenwood wasn't just going to
fade away. In among the acre-lots, the gardens, the rose-fenced horse
paddock, there's still a strong neighborhood that will fight for its
survival.
In many ways, the battle over the move was a battle
over political affinities: Some wanted to stay with left-leaning Eugene,
others with more conservative Springfield.
It also was a battle over development. Springfield
may be less likely to force annexation on the area than Eugene's track
record would suggest: "Springfield just has no interest in forcible
annexing people," says Mark Metzger, a senior planner with Springfield.
"That's just been the philosophy of our City Council."
But the council's concerns about property rights lead
some Glenwood residents to worry that anyone with money to develop
will be able to build whatever they want and
Glenwood — and especially its riverfront — will become
a sacrifice zone.
Dorothy's been bitten by those concerns, too. "I think
sometime there's going to be someone coming in and want the land,"
she says. "And if they have the influence, they take it whether you
want it or not."
But as one of the largest residential property owners
in the area, and seen as a shrewd businesswoman, Dorothy has many
of her neighbors worried. Will she sell the heart of the residential
area and condemn the rest of us to an industrial park?
"That is the furthest thing from my mind," she says.
"My biggest fear is that they'd come in and condemn the property and
then get it for nothing."
She says she'd fight such a move, if it came to that.
Prime
Glenwood Soil
Dave and I go out for burritos and
then drive to a locked gate at the south end of Henderson. There's
a big chunk of land by the railroad tracks, all gravel and weeds.
I pick daisies and vetch and cornflowers from a field like a kid spending
her long, dull, hot summer in what nature she can find. He points
up. This area drains Moon Mountain, he says, into what's left of Glenwood
Slough. ODOT plans to build a maintenance facility here, where they'll
maintain their trucks and store the poisons they use for de-icing,
weed killing and keeping their vehicles running.
 |
| Sue Schneider |
We find the shocking pink end of a newly planted 2x2
sticking up in the gravel, a marker for the building going in this
year. A kick at the top inch shows it's planted deep.
Back at the car we turn around and quickly turn left
onto graveled a short, graveled street. The house on the corner is
unexceptionally Glenwood, but I catch my breath as we pass what must
be an acre of flowers and food.
"This is really nice," I exclaim, surprised, and then
I laugh. That's precisely my point about Glenwood: You look at it
and think it's ramshackle, maybe it's kind of scary. Then you turn
a corner and find an almost rural gem. There are about seven houses
tucked in here, shaded by trees. It's near the tracks like everything
in Glenwood, but you can't see them through the thick, tall growth.
First thing Springfield did when they took over here,
Dave says, is zoned this light industrial. That means the woman with
the flowers couldn't divide her land for another house. Or, at least,
it would make it much harder.
It's precisely this kind of thing that feeds the neighborhood's
fears about Springfield, that they want to turn us into an industrial
park. It's also not precisely true.
"Glenwood has always had that paranoia, even when
it was in Eugene," Steve says. "It sort of seems to be an ongoing
urban legend."
Several years ago, Glenwood residents got together
to write up their own plan for the area's development, and that plan
and the zoning it put in place transferred from Eugene to Springfield.
The owners on 18th Street have a kind of mixed zoning, Steve says,
which allows them to choose, lot by lot, whether to stay residential
or go industrial. Most of the neighbors at the time wanted that, except
for one who moved in late in the process.
"I wish we'd listened to him," Steve says. "Because
he was right."
The impact of light industrial development along Henderson
was more disruptive than people there expected, he says
Part of the shame of it, too, is that this is prime
agricultural land, even if Oregon's land-use rules say it should eventually
become city since it's sandwiched in between Eugene and Springfield.
The area around Steve's house and business was all
a vineyard when he was a kid.
"Underneath this is still that prime Glenwood soil,"
he says. "Someday, it'll probably be a long time, but we'll be farming
it again."
Drugs
and Irises
Yes, there are blocks, or sections
of blocks, known to be problems, just as you would find anywhere.
But that's a mask, too, hiding the neighborhood and its community
as effectively as the ugly facades along Franklin do.
"It's kind of like New York City," Joan says. "When
I visited there I found you could just walk across some streets and
find a totally different socio-economic subculture."
The old buildings may look disheveled, but many hide
secrets: the perfect, Glenwood-wrought stone fountain, a flower and
herb garden that could be straight out of Sunset magazine or
Better Homes and Gardens. People invest in Glenwood, if not
necessarily monetarily on the outside of their houses.
Make no mistake. A lot of houses have long since broken
their last legs. Some meth labs are likely left, or dealers, or both,
despite a big drive by the neighbors six or seven years ago. Joan,
who fought the meth labs, got busted herself for growing pot (for
her personal use).
There are many unpermitted dwellings here, most of
which fly below official radar. "We don't go for building permits
here, we just do it," Steve says.
Dorothy keeps her house locked, even when she's out
cutting her extravagant irises, roses and lilies,
or the coral bells she got from her mother. And she admits the neighborhood
is and always has been a mix of good and bad.
"I think it's got wonderful, wonderful people," she
says of Glenwood. "It's a shame there are druggies, but they're in
the best of neighborhoods."
Dorothy's got that right. Most neighborhoods have
some of the worst problems you can find in Glenwood.
But how many can boast Glenwood's riches?
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