When the Pearl District's 72-year-old Lovejoy Ramp comes
down this summer, most people will care only how the change
affects their commute. But a handful of Portlanders will
be more worried about the ghost of Tom Stefopoulos.
Stefopoulos was a sign painter and Greek immigrant
who worked as a watchman at a railroad crossing near
the ramp in the 1940s. Between trains, he painted murals
on 10 of the columns that support the ramp. Renegade
art that was never commissioned or approved, the works
depict Greek myths and historical figures like the Greek
philosopher Diogenes--commanding images with a legendary
power to charm the people who have seen them.
"Members of the community have always loved those columns,"
says the Portland Department of Transportation's Vicky
Diede, who is managing the ramp's removal as part of
the River District redevelopment project. "They keep
watch of them and make sure that they're not being vandalized."
They also intervened several years ago when volunteers
with the city Maintenance Bureau painted over some of
the murals, mistaking them for graffiti.
Now, with ramp demolition planned for mid-July, Portlanders
are once again rushing to the columns' defense, this
time with a plan to remove and re-erect them as public
art. But what makes the columns so appealing--being
unofficial works in an unexpected place--is what makes
saving them difficult: Who owns uncommissioned public
art? What is the process for preserving it? And where
does the money to do it come from?
So far, the most active of the column-huggers are about
as official as Stefopoulos' murals were in the first
place. Architecture and design firm RIGGA has been advocating
the preservation of the columns for over a year. "Our
duty as artists is to make these columns current," says
RIGGA's James Harrison. "We want to take something that's
no longer useful one way and give it a new function
as art."
Harrison and his partners have volunteered hundreds
of hours researching ways to protect the columns during
demolition, store them safely and then re-erect them.
Art conservator Claire Dean has also donated many hours
to a professional assessment of the columns. "They're
truly urban folk art," Dean says. "[Stefopoulos] was
making art in his environment...that urban landscape."
Harrison and Dean have won allies in the parks department,
the Portland Development Commission, the Regional Arts
and Culture Council and the mayor's office. But the
columns are currently managed by the city transportation
department, and art preservation is not its focus. Although
PDOT has required the demolition contractor to save
the columns, it hasn't indicated how it should be done.
RIGGA, Dean, the arts and culture council and others
have stressed the importance of certain requirements,
such as encasing the columns during demolition, keeping
the bases and crowns of the columns intact and having
a professional art conservator on site.
But PDOT isn't making any promises. Diede cites two
reasons: liability and feasibility. First, she says,
demolition methods must remain in the hands of the contractor.
"If we dictated what the process should be...we're liable,
not them," she explains. Diede also says it must be
left up to the contractor to decide whether saving the
bases and tops of the columns is physically feasible.
RIGGA has consulted with demolition experts who say
it is possible, just more costly--and that could be
obstacle enough.
Another concern is that PDOT has not built in substantial
incentives to protect the columns. If the columns are
damaged beyond repair, the contractor will be liable
for $4,000 per column. Instead of having the value of
the columns assessed by an art expert, PDOT figured
an increase over what engineers estimated it would cost
to cut the columns free from the ramp ($1,500 each).
But with the total demolition contract estimated at
$919,000, that's a minimal penalty. In theory, the contractor
could demolish all 10 columns, owe $40,000 in penalties
but save $15,000, thereby losing only $25,000 (or less
than 4 percent of the total contract).
On Friday, the column-huggers received what looked
to be good news when the "apparent winner" of the demolition
contract was announced. The winning low bid, by Staton
Company of Eugene, was $175,000 under budget, which
could leave funds for implementing the preservationists'
recommendations. But according to Diede, the next-lowest
bid was $300,000 higher, meaning PDOT must now carefully
evaluate Staton's proposal to make sure it is feasible.
Meanwhile, there is no money budgeted for what happens
after the demolition: the restoration and re-erection
of the columns, which RIGGA estimates will cost another
$750,000. As WW noted in 1995, the original ramp-demolition
budget included $22,400 for preserving the murals. But
inflation has increased other costs, Diede says, forcing
the city to eliminate this item from the budget.
Art conservator Dean, who in 1995 managed the restoration
of the Astoria Column, a 125-foot outdoor pillar painted
with scenes of Oregon history, says a nonprofit organization
could raise money for the columns. "From the very beginning
I've been trying to push this idea that we need to have
a sort of Friends of the Lovejoy Ramp," she says.
Luckily, the columns have some powerful friends already,
including the Pearl District Neighborhood Association,
Portland's Greek community, developer Homer Williams
and Mayor Katz. "This is in the urban renewal district,
where there's a lot of construction going on. We may
be able to capture some Percent for Art [funding],"
Katz points out. "I do believe that we ought to save
those columns. We'll see what we can do."
But the most powerful friend of the columns may be
a man who's been dead for 28 years, a protector who's
as mythological as the murals themselves. Recently,
a call for information about the columns in the art
and culture council's newsletter yielded a photo of
Tom Stefopoulos.
"The myth is that some transient guy painted these
things, but you see him in this picture, and he's a
very proud-looking man," Harrison says. "He's holding
a stop sign. It's like his ghost came back to save the
columns."
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 16, 1999
