Seventeen Years Ago in Portland

 I just got a funny email from a woman in Portland, Maine.

Hi Matthew, 

This week I launched my website for Everything Free to Do 24/7 in the Portland, Maine metro area. 

PortlandCheatSheet.com

As I was designing the site over the winter I found one of your images on Wikimedia Commons and (with your continued permission) I plan to permanently anchor it on my photo contest page. 

Each week from now on, I'll be picking a new local picture to feature on the home page. Since I just started the site and don't have any pictures submitted yet I wanted to ask you two things:

1) Can I use your picture on the photo contest page? 

1a) Would you like me to change anything in the byline? 

and 2) Do you have any other cool pics of the Portland metro area? I could certainly use about a dozen until I get some submissions in. 

If you're agreeable, all the details to upload your pictures (including your image) can be found here:

portlandcheatsheet.com/photo-contest

Thanks, and I hope I hear back from you! I love your picture and it's exactly the type of work I'm looking for. 

Taryn B. 

--

Of course I said yes to her request. 

The photo is in the link in the email text. I guess it will remain the featured photo for a week before it is replaced. I wonder if she realizes that I took it seventeen years ago? 

Ironically I was on my way to Portland, Oregon at the time. Among the missions I had set for myself along the way was to document the signage for upcoming 2004 Presidential election between Bush and Kerry,  especially in battleground states like Maine. At the time I really, really cared that Kerry must win. Now all I see is how lost the nation was, and far away we were from national redemption. 

Here's the photo that I took that is currently on the page this week, with the caption below it. I didn't write the caption. I like that it says "ladies." Also it has a poster for a band that came out of the Austin punk scene, and for another famous musician who lives in Phoenix.

 "Two ladies chat outside a coffee house in downtown Portland.

Image courtesy of Matthew Trump, Wikimedia Commons." 

Seventeen years is a long time. Downtown Portland has seen a lot of new stuff. It made me wonder if those businesses still exist. 

A little research told me the the coffeeshop was called "Zarra's Monumental Coffeehouse" and it was at 24 Monument Square. It has been closed for a number of years and is now a grill restaurant. The "Surplus Store" next to it is also been redeveloped as well, according to a photo I found, into a hipster food market. All in all, I like the old version of the street better. The new version is cleaner, but seems more boring and sterile.

Ironically we are planning on being in Portland, Maine in about ten weeks. I guess I can see it for myself, but no Zarra's, of course. Time moves on.