Say wha?
“Horses and women who love them”
-Headline for the front-page story featured on last Sunday’s Oregonian street edition.
In case you’re wondering…
Have you noticed the zippy new look of Flexcar locations around Portland State? No? That’s OK, we didn’t either until recently. It turns out Flexcar, the previous king of Portland car sharing, was bought out by the larger national company called Zipcar late last year. This makes sense. The two companies had similar missions and similar products. Yipee! Corporate mergers rule!
The effect of this merger, besides the slightly changed look of Flexcar spots (they now say Zipcar, in case you were confused), is fairly minimal. So don’t freak out. It’s still a membership service, it still costs about the same amount of money and the process for getting the car works the same. The network of cities that have Zipcar services is much larger however, spanning a greater portion of the United States and including international cities like Toronto and London. Plus the word “zip” is involved, so that’s pretty neat.
What the hell is that?
The Simon Benson House on the corner of Southwest Park and Montgomery doesn’t look like the typical PSU building, but that is exactly what it is.
You may have been to a school function on the bottom floor of the 100-year-old, Queen Anne-style house, or you may have visited the PSU Alumni Association offices on it’s second floor, but you may not have known that in 2000, the house was picked up from its original location, trucked through the streets of Portland and plopped down at it’s current location.
The house was built (obviously) by Portland philanthropist Simon Benson in 1900 on its original location at Southwest 11th Avenue and Clay Street.
But over time–much like Lincoln Hall, Shattuck Hall and freshman dorm rooms–the Simon Benson House fell into disrepair and was condemned in 1991. It was renovated later by the Friends of Simon Benson House and moved to PSU at the end of the last decade where it sits today, hosting school functions and serving as a visitors center for the university.
With the upscale wine drinking functions held there and it’s elegant design, the Simon Benson House is probably the world’s classiest mobile home.