Walking down Charnelton Street in downtown Eugene, a student in his early twenties wearing khaki shorts and a brown T-shirt puts a glass pipe to his lips, sparks his lighter and draws in the marijuana smoke.
It’s 2 p.m. on a Saturday, it’s as bright as can be and cars and bikes are buzzing around him. But he’s not concerned with the 20 or so faces he’s walking past while smoking, the majority of which are frozen mid-smile.
These smiling faces are the people city officials wanted to represent Eugene, not the student smoking a bowl of pot in the middle of the afternoon.
The images of people he’s walking past are children playing in a pool, friends toasting a glass of wine, bike riders, chefs and artists. But they are hiding one of Eugene’s dirty little secrets.
The Eugene 08 organizers, in collaboration with city government, the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and a local graphic design firm, created a giant mesh piece of wrapping paper.
On it was placed dozens of nearly four-foot high photographs of local people engaged in various activities. For the most part they all look happy, making Eugene feel like a warm, inviting place.
The mesh screen, however, is wrapped around a chain-link fence, which is surrounding the giant pit where Sears used to be located on 10th Avenue and Charnelton Street, across the street from the Eugene Public Library.
The happy-looking Eugeneans captured in the pictures were meant to give the downtown area a facelift and show a jovial version of the city to visitors here for the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials.
But it’s also hiding the pit, a pockmark scarring the face of Eugene’s downtown area.
The screen hiding the old pit isn’t the only window dressing used to spruce up downtown. The same giant pictures with the sky-blue background that run around the pit hang inside the windows of vacant buildings.
Extra flower pots bursting with purple, red and pink petals were draped from light posts, and some 800 Trials flags were placed around the Eugene-Springfield area. Power-washing efforts to clean the downtown streets were ramped up, and recycling containers were placed around town.
“This is all certainly not a solution … but my attitude, and certainly the attitude of the city, is to do what you can do to make the place look better,” said Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce.
Many employees working in the downtown area agree with Hauser and appreciate the efforts the city has made.
“It’s obvious there’s just a big hole there, but it did help, and it looks really nice,” said Debbie Boyd, co-owner of Hutch’s Bicycles, located on Charnelton Street directly across from the empty pit.
The Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts gallery, or DIVA as it’s more commonly known, sits on Broadway, just around the corner from Hutch’s. A few steps down the sidewalk are empty stores with pictures of happy, local people smiling from the front windows, hiding the hollow interiors.
Katura Reynolds, the DIVA’s exhibit director, said the facelift is a positive move by the city. It’s the idea of being the change you wish to see in the world, she said.
Reynolds did acknowledge that the city’s efforts were more for the tourists coming to town than the locals already living here, but said “it’s like when guests come over and you frantically vacuum the whole house. Then you step back and look at it and say ‘Wow, this looks really good.’”
To hide the other pit blighting downtown, located on Willamette Street between Broadway and 10th Avenue, the city put up a large, wooden mural painted by local residents.
Kristi Koons, chair of the DIVA media arts committee, helped paint the mural, and said it was meant to show a vision of what they hope Eugene will look like some day.
The mural is a collage of laughter, bright colors, flowers, fruit and people getting along with one another.
While the alley leading up to the Sears pit is free of trash, the stench of urine is soaked into the concrete. Tenth Avenue, running between the library and the pit, is broken, with cracks running through it like spider veins. Two homeless teenagers shout profanities at one another in front of the library and shove each other around.
While city officials and Trials organizers have tried to show visitors one version of downtown, the streets ooze with the reality of another downtown, the reality locals see everyday that isn’t put on a picture around a chain link fence.
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