When I spotted the half-size, retro, gas pump in the parking strip on NE 52nd Avenue and Siskiyou, I thought it was a clever way to house an EV charging station. I crossed the street and introduced myself to the two men standing near the pump. Larry Varney, (an older man, i.e., around my age), and his son, Lauren, corrected my assumption.
Lauren directed my gaze to the side of the pump facing the sidewalk. Hand-lettered on a door the full height of the metal structure were the words, “Larry’s Car Library,” with directions to the passerby: “take one … swap one … leave one …”
Lauren opened the door.
Inside was every matchbox-car-collector’s dream: at least 30 miniature vehicles in a rainbow of colors resting on shelves of varying heights. A fragment of a red plastic racetrack curved down through the structure to an assortment of cars on the pump’s floor. “Did you make this?” I asked. Lauren replied he had.
Lauren, who grew up in the Alameda/Sabin neighborhood, is a contractor and artist whose work features welding, fabrication, and design. “Larry’s Car Library” belongs to an Instagram group in the Portland area called “Sidewalk Joy.” Lauren’s other installation, “The Car Library” on NE 20th between Fremont Street and Ridgewood Drive is also featured there. “You need to talk to Rachael, the group’s founder,” Lauren said.
Rachael Harms Mahlandt lives in southeast Portland with her husband and their two young children. She does marketing for non-profits and is an artist. When she made a dinosaur diorama, she wanted to create a space where fans of dinosaurs could not only exchange dinosaurs, but also view her diorama online.
So, Rachael set up @pdxdinorama on Instagram to feature her Dino Exchange on the corner of SE 78th and Morrison Street. She has since also installed an “Ultra Tiny Library” that houses her ultra-tiny books. Rachael saw that other installations existed throughout her neighborhood, so in early 2023 she joined forces with Grant Brady, the curator of Instagram site, @pdxflag, to create a map of Portland’s curated galleries, exchanges, and displays.
Now the public can easily locate Sidewalk Joy kiosks throughout Portland, though most are on the east side of the city.
Sidewalk Joy and other such groups claim a goal similar to that of the City Repair Project, the originator of the Little Free Library: “to repair the soul of a city through the creative reclamation of public space.”
To Rachael, these art installations are “Third Places” — a term that refers to spaces such as parks, coffee houses, community centers, and places of worship. Such spaces facilitate social interaction, building community by operating on implied trust between (in the case of Sidewalk Joy) the artist and the public without formal protections for either party. Rachael’s dream is that a child can grow up where such a community is the norm.
“What happens,” I asked them both, “if your installation is subject to theft or vandalism?”
Lauren doesn’t worry about it. He does not “create anything with the fear that it will be stolen or vandalized,” though he does make things difficult to walk away with. “But that’s because it needs to be safe and secure, not because I’m worried.” (My husband pointed out that Lauren’s Car Library is mounted on an old car axle).
Rachael acknowledged the risk. “You take a chance. Your heart can be out there, yet we trust in the process. If our work is damaged, we rebuild.”
Pamela Plimpton, a B-W resident since 1980, retired as a professor of English in 2020. Her interests include reading, writing, gardening, and singing with a community chorale. She and her husband enjoy playing golf, working out at the N.E. Community Center, traveling, and grandparenting their granddaughter.