At 9 pm on New Year's eve--a night long to be remembered
more for what
didn't happen than what did--7,000
people in parkas and rain gear turned their eyes to a
JumboTron screen above Yamhill Street and cheered New
Yorkers through their countdown 3,000 miles away. What
can you say when seemingly rational, alcohol-deprived
people stand on a bunch of bricks on a chilly, drizzly
night to watch television and applaud a group of people
who, if time zones were magically reversed, would probably
give Portland a Bronx cheer?
It certainly shoots to earth certain prognosticators
who have long held that a new century, let alone a new
millennium, would herald the Apocalypse or Paradise.
And it was but an hors d'oeuvre for a hungry skeptic.
Over the next three hours, 43,000 more people wedged
into Pioneer Courthouse Square, expecting high drama
but waiting for someone else to light the fuse.
Sure, 200 police were ready for anyone with a Doomsday
agenda. The events of Seattle remain fresh in everyone's
mind; federal law-enforcement agencies have issued warnings
that creepy people are abroad in the land; it would
have taken but one wing nut in a Ryder truck packed
with fertilizer to plow up Broadway and spell end times
for all concerned.
But the vast police presence never felt oppressive.
The officers wore thick jackets, peaked caps and (excluding
a few grouches) sunny attitudes. "Bombs over here,"
one officer joked at an entryway where police were patting
down the celebrants. The most officers had to contend
with was one lout who insisted that a knife is part
of any man's New Year's getup; he was promptly cuffed
and shipped to the Justice Center.
Aside from 20 arrests for minor offenses, no ill behavior
cropped up. No black-hooded anarchists, no protesters
decked out in Third World woolens. After all their training
(which carried the implicit calculus that the new century
+ thousands of people + hundreds of police = civic unrest)
even the cops seemed surprised at how benign everything
was. They spent most of their time fielding suburbanites'
questions about MAX's departure points and what time
the fireworks would erupt. In fact, the crowd was so
well-behaved that an Intel stockholders' meeting could
have broken out.
For true human drama, you had to leave the square and
poke about the 15 closed-off blocks of downtown. Daniel
Lee, a free-agent preacher working Broadway, was the
lone spectacle worth watching. "If you are a fornicator
or a masturbator, repent in the name of Jesus or you
will go to Hell," Lee barked at one young fellow, whose
striped shirt, store-bought tan and plastic bauble necklace
screamed raver from Beaverton High School.
"Hell, I got my pants down, working my tool every day,"
he yelped back.
"The Bible says you are going to Hell," Lee said, pumping
the Big Book into the drizzly night.
"Along with everyone else here," the wise teen counseled.
Although Portland's New Year's 2000 was billed as a
family affair, it smelled mostly like suburban teen
spirit. And though the event was technically alcohol-free,
most of these teens clearly operated under something
for which millennial pep could never account.
Back at the Square, people endured the on-again, off-again
rain and waited for the big moment to pulsing swing
music. When Royal Crown Revue, the $60,000 headliners,
left the stage five minutes shy of midnight, people
were screaming and straining toward that big moment,
if just for the sake of releasing tension.
Then, in a wash of rain: Portland's own midnight countdown.
The crowd politely bonded in a group scream that equaled
what you might hear at a college football game. Fireworks,
low-altitude and feeble, sprouted from the main stage's
apron. A young woman flashed the crowd. Someone tossed
a string of firecrackers into KGW's broadcast position--payback,
no doubt, for hour upon hour of Tracy Barry's otherworldly
perkiness.
And that was that. The wall between old and new breached,
Portlanders and suburbanites alike tromped toward the
bus mall and MAX line under the stare of police, who
had traded their caps for riot helmets.
All told, the price tag for the stage, sound system,
bands, etc., was $434,000, or $8.68 a head. The bulk
came from corporate charity, but $150,000 came directly
from city coffers. While that may have been a wise investment
for a peaceful event filled with temporary bonhomie,
it would be impossible to depart and not acknowledge
that drama had been shortchanged, that the entire time
the keys to the quotidian grind had already been dangling
before each of us.
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 5,
1999
