9A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2018
Building: Historic property in local hands
Continued from Page 1A
electrical systems or aesthetic changes.
The building has been neglected for years,
they said, and they will have to look into
replacing historic windows, among other
costly repairs.
They said they will not pass these costs
onto tenants. The building houses a coffee
shop, an antique store and a gift store that
features local artists, as well as the Asto-
ria Arts and Movement Center, which has
operated there for six years.
The tenants shouldn’t have to pay for
a previous landlord’s neglect, Mazzarella
said. They plan to keep all the current ten-
ants in place and bring in a new tenant.
The Odd Fellows Building was at the
center of a fierce debate last year about
gentrification and differing views on what
Astoria needs.
Portland-area entrepreneur Tacee Webb
attempted to buy the building last summer.
She created a stir in the community with
her statements about the building, Astoria
and what she believed the city needed. At
different times, she said she hoped to turn
the building into an event space, a music
venue, and a bar and retail stores.
Tenants feared Webb would force them
out of the building when she took own-
ership. Webb at times stated she wasn’t
interested in making them leave, but ten-
ants weren’t reassured. A petition circu-
lated online addressed to Webb and other
potential buyers.
“Although we understand that real
estate changes hands and new owners may
do what they wish with their property, we
also believe that communities have a voice
that deserves to be heard — in particular
regarding what is best for the community
itself,” the petition stated.
When the building first went up for
sale, West and Mazzarella hoped for a
good buyer — someone who wouldn’t
double everyone’s rents or displace them.
“It became clear very quickly that just
about every potential buyer that came
along, their vision of the building didn’t
include what was already there,” West
said.
West and Mazzarella began seriously
considering what it would take to buy the
building themselves.
Webb’s offer ultimately fell through.
Several other people looked at the build-
ing, but nothing stuck. Astoria Odd Fel-
lows jumped in.
Mazzarella grew up in Astoria and West
has lived here for 13 years. They strongly
believe the Odd Fellows Building should
serve the community.
“Andrea and I could care less about
money,” West added. “We understand it’s
going to require funding to take care of and
repair the building. But if you ask me if this
is a wise investment? Yes, it’s an incredi-
bly wise investment in the community.”
The Odd
Fellows
Building in
Astoria has
been sold.
Loopnet
Pyle: Natural history
writer reads poems at
Columbia Forum
Continued from Page 1A
His talk, titled “Wit, War and Wonder:
The Place of Poems in a Prose-Writer’s Life,”
looked at where poetry touches these three ele-
ments, what poetry can do to provide joy, protest
war and increase wonder. He pointed to some of
his literary and science heroes: the articulate but
poetic words and rigorous inquiries of Charles
Darwin, Rachel Carson and Vladimir Nabokov,
among others. “All praising, seeking and find-
ing — on the page and on the land — that high
ridge between science and art,” Pyle said.
He quoted the American essayist, poet, nat-
uralist and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau,
who said, “A true account of the actual is the
rarest poetry.”
Pyle still considers himself an activist —
he has “always had a love affair with damaged
lands,” he said, adding, “After all, we can’t
throw the land away, not even Hanford” — but
he picks his battles carefully now.
In a song-poem he composed with music
provided by fellow Washington state resident
and former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, he
dissects the decisions around dredging, salmon
and wildlife management on the Columbia
River, speaking about the efforts to control the
size of a double-crested cormorant colony on
East Sand Island and the shooting of sea lions
that eat salmon at Bonneville Dam.
“And so I think of every double-crested cor-
morant that came and bred because we made
the habitat,” he read, “of every lion of the sea
that fouls a dock or eats a fish because we gave
it what it needs and how we’re going to take it
back and give them both hot lead instead and
claim the fish and take the dock and make the fix
and then and then and then guess what? We’ll
start the whole damn thing again, to make the
channel deep for ships.”
Afterwards, Pyle thumbed through a 2016
anthology of his writing, pieces written across
a 50-year span, from early, optimistic essays
when “we thought the environmental move-
ment was winning” to a more recent piece writ-
ten for the book “Moral Ground,” a collection
of essays from various authors about collective
and individual responsibility in the face of cli-
mate change and environmental degradation. In
his essay, Pyle wrote, “Evolution will mock our
tardy rage.”
And yet: “I think it’s utterly important to cel-
ebrate the world,” he said. “Celebrate what’s
left, otherwise despair is really close. There’s
plenty to celebrate still, that’s the surprising
thing. … There’s too much glory and wonder, if
we’re really attentive to it.”
One of the poems with which he ended his
talk, written by Adam Zagajewski, repeated the
line, “You must praise the mutilated world.”
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