Walking PDX ORE

I (we) spent a holiday weekend walking downtown Portland, Oregon. Most of the urban core area can be navigated on foot, with some help from the occasional buses and street cars. The central area is made up of blocks that are 200' x 200' with 60' wide street rights-of-way. Portland is not the Capital - that's Salem - but it is Oregon's largest city, with 585,000 people - about the same as Seattle. Still, it has solid local institutions, like the Portland Art Museum (now showing an excellent collection of Ellsworth Kelly prints) recently expanded into the Masons Hall next door, the Oregon History Museum (now showing a retrospective on architect Pietro Belluschi) and a handful of public and private colleges, like PCC, PSU, OHSU, U of P, and Lewis & Clark. 

Portland Art Museum

I walked much of the Pearl district, which was hosting their annual Labor Day arts and crafts fair. There's a great local arts scene especially in Chinatown and the Pearl District. My favorite spot in the city is undoubtedly Powell's Books, a huge and popular bookstore something like the Strand in NYC but way bigger. I was in a little piece of heaven.

The streetcar connects to a new district called the South Waterfront (http://www.southwaterfront.com/), a mini Vancouver, or to my eyes very much like San Francisco's King Street and Mission Bay areas. It was all new, mostly residential, glassy and middle class. In the South Waterfront we inquired about rental rates at one of the recently completed buildings. They were similar to many parts of San Francisco at $1799 for a 1BR and $2699 for a 2BR, monthly. Happily, we were assured that the building was "pet-friendly". Pet rent was an additional $40 per month for one and $70 for two, plus the initial $250 deposit. Parking was an additional $99 for one space or $150 for a tandem pair. The building was a rental not a condo, so there were no HOA fees. But it was designed as a condo, so it’s got a full set of amenities, should the inflated for-sale real estate market return.

South Waterfront District

Portland is a strange city. It refers to itself by its airport handle - PDX - with affection. It has a memorable series of bridges spanning the Willamette River. I loved the small size and scale of the city - with its tiny blocks you can walk through 4 districts in 20 minutes. Temperate weather (my favorite), pleasant and livable, but not too stimulating. Very white and very undiverse. The only less diverse American city is Salt Lake City! It has an eerie similarity to other unspectacular urban places of the American West, like Denver, San Jose, and Sacramento.

Nevertheless, Fall in the Northwest is beautiful, not quite stunningly arresting like fall in New England, but still endearing. On the rural route back to the city from Mt. Angel Abbey, we had yummy Burger Baskets at the Big Burger Drive-In (across the arterial from a McDonald’s), down the road from where we picked up fresh berries on the honor system from a farm stand. The food is wonderful and local, if not all nutritious.

Click here to view these pictures larger