16th Jul 2003
Portland Postcard
I should probably have some cool photo here of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the fountain by the Willamette, or a collage of the ever-present “Smart Park” signs. Maybe something looking out over Pioneer Square from the Nordstrom’s Cafe.
No such luck.
I really enjoyed my visit there last week, even though I spent a fair bit of time dashing between the Mark Spencer Hotel (ratty, dodgy) and the waterfront Marriot (corporate, bland, but served its conference purpose)
The Red and Blue light rail lines fight it out in Fareless Square for moving bodies. Not to be confused with Red Vs. Blue. Portland has its transportation act Together. Seattle and San Francisco could learn a thing or three. Streetcars come when they’re supposed to. Punks get moved around. Bikes are hung. Everyone’s happy. Airport? $1.50, bub. What?! Too much for ya?
Go have steak and mushroom alfredo at Pizza Schmizza. No tourist place, this. Wallow in 70’s cheesy music. Have a beer at Paddy’s. If you’re still hungry, get their “beef on a weck”. Once buzzed, try not to jaywalk too much. I had two of Portland’s Finest give me the Glare for stepping into the street a full two seconds before Green. Duck into Powell’s book store, which is so huge they’ll never find ya. Hungry again? Go stock up at Whole Foods, a clean, well lit nirvana of a supermarket. Yeah, they do beer too.
I went to Jax’s on 2nd a couple of times. Try the Bridgeport IPA. Say hi to “Shiloh”. They have a spin on the word “Quesadilla” - good but different, in a BBQ sort of way,
The word on the street is “Bento”. I’ve never seen an American city with so many places to get it. Maybe Seattle is like this too, but I just never noticed. Bento Bento Bento.
Picasso lives on at the corner of 4th and Yamill, if you look at the right patch of sidewalk:
“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness”
– Pablo Picasso
I walked over the Hawthorne Bridge a couple of times, to pay a visit to the excellent folks at MacForce (emergency PowerBook keyboard swap). If it’s lunchtime, the Hawthorne Bridge turns into a Nike ad. Joggers a plenty. I waited about 5 minutes one time for the bridge to be put back together. It’s a drawbridge of sorts, except that the entire center section lifts up horizontally. Wild!
Portland is a series of one-way streets, in search of a downtown. It’s a much more exciting place than, say, Salt Lake Patheticy. It’s no New York, but then, it’s not supposed to be. On the one hand, it’s clean, somewhat homogenous (as in “really white”, compared to SF), is very environmentally conscious, and is a laid-back metro, with a large contingent of 60’s - 90’s hippies. Driving seems to be sane, although I couldn’t help but notice that seatbelts seem to be optional (Darwin, anyone?) There aren’t many boom cars, heard and felt from blocks away, which is a very good thing. Perhaps there’s some sort of “don’t be a friggen idiot in public” law they have there?
On another hand, some Portland disaffected youth do their best to show
us their angst. It could be a case of nice warm suburban bed at night, and practiced attitude downtown by day. Doesn’t ring true somehow.
Much more interesting to watch the chess matches at Pioneer Square.
Any hipsters? Nah. The only person wearing black in Portland
is Randal Schwartz :-) This ain’t the Village. This ain’t SOMA
in 1999.
Not to be confused with wannabe punks are the truly economically
down and out. There’s a lot of folks downtown that make up the 8%+
unemployment rate, and they’re not one bit happy about it. There’s
an edge to the Portland air that says “watch out, this City is teetering,
and things could get pretty bad in a year”. Although I rave about
how clean it is, and how cool the light rail is, and so on, there’s still a “should
have been here a couple of years ago” vibe. The “Port of Portland”
warehouses by the airport are both redundant in name, and up for lease.
There’s a number of prime business spots up for grabs. One
wonders which side of the seesaw will go up.
I really liked Portland, and want to get back up there to get to know
it better. It’s urban enough, a 3 hour drive from Seattle, has more
great beer than I could ever check out in a year, and is the most
wireless city in the country. I love the friendly people, the tech
leanings, and the civic follow-through that it must have taken to get
the infrastructure nailed so well (except for all of the ugly parking
garages… they’re supposed to be Underground, people!)
Can’t wait to go back.
