Portland Is Oregon’s Metropolis on the Columbia

June 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment

by Lee Foster

The small-town but cosmopolitan aura, the friendliness of the citizenry, the lovely hillside parks (especially the Rose Garden in Washington Park), and the sweeping sense of history (Lewis and Clark’s expedition passed here) are dominant impressions of Portland and its people.

If you ask Portland residents to sum up why they like to live here, they tend to say, “Portland is small enough to be friendly, big enough to have culture, and the great outdoors is close by.”

Oregon offers many pleasures for the traveler, and Portland is the gateway. Oregon is an exceptionally clean and manicured state (the state parks are cultivated rather than wild gardens). Everywhere one is struck by the sparse number of people, an antidote for travelers from more congested areas (there are only 2.25 million people in the Portland metro area, 529,000 in the city itself.)

Most visitors arrive by driving in on Interstate 5, north from California and south from Washington, or Interstate 84, which enters Oregon from Idaho. The Portland International Airport lies on the northern edge of the city.

PORTLAND HISTORY

The most intriguing historical story of this region is the legendary voyage of Lewis and Clark in 1805 to the mouth of the Columbia River, charting a passage to the Pacific. The subsequent opening up of the Oregon Trail for pioneers and the taming of the Columbia River are further elements of the story. To see all this, make a trip west to Astoria and east to Bonneville Dam and the Columbia Gorge. The name Portland originated as a reference to a founder’s memories of Portland, Maine.

PORTLAND MAIN ATTRACTIONS

The downtown and the parks in the western part of the city are first suggestions for Portland explorations.

The best view of the Portland skyline emerges if you walk along the path on the east side of the river. Walk out on the Morrison Bridge to get the classic view of the downtown skyline with the riverfront park below it. Stop and linger midway across the bridge. A barge may be passing, requiring that the bridge raise itself. River traffic is an essential part of the local economic activity. As a cute ad from the Port Authority says, showing a barge, “Because coffee doesn’t grow in Portland.”

Later take the path down to the Hawthorne Bridge, then possibly beyond to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). The views in the morning, as the sun rises, are superb. You see the clean skyline of the city, possibly with a blue sky background if you are lucky in this cloudy community. In the foreground is the Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the west side of the river, alive with joggers, walkers, and bikers. Portland is small enough so that you can enjoy these views with a moderate walk.

Back in the center of the city, everything can be reached on foot. This is a good strolling town of moderate size. Portland will remind you of Seattle. Both have rectangular downtowns with grids of streets rising up hills from the water. Both have nearby mountains as scenic backdrops. Stop in at the Portland Visitor Center, Salmon and Front, for a map of downtown and some suggestions for exploring.

Several theme walks present themselves. Portland is a city of fountains, so you might want to see the Salmon Street Springs (near the Visitor Center), then Ira’s Fountain, and finally the Skidmore Fountain. Along the way you could stop for a drink at the mini-fountains called Benson Bubblers, placed in the downtown by a city father who thought that pure water rather than beer would benefit the workers. Between these fountains are well-kept pocket parks in the downtown area, such as Terry Schrunk Plaza.

For a cultural sites walk, proceed to the Portland Art Museum and the Oregon History Center, both of which are worth a stop. The Art Museum includes a permanent exhibit of Northwest Coast Native American art and the History Center boasts among its holdings a covered wagon from 1845 that made the pioneering journey to this new territory over the Oregon Trail. At the History Center be sure also to see the collection of Native American basketry and the Maritime Gallery, showing ships that worked the Columbia River.

While walking, you’ll become aware of the attractive office buildings of the downtown area. Some of these offices, such as the Georgia Pacific headquarters at Sixth and Salmon, have elaborate sculpture accouterments. The Portland Building, with its mythical Portlandia figure, is post-modernist architect Michael Graves’ signature on the downtown area. The pinkish monolith known as the U.S. Bank Building is a further architectural landmark.

Pioneer Square is the brick commons of the city, a focal point, where you might want to linger over a Starbuck’s coffee (Starbuck’s has the coffee house on this choice site and quite a few other sites in the city). From Starbuck’s Coffee you can survey the scene. On the steps at Pioneer Square, the office workers will brown-bag at lunch time. In the evening you can sometimes catch a free concert.

I took Robert Fisher’s Portland Walking Tour through the downtown at 6 a.m. one morning and found it immensely informative. He pointed out many design details that I had missed while exploring on my own. The downtown trolleys have real-time arrival signs on digital screens, with the GPS device on the trolley. When I looked either way at crosswalks, I could see down vistas of six blocks or so, and that was a conscious effort of design to keep the facades of buildings uncluttered. Robert showed me an abundant number of downtown sculptures, suchas “Expose Yourself to Art” and “Animals in Pools,” an effect of the one percent rule requiring developers to fund public art. The downtown sidewalks are brick with sand between to allow drainage of the percolating water in the rain.

The Old Town area consists of a vigorous Chinatown and some rougher environs, but adjacent, near the Burnside Bridge along the waterfront, is a Saturday (and Sunday) phenomenon known as the Saturday Market, which is strong on crafts and food.

The entire downtown area is easy to navigate, partly because a Vintage Trolley can take you on an open-air ride, including a jaunt across the river to get views of the city.

Slightly away from downtown is an institution known as Powell’s City of Books. Maybe it’s the rain, which promotes reading. Maybe Portland people love learning and are inherently bookish. Maybe the proprietors are just crazy about books. Maybe because Oregon has no sales tax an independent bookstore can survive in an Amazon-dominated commerce (Amazon pays no sales tax). Powell’s Books is right up there with the superlative bookstores of the U.S., such as Tattered Covers in Denver. Powell’s has acres of books and the technology to tell you exactly what they have to sell. If it’s in print, expect to find it at Powell’s. Some observers rank Powell’s as the largest bookstore in the English-speaking world.

Until you can make a visit, numbers help convey the immensity. The store is open 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, with 220 unionized staff putting in 7,500 hours of time each week. Over a million books on four floors are sold in 110 major categories, all gathered in color-coded rooms. The employees tend to stick around. As one local said, “If you work at Powell’s for 10 years, it’s likely you will be a lifer.” Powell’s specializes in having many different presentation of each book, such as the hardcover and the paperback of the same book, plus depth in specialty books, perhaps Russian bibles. The store restaurant, known as the World Cup Coffee Shop, is said by one amused local to be “a good place to meet a blind date and to ditch a blind date.”

Beyond Powell’s, 23rd and 21st Avenue have emerged as fashionable shopping and dining streets. Sample 23rd between Kearney and Johnson as a slice of this dining, antique, and boutique scene.

Portland has its problems, as every big city does, but Portland also strikes a visitor as a fairly safe city to walk in. Expect to find a few panhandlers on the economic and social fringe. Those on the economic fringe appear to be relatively well supported by the social system, meaning that fewer mental health cases are making their statements on the street rather than in institutions. Among those on the social fringe, be assured you will see well-pierced bodies, fluorescent hair, and skinhead toughness.

When thinking of Portland’s culinary pleasures, here are some best bets.

Clyde Commons is a restaurant started by culinary entrepreneur Nate Tilden in what was formerly the Clyde Hotel, which had a large common room. Nate made the tables from recycled building materials. His style of cooking is “new American Mediterranean cooking, using what the farmers bring in every day.” He also specializes in whole animal butchery. The setting is youth, with a lively bar scene.

The Brasserie Montmartre serves inventive and ample salads and a tasty Seafood Bisque (with local clams, salmon, and scallops) along with jazz music. The extraordinary decor of this place amounts to crayon drawings that have been made over the years by artists at its annual crayon art competition. At all the Portland restaurants, the wine to taste is the Northwest’s Pinot Noir, such as Montinore.

Red Star, which calls itself a Tavern and Roast House, is a sophisticated, yet family-style restaurant, with emphasis on roasted and wood-grilled offerings. Consider the mouth-watering Baby Back Ribs, Roast Pork Loin, and Sage Roasted Chicken. The Chilled Seafood Salad is an excellent starter. Freshness of local seafood and produce gets a big emphasis. Cornbread as a side dish is highly recommended. And there are so many good Northwest wines to try. If you venture away from the Pinot Noirs, try the Waterbrook Chardonnay.

The decor of Red Star is also inventive, including a WPA-ish mural, art deco lighting, and a kind of 1940′s classic look to the place, as if you might be part of a classic movie. The warmth of the hardwoods and the Burgundy booths create a relaxed atmosphere, with spotlights falling on the food. In a city with a long, cloudy winter, Red Star is a culinary oasis at which to pass many an evening.

Pazzo is an Italian restaurant said to translate as “crazy,” but the truth is you’d be crazy to miss it if you have any interest at all in dynamic Northwest Cuisine. Start with the grilled whole Radicchio, with a sauce that tastes like an explosion of flowers. Perhaps proceed with the Risotto, flavored with pistachio nuts and four cheeses. For a main course, you might try the moist Venison, simmered in its juices, or the Smoked Salmon Ravioli.

Not all the dining is in restaurants. There are also food carts that are a vital part of the culinary scene. Think large and stationary carts, where you might pick up a Vietnamese Sandwich or a Tabor’s Czech Schnitzelwich. Tabor’s is a food cart with its own website, search Schnitzelwich in Google. Food carts can be found around 5th and Stark or 10th and Washington, among various locations.

Micro-breweries add an element to the local culinary scene, especially Portland Brewing and BridgePort Brewing Company.

Portland Brewing has located itself in an industrial area a few miles from downtown (ask for directions at the Visitor Center). Their huge copper tanks shine handsomely adjacent to a lively restaurant that features beer-flavored foods. Try their dark MacTarnahan Ale or their lighter Portland Ale. You can take a tour of the operation and learn how hops are the key to flavor these hand-crafted beers. Then savor the menu choices, such as fish fried in beer batter, accompanied by rosemary-garlic fries. They even have beer in their proprietary catsup. As the manager says, “Budweiser will always be king of beers, but some people want more character and special taste in their beers, and we have it.” Portland Brewing presents a range of specialty beers, such as their Glenmore Oatmeal Stout.

BridgePort Brewing Company, located on the edge of downtown, is more accessible. Try their Pale Ale and their Porter. The brewery is situated in one of the more charming landmark brick buildings of the city. BridgePort’s menu is specialty pizzas. If the weather is clear, you can eat and drink in an outdoor setting. One of their specialty beers is a secondary fermentation product known as Firkin Beer. At BridgePort you might strike up a conversation with a “beer geek,” the kind of person who asks, “Are these Cascade hops?” and “What is the original gravity of this beer?”

Hotel Monaco, 506 SW Washington Street, is a lively downtown hotel choice. It is possible to take the Red Line train right from the airport to Pioneer Square and walk two blocks up to the Monaco. At the hotel you are greeted by the resident dog. There may be a goldfish also in your room. Mine was Amy, but after two nights she was changed, going back to the big tank after enduring the stress of a visit. The fish changed, but the name remained the same. There were eight bicycles in the basement in case I wanted to zip along the waterfront on two wheels. Wine was poured at 6 p.m. in the convivial lobby scene.

Another hotel possibility is Vintage Plaza, which has 108 rooms in a clubby setting, with a lobby as comfortable as a living room, complete with marble fireplace. There is wine tasting in their lobby around 6 p.m., giving you a chance to talk with the concierge about how to approach the city or where to dine. Friday is Guest Vintner night at the Vintage Plaza, where you can visit with a Northwest winemaker. In morning the meeting room becomes a self-service continental breakfast area offering coffee, juice, and muffins.

The strategy of both these hotels is to break the impersonal feel of many hotels.

The other major pleasure of Portland, besides the downtown, is Washington Park (and some other parks) west of town. You need a car or an extended taxi commitment to survey these sites.

At Washington Park, visit the International Rose Test Gardens. If your schedule allows, visit in June when the roses are at their peak and the entire community (Portland is called the City of Roses) celebrates with its rose festival. From the terraced hillside of the Rose Garden you’ll also glimpse, if the sky is clear, your first view of venerable Mt. Hood. The Rose Garden is a civilized setting. A harpist may be playing. The latest in commercially-available rose plants is on display, including some bi-color roses that are both golden and red. Seek out the pinkish rose known as Aurora Borealis, for example, or savor the yellow/red combination rose known as Funkuhr.

Harry Landers manages the Rose Garden and has dreams of bringing his 8,263 plants up to 10,000. He has 619 varietals, which has taken the garden into the top-20 rank in the rose world. More than a half million visitors see the Rose Garden each year.

Adjacent is the Japanese Garden, a tranquil and orderly retreat of greenery, rocks, and water. You may observe the groundkeepers manicuring the site with tweezers. Inquire if the articulate Diane Durston happens to be giving a tour. The strategies of Japanese garden design are subtle. You may experience in the garden almost a sense of exhaling. The garden is a total sensory experience. You may be led along by the sound of water to something unseen. The garden treasures are revealed in a tantalyzing manner, slowly, not too much at a time. Several gardens within the overall garden have their own emphases, such as the Zen Garden with a few stones, as if to reduce life to simplicity.

Further into the hills is the best elevated view of the downtown, which is from the Pittock Mansion, a tourable house belonging to the former owners of the local newspaper, The Oregonian. The drawing room at the Pittock mansion epitomizes American regional elegance of the upper class in the first decades of the 20th century.

The park with the most spectacular promontory view of the city and adjacent mountains is Council Crest Park, just south of Washington Park. You can get a 360-degree view from the very top, including portraits of several mountains, such as Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, but only on an ultra-clear day. The chances of a clear day are slim. One statistician asserts that Portland has about 225 days of cloudy weather per year. Suicide prevention signs are prominent in the city, but an association between depression and grey weather may be coincidental. One local asserted that the weather was cloudy from November 1 to the 4th of July, but perhaps she was exaggerating.

NEARBY TRIPS FROM PORTLAND

The obvious nearby trips from Portland are northwest and east along the Columbia River. West is Astoria, a fur trading post, and the Lewis and Clark Fort, the final outpost of the explorers. But make the trip east first if your time is limited.

East are the splendid views of the Columbia River Gorge from the Women’s Forum State Park and from Crown Point. Since it opened in 1915, this Columbia Gorge highway has been one of the distinguished scenic highways in America. The highway’s stone bridges and stone rails epitomize the craftsmanship of an earlier era. The road passes through dense green forests of conifers in elevated positions and hardwoods closer to the river.

Stop at diaphanous Multnomah Falls, 620 feet high, the most spectacular of several falls to which you can walk. The water drops dramatically until it crashes on the rocks at the base. At Multnomah many a visitor has tossed a good luck coin into the pool at the bottom of the falls.

Proceed further east to look at Bonneville Dam and Locks, with its fish ladders and underground viewing area, where you can watch the salmon swim up the river. Then pause at the town of Hood River to see the windsurfers on the Columbia River. The action is at Sailpark Beach near the marina because of the wind, the broad expanse of water, and the shallowness, helpful when you fall off the sailboard.

The final leg of the trip takes you south on Highway 35, the loop road back toward Portland around Mt. Hood. If the light is clear, you’ll savor views of the mountain. The road runs through orchard country with many Anjou pear plantings. Small lumbermills harvest the conifer trees. Eventually, you encounter heavy forests of fir, pine, and cedar.

Another interesting day trip is along the Willamette River and its valley, extending south from Portland.

Drive up the valley along the side roads (Highways 211, 213, and 214 on the east side) and then down the valley on the west side (Highways 221, 210).

Put two destinations in your itinerary: Silver Falls State Park and Salem, the capital.

Silver Falls is one of the most attractive of Oregon’s state parks, which are a major resource. In their state park concept the Oregonians favor a manicured look in campgrounds and picnic areas. The greenery is always appealing. And at Silver Falls park the wild falls are most impressive. You could spend half a day hiking here on a seven-mile loop through Silver Creek Canyon, passing nine of the park’s 14 waterfalls.

The drive to Silver Falls takes you through a region of diversified farming, with crops from wheat to beans to Christmas trees. Along the roads you’ll find wild blackberries just begging to be picked in July. Houses of the region tend to have well-managed gardens of petunias, roses, and dahlias, plus the luxurious cover of mature shade trees.

At Salem, enjoy the landscaped grounds around the capitol building, easily identified by the 24-foot Pioneer statue covered with gold leaf. Enter the building to survey the murals and artifacts that tell the pageant of Oregon history.

Side trips from Portland tend to confirm the locals’ opinion, “The great outdoors is close by.”

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