Portland is what you would call a « cool » city. At least what we have seen of it. We are staying “in the heart of downtown Portland”, at the Hotel Vintage Plaza, corner of Washington St and Broadway in the SouthWest part of town. Formerly known as the Imperial Hotel, it is an “historic” local landmark that has been recently “fully renovated”. Boutique-style, very comfortable and inviting, and indeed very centrally located: you can find just about every “cool” place nearby. (http://www.vintageplaza.com/index.html)
Portland as such is just over half a million people, steep in US Midwest history (Lewis & Clark, the Oregon Trail, the Columbia River, etc.) It actually started as a land clearing operation in the 1840’s (it got called “Portland” after its city name sake in the East which was the home town of one of the 2 founders – they flipped a coin amongst themselves: it could have been known as “Boston”!) It is also often referred to as “Stumptown”, for an obvious reason. It sits at the confluent of the Williamette and Columbia rivers (one of its other nicknames is “Bridgetown”!), which helped it in growing to be the largest city of the state (and third on the Pacific Northwest after Seattle and Vancouver, BC). For more see Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon)
Portland has come a long way, from being reputed as the “filthiest” city in the Northwest at the end of the 19th century, to now the “greenest” city in the United States! (They say it is the second greenest one in the world – I wonder which city is number one?) I suppose its latest status is due to a combination of factors. Starting with its slick, European-looking, electric railed streetcar system, with its roomy cars, that criss-crosses the part of town we are in; their transit system, reaching out to the greater Portland, is, we are told, very well-planned and environmentally-designed. It’s also I would say a general consciousness that seems to prevail around about the environment, and the need to protect it, partly due to the fact that we are surrounded by beautiful nature, partly due to the youth of this country having taken a shine to Portland: it has been converging here for a couple of decades now – young people have moved here as it became the rallying point for sub-culture at one time (from the DIY culture to punk music!), succumbed to the dot.com mania, a magnet for designers of all kinds, etc. The rest follows: foodie restaurants (had a great breakfast – oysters fricassé! – at Bijou Café, SW 3rd Ave; the place packed in 10 minutes after its opening at 8am on a Saturday morning); café culture (there are as many Starbucks outlets around that there are banks! – but the best café latte to have is at Stumptown Coffee Roasters http://www.stumptowncoffee.com/locations/downtown, a couple of doors next to Bijou Café), and a passion for the outdoors.
A note en passant on the most fascinating bookstore I have ever encountered – it comes with a map and a guide to give you an idea of the size of this place – Powell’s “City of Books” on Burnside (there are other locations throughout the city)! We only had an hour there, but we were mesmerized, literally. The driving principle, as laid out by its founder Walter Powell some 30 years ago, is to stock all available editions of each title side by side – used and new, hardcover and paperback. It is still independent, open all the time, 365 days a year. Also you can feel the love of the staff for this place, as much a literary Mecca than a bookstore, we are informed, with readings, book-signings, lectures, free-speech initiatives, etc. As someone at the LA Times put it “No bookstore is so big and so meticulously organized, and none as such a psychic hold on so large a community”! See www.powells.com. We bought (among several books and magazines!) a textile-made book for grand-daughter Béatrice...
For she is the real attraction of Portland for us! Grand-daughter Number One Béatrice Lumière! Barely a month old – adorable and the center of all the attention! My daughter Laurence and her husband Eric moved here, his hometown, from New-York City last summer. A lifestyle choice, and a great one!
An outing on Saturday brought us to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum (in McMinville, south of Portland), a rather odd location for the now-home of the fabled Spruce Goose, of Howard Hughes fame! Quite a plane - and the story of its move from Long Beach near LA - around which they have built a whole museum (flanked on the grounds by an equally big structure housing the Space Museum, with among others a life-size rocket!)
Eric took us all on a car excursion on Sunday to nearby Columbia River Gorge country, stopping along at high-perched cascades
(http://www.crgva.org/), for lunch at Hood River and ending up for tea at snow-covered Mount Hood’s Timberline Lodge – a classic “national park” style habitation, built during the depression, reminiscent of Montebello (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timberline_Lodge - it is also a major ski resort: see http://www.timberlinelodge.com/) For cinephiles: it was used for the exteriors of the 1980 Stanley Cubrick horror cult movie "The Shining"! A great tour!
Portland, OR. March 15, 2010
P.S. Brought to international attention: see the following from the April 15th edition of the Economist -- http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15911324
