More about Portland: Driving

Something I just realized about Portland: driving here can be pretty hairy, or scary.  This surprises me because I think of Portland as an easy place to get around in, what with bikes, and trolleys and pedestrian lanes and suchlike.  And to be fair, lots of Portland are just fine.  But in close to downtown, and on the east side--well, two problems.

One: the river.  True, lots of cities have rivers--that's why the cities are there.  But think of St. Louis, or Sacramento: there's  river, alright, but all the action takes place on one side of the river.  The other side is just bordellos and meth labs.  Not so Portland.  Here there is action on both sides of the river, and they are deeply entangled.  And it seems like everybody has a story about how they had to cross three different bridges to get from an address on the west side to one on the east (I have no idea how this works, but I hear it).  And on either side, you can get into godawful tangles as you try to weave your way through what seems like a highly improvisational pattern of intersections.  Go left.  Now go right.  No, left, left.  Now, don't move....  I suppose if you do this as an every day as a commute, you get used to it,  but as the occasional visitor, it seems like a Mensa test, or some kind of device for testing mental acuity among the elderly.

That's one problem.  But the other problem is the stuff they brag about: the public transport, and the pedestrians, and the bikes.    I feel like a whiner for complaining: for most of my adult life I have been an out-of-the-closet pedestrian, and I own a bike (although in fairness, I haven't been riding a lot lately).  And I'm one of the new people I know who actually likes to ride the bus.

But riding them is one thing: sharing space is another.  Where ever I go here, seems like I am always getting entangled in some kind of bus-only lane:  worse, with one bus in front of me and one behind. These guys may be eco-friendly but they  can't build up much compassion for the cars that stumble into their lane.

Bikes and pedestrians are a different problem.  The city is boiling with bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly crossings.  Bully for them.  But hitting a pedestrian--or a bike--is a bummer for all concerned.  Hit a Hummer, he may not even notice.  Hit a pedestrian--well, you get the idea.

I'll grant that the bikers, at least, are moderately conscientious about staying in lane and, perhaps more important, suiting up with Da-Glo colors. Truth is, I  can't think of any city in America where I have seen so many innovative bike safety devices.

That's most of them.  Maddeningly, there still seems to be a minority who feel free pedal around at night without a light and in a black raincoat.  Them and the pedestrians: what I think we are seeing here is a sense of entitlement coupled with an extraordinary presumption of trust--trust that I, for example, while not simply turn sociopath and ice them off the planet.   Still a nice city though.  And I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm getting at least as much of an adrenaline rush from driving as I would if I walked.

Update:  Yes, Oregon. Should have said.

Rumble on Division Street

I've dropped in on Portland intermittently for the last 25 years or so now, mostly in the southeast below Hawthorne.  It's a neighborhood I've heard called "hippy hollow" although the name is probably at best an easy flippancy, never a really good description.  Grant that the strip along Hawthorne from 39th down to (say) 35th persists as more or less the picture of what you expect Portland to be--and as it happens, still thriving, yet not all that different from  what it looked like when I first saw it.

So, a scruffy sort of charm, with street kids and buskers and dogs. The checkout line at the Powell bookshop is much shorter than it used to be, although I suspect this has more to do with the book trade in general than with Hawthorne in particular.   Bread and Ink Cafe is offering a special on a chicken waffle, which I suspect is new. But mostly pretty much the same.

But the side streets below Hawthorne--they've always looked to me less like counterculture and more like a neighborhood of homeowners: lovely homes mostly, lovingly if not lavishly maintained.  You don't see McMansions here, nor monster trucks.  Here's a bumper sticker that says "government off my cupcakes."  Here's another--on a somewhat shopworn Honda, it says "preferia estar matando zombies."  Here's a small panel truck with a folding ladder and a piece of PCV pipe.  Here's a boxed front-yard garden with a thriving splash of red chard.   I suspect we are dealing here not with internet superstars so much as high school guidance counselors, artisan brewers and suchlike--people with more time than money and some knack for the good life.

All this has remained remarkably unchanged in general temper for a long time.  But what's interesting is what seems to be happening down on Division--Hawthorne's evil twin, parallel and half a mile south and with notable exceptions, for a long time a pretty grim place.  It has been the home, inter alia, of one of the most forlorn porn theatres I've seen anywhere--looks a lot like the Elks Club down at Gridley, CA with, I speculate, very much the same clientele.

But here's the news:  Division today is a construction zone.  The street is a mess; there are new projects in process on both sides and in at least one place there's a lot where it looks like the construction company bought the lot and tore down the building so there would be storage space for other projects.

What kind of construction: well, I tried to keep my eyes on the road but I saw at least two, maybe three or four items with the same MO: tear down the old stuff, replace with "retail" (= mostly bars and restaurants); top it with one, maybe two, maybe three stories of apartments/condos.

As to the restaurants and bars--looks (and sounds) to me like they are thriving: they're packed at diner hour, and by 1030 at night, they are overflowing.  Mostly a young crowd, I assume and by all appearances they have the time and the money and the disposition to a good time.

As to the living units: I must say, I think it would be noisy up there, but they probably aren't for me anyway.  My sources say they probably run about 200k 250k, with rents perhaps 18k a month (the people I talk to are a bit vague on how many bedrooms, etc.). 

And here's the thing: for the people in the side streets  between Hawthorne and division, I suspect these numbers sound mostly astronomic, out of reach.  Grant that a lot of those "interior" homes could go for 350k or more; still, I'm betting that a lot of the owners are people who bought in at 50-100k, and have a tough time getting their minds round the fact that the market has changed.

So exactly who are all those youngsters giggling in the bars?  Hard to say.  I've made my point that I don't think they are the people from the neighborhood.  Portland has lots of prosperous kiddies in the IT game but I had thought they mostly lived elsewhere.  Whatever.  I do read that unemployment in Portland persists at about 7.3 percent, just about the national average.  And I heard a couple of new stories this weekend about (supposedly) high-skilled guys in their 50s-60s getting bounced with no options.  And did I mention that Oregon as a whole (albeit not Portland) has the worst high school graduation rate in the nation for white students (overall, it is only a paltry fourth)?  Complicated world.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

We idled away a bit of Portland time with a few rounds of "ask for, hope for settle for," cf. link. My friend David suggests it would make a great name for a law firm, "Good morning, Askfor, Hopefor, Settlefor, how may I direct your call?"

David also offers a more accessible trimmed-down version, merging with "whom do you want to play you in the movie?" David revises to "whom do you want, and who do you fear?" David's own suggestion: want John Cusack, fear David Spade. For myself, I guess I'd have to say: want Gene Hackman, fear Ben Gazzara. Hm, is Bob Hoskins available?

Unhappy Portland?

A couple of notes after a quick (and pleasant) weekend visit to Portland:

• The unhappiest American city: so says Business Week. Can this be right? Bollocks, say my hosts, but they have a reason: evidently Portland is the mother church of cheap/free and readily accessible mental health care. Who said that the doctor's definition of a healthy patient is one whose case hasn't been worked up yet?

• Theater: I took in a production of Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest on the Portland Center Stage at NW 11th and Counch (link). It was agreeable enough in itself but what stuck in my mind is that these people--the audience, I mean--are clean. Not pathologically clean, but pleasantly so--reasonably scrubbed and trimmed and manicured, with mostly wrinkle-free slacks and jackets.

I found this surprising. I don't think of Portlanders as depressive, but I do think of them as scruffy. Evidently I have been spending my time in the wrong part of town (southeast, between Hawthorne and Reed College). It's a funky and relaxed environment, but with no shortage of grunge.

My friend Virginia clarifies: the theatre is in the Pearl District which is to begin with mostly upscale. And since customers don't have to walk far from their condos to the box office, they don't get quite so beaten down as they would if they really had to cope with Portland's perennial grey damp.

Walker's Paradise

I suppose the only reason to create a list like this one is to start an argument, but on the whole, I'd say that this particular instance is actually pretty anodyne. Still, if the second best walk in San Francisco is the Financial District, we are on notice with a scandalous truth--that is: San Francisco, whatever its charms, is not that-all great a walker's city. Okay: some of the neighborhoods have their charm, but they tend to be isolated, a bit hard to access, and on the whole not as exciting or charming as you might guess for all the hype (and let's not talk about hills). Market Street is a slum, and if you must have a slum, there is a far more interesting slum on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley across the Bay (even without Cody's). Indeed, it's hard to think of any American city--okay, I will grant you Manhattan--that has the persistent seductive appeal of Rome (my #1) or Paris (#2) or Prague (#3) or Florence (#4)--at least if you find those moments when they are not inundated with others such as yourself trying to enjoy their walker-charms.

Nice to see Portland so justly well represented, although I never realized before that this is called "Hosford" (if it is). Years ago, one of my students (an ex-Reedie) pointed out that Portland was one of the best cities in America to be poor in. After the depredations of a generation of high-tech wealth, this insight surely isn't as true as it used to be. Still, I'd say Portland persists in conveying more in the way of scruffy, grass-roots elegance than any other city in America.

Rembrandt and the Golden Age Of Portland Museums

We took in the Rembrandt show at the Portland Art Museum a few weeks back—properly “Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art” (link). I had intended to blog a bit but other things got in the way and anyway, I somehow had the impression it was closing right away, so I let it slide.

Oops, my bad. Turns out the show it will be in Portland until September 18, So, good, I have a chance to rectify my oversight: it’s a fine show, not the best ever, but interesting and instructive and well worth a side trip.

The premise is straightforward enough; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is cleaning house, so they packed off some of the good stuff and Portland is one of the lucky beneficiaries. Not quite a surprise: Portland has an honorable history of getting good shows (although I did hear some chatter to the effect that insurance costs dictate that this will be the last).

I also heard a bit of muttering to the effect that there isn’t a lot of Rembrandt and that’s probably a fair cop, but perhaps in a way, that is the point. Rembrandt is himself, heaven knows, but he is one of those artists who is a creature of his times: you can appreciate him better when you see him in the context of that explosion of creativity that suffused the Dutch art world in the 16^th-17^th Century. I suppose in a sense you could say this about almost any creative person, but some more than others: Shakespeare is surely a product of his times, but how, exactly, do you situate Cervantes?

So the particular virtue of the Portland show is the way we see the others, confronting the same agendas, accepting the same challenges and trying to solve the same problems. You get to see how good they are—and how, for the most part, Rembrandt really is something else.

Il Teatro Buce has just completed a showing of the genial and instructive lecture series on Dutch art by William Kloss (link). It’s a good complement to the Portland show, and an instructive reminder of just how rich (in talent, but, yes, also in money) the Dutch Golden Age really was. Anyway, Portland, until September 18. And it’s a great town anyway, so go enjoy.

Fn.: Googling for this piece, I ran across this. No wonder I like this stuff; I can find a bankruptcy angle.