By
Sara Jaffe, Travel+Leisure
Its rapid-fire development and breakthrough food scene
have been breathlessly documented, but the city remains full of secrets,
both old and new. Sara Jaffe returns and uncovers a few favorites.
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When I lived in Portland briefly
in the late 1990s, East Coast friends kept calling to ask me how life
was in Seattle. Fast-forward 20 years, and Portland’s national profile
has skyrocketed; it’s the subject of travel-magazine features like this
one, a 2012 exhibition at Paris’s Centre Pompidou called “Keep Portland
Weird,” and, of course, a certain TV show. Today, when people ask me how
life is in Portland (I moved back in 2011), I’m almost certain they’re
imagining eco-baby boutiques, artisanal ice cream, and urban chicken
coops. And though I sometimes eat that ice cream and buy cute eco-items
for my infant son, those aren’t the experiences that have captivated me
in my chosen city.
Instead, I’ve sought out places
that couldn’t exist anywhere else—like the grassy banks along the
freeway exits, which bloom wildly each spring with roses planted by the
city. Unlike their counterparts at the International Rose Test Garden,
they feel unruly, as if they might rally their forces to reclaim the
land for themselve
[post_ads]One of my favorite urban nature
spots is Pier Park, in the North Portland neighborhood of St. Johns. I
love swimming in the public pool, inhaling the heady scent of ancient
cedar trees every time I lift my head for a breath. Even on the most
gorgeous summer day, I usually get a lane to myself. Forest Park, one of
the country’s largest urban forests, is similarly uncrowded. Over
drinks, my friend Rebecca Gates, an artist and activist who used to play
in the indie band the Spinanes, recalled that when she was a kid, the
park wasn’t necessarily safe for casual hikers. Now, with its
well-maintained trails and protected ecosystem, it has become, in her
words, “the true jewel of Portland.” Yet somehow it still feels like a
well-kept secret. She worries that if newcomers don’t take full
advantage of Portland’s abundant green spaces, they’ll be less
politically and emotionally invested in the future of the city’s parks.
In addition to those
newcomers—transplants from the Bay Area or, like me, New York—Portland
is home to numerous immigrant populations, many of which are
concentrated in the outer reaches of East Portland. The best place I’ve
found to get a sense of the city’s diversity is the affordable and
unpretentious Lents International Farmers Market, which runs on summer
Sundays through October in an otherwise vacant lot off I-205. Vendors
include a honey-purveying, Russian-speaking religious refugee from
Uzbekistan, Hmong merchants hawking huge bouquets of dahlias for $5, and
Mexican farmers selling countless varieties of chili peppers. The
multicultural makeup of both vendors and shoppers truly surprised
me—according to a recent Washington Post article, Portland is “the whitest big city” in America, at 76 percent, but you’d never know it shopping there.
The city’s homogeneity gave me
pause when we were considering whether to settle down here. Still, 24
percent is not nothing, and I’ve been excited to discover artists like
Intisar Abioto, a photographer and poet whose documentary project The Black Portlanders
celebrates the long-standing presence of African Americans in the City
of Roses. Over tea at the Warehouse Café & Market, we discussed
Portland’s weird relationship to race and its “history of ugliness,” as
Abioto put it—from exclusionary settlement laws in the 19th century to
the disappearance of historically African American neighborhoods in
gentrifying North and Northeast Portland. However unflattering these
aspects of the city’s history may be, I’m glad I know about them. You
can’t understand a city—or contribute positively to its evolution—if you
don’t learn about its failures as well as its triumphs.
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It’s too simple an equation, of
course, to decide that all that is “old Portland” is good and all that
is new is inauthentic at best, nefarious at worst. There’s plenty of new
Portland that I love. I’m ecstatic that the city finally has a great
free-form radio station in listener-supported XRAY-FM, where I can hear
soul rarities, 1950s calypso, and my post-punk favorites. The
three-year-old Portland Museum of Modern Art is a tiny gallery in the
basement of a record store whose mission is to showcase folk art and
visual work by artists known predominantly in other fields (music,
performance) and to put on group shows that bring contemporary stars
together with little-known artists. And in a city nearly bursting with
food trucks, a much-welcomed addition opened this year: the Portland
Mercado, featuring carts serving Latin American cuisine as well as an
indoor public market.
A few years ago, I wrote a short
story called “Stormchasers” in which I explored my ambivalence about
how “easy” it was to live in Portland compared with Brooklyn. Like so
many other transplants, I moved here in part for the laid-back
lifestyle, but in order to really make Portland feel like home I’ve had
to get out of the backyard hammock and explore—by bus, car, foot, and
bike. I’ve had to pay attention to the incongruities, the rumblings
below the surface. Rather than seeking out the Portland I thought I
knew, I’ve learned to let the city surprise me.
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Sara Jaffe is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. Her debut novel, Dryland, is out from Tin House in September 2015.
Beyond the Ace
Two new hotels are giving Portland’s signature property a run for its money.
Hotel Eastlund: This Eastside hotel,
near the convention center, is a welcome haven after long meetings: an
oversize image of Brigitte Bardot beckons from the lobby, and cozy fire
pits dot the rooftop bar. Dine at David Machado’s beer-driven Altabira
City Tavern for great skyline views. Doubles from $189.
Society Hotel: Part boutique hotel, part upscale hostel—this property
in Chinatown’s regal 1881 Mariners Building is slated to open this
fall. There are 38 private rooms for those seeking solitude, as well as a
room with 24 bunks that each start at $40 a night. Doubles from $145. —Hannah Wallace
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