Pac NW Plannergeek Honeymoon | Portland 1/3: Downtown & Skyline

[Cirrus]

Pac NW Plannergeek Honeymoon
Seattle: Observation Deck Aerials | Downtown | Neighborhoods | Transportation
Portland: Downtown & Skyline | Neighborhoods | Transportation
Vancouver: Downtown | Neighborhoods | Transportation
Bonus Thread: Loose pictures of the Cascades, Tacoma, and elsewhere

Portland Downtown & Skyline

I got married in October, to a girl who shares my urban geekery. Since neither of us had
been to the Pacific Northwest before, we decided to honeymoon in Seattle, Portland and
Vancouver. A couple of weeks ago I posted my pictures from Seattle. Now I've uploaded
Portland. This is the first of what will be three photo sets.

O hai, Portland.



Scroll ----->



These are from the Marquam Hill aerial tram stop, by the way. More on the tram later
in photo set part 3.

Willamette River & Rose Quarter:



Southwest Waterfront:



The whole view from up there. Click the image to make it bigger.



If you want to see more pictures from up there, as well as few really terrible ones from
my hotel in Rose Quarter, here's the full set of "observatory" pictures.

Before getting down into downtown, one more from atop a parking garage. Which one is this? Mt Hood?




All right. Downtown. I desaturated this in photoshop and it's still overly blue.



So blue. So clear. After the rain of Seattle it was a nice break.



I have to say, I loved Portland. One thing that struck me about it is how there is no obvious
end to downtown, and no obvious beginning to the neighborhoods. There's enough residential downtown
and enough office outside it, and the scales of both are so similar, that it all feels like one seamless
central city. There is no office ghetto here. It's very European.

Yes, the result is a place that doesn't necessarily have a particularly big city feel, but it's awesome
nonetheless.

Anyway, let's move on.







I love love love the park blocks, especially the southern set. More cities should have linear parks.









Is that a streetcar? Yay!



Director Park:





















I like a good corniche too.







Who can tell me what this thing is? If I didn't know better I'd think it were a shuttered subway entrance.



Portland's public library. On the small side, but pretty nice.







Zipcar office. Cool.



















I'm not exactly sure when downtown ends and the Pearl begins, but I'm using Powell's as a
marker.

















Jupiter!





Heh.



End with a panorama of Pioneer Square. For all my praise in this thread about Portland, I will say
that I was underwhelmed by Pioneer Square. It's too barren; it needs a central statue or fountain.
The vitality of the surrounding area is very good, and having light rail on all four sides is cool.
But other civic spaces in Portland are better.

[mhays]

Possibly the most comfortable city on earth, or in this country.

[Derek]

Nice shots! I look forward to seeing more.

[RobertWalpole]

GORGEOUS! To be honest, it looks a lot nicer than Seattle, which I've been to many times and like.

[OhioGuy]

Enjoyed the photos! Especially nice timing with the leaves changing colors.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Yes, the result is a place that doesn't necessarily have a particularly big city feel, but it's awesome
nonetheless.

I thought the same thing while there. Not quite the big city feel I generally prefer, but I still enjoyed it immensely.

Originally Posted by mhays

Possibly the most comfortable city on earth, or in this country.

I would agree with this. It's probably one of the most apt characterizations for the city.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Wonderful tour Cirrus. Portland is such a beautiful and special city. I agree with the comfortable city description too.

And how the heck did you find a gal who's an uban geek and willing to share your city passion? Lucky rascal.

Thanks for the tour.

[giovanni sasso]

excellent, i've been waiting for this.

yep, that's mount hood. i'm glad you got to see it, cos i noticed that hood and st helens weren't out when you were at the tram. your back-to-back photos -- 'Willamette River & Rose Quarter' and 'Southwest Waterfront' -- would have mount st helens and mount hood, respectively.

i'm not surprised but am all the same glad to hear you liked portland.

i've often wondered what the 'shuttered subway entrance' is at 9th & morrison myself. from what i could gather online (from some other forum), the best guess is that it's the entry to portland's old underground public bathrooms which are no longer used. i haven't confirmed that though.

i completely agree about pioneer square. it's considered "portland's living room" and works for what it is -- presidential campaigns have their stops there, musicfest northwest has the biggest bands play there, protests, flower shows, etc -- but it's definitely missing something.

look forward to the other threads.

[ColDayMan]

Yeah, I didn't care for Pioneer Square either but Portland is a wonderful city.

[mhays]

I had to look up the stairwell to hell thing.

It might have been related to the Shanghai Tunnel system, where unsuspecting people were "shanghaied" and sold to ship captains in the 1800s. Portland apparently has an extensive tunnel network for this reason. This was fed by trap doors in bars, as well as stairs from the street. I have no idea about the specific stair in the photo. Here's a link.

Seattle has similar stairways. We raised the ground level of our downtown, what's now Pioneer Square, by one full story in the 1800s, to get it farther above water level. This turned a lot of second levels into first levels, and first levels into catacombs. Old streets became tunnels.

Both cities have underground tours.

[whatsthepoint13]

I LOVE Portland. I love it. I love it. There's a reason that it gets consistently ranked as one of the most livable cities in the country.

[giovanni sasso]

Originally Posted by mhays

It might have been related to the Shanghai Tunnel system, where unsuspecting people were "shanghaied" and sold to ship captains in the 1800s. Portland apparently has an extensive tunnel network for this reason. This was fed by trap doors in bars, as well as stairs from the street. I have no idea about the specific stair in the photo. Here's a link.

this stairway is at SW 9th & morrison, which is a good ways removed from the shanghai tunnels, which are more in old town/chinatown. the forum i mentioned above is an urban exploration forum. the shanghai tunnels are mentioned in the thread, but the thought seems to be that this one is from a decommissioned public bathroom.

LINK

[fflint]

Gorgeous photos of an inviting city.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Fantastic city

[Máté]

I had never been in Portland, but because it became my favororite city in USA because of your Portand threads

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. I couldn't tell where Downtown ended and neighborhoods began, either. In fact, you only specifically mentioned a couple neighborhoods, like the Pearl District. Where exactly did you explore? By the way, did you see the world's smallest park?

EDIT: Nevermind, I was thinking that parts 1 & 2 were the same.

[bunt_q]

Had to come back and re-visit your threads after all the Portland talk lately. Very neat, photos and city.

Still waiting for Vancouver, by the way!

[arkitekte]

^I'm glad you bumped these. I missed them the first time around.

Very nice thread.

[c@taract_soulj@h]

Portland=One handsome city!

[Nightsky]

Portland looks amazing, a city with atmosphere!

[SpongeG]

great pics - i love portland - i'd move there in a heartbeat