by Various UrbanHonking UHX Members

Geography

The city is split east and west by the river and the numbered avenues go up from the Willamette river. There is a general slope up from the river in both directions, so you know when you are going up hill, the number will be going up, downhill, the numbers are going down, towards the river.

The city is split north and south by Burnside, a street with a bridge going over the river.

So this street and bridge and that river cuts the city into four parts.
SW (downtown)
NW (the new 'pearl' district and the posh-ish/apartment world of nw 21st and nw 23rd),
SE (ex-hippy and ex-grunge, now "have-a-kid-and-a-house" land),
NE (blacks being displaced by 'punks' being displaced by 'bohemians' being displaced by bo-bos).

There is a "5th quadrant" which is made by the fact that the river does not run perfectly north-south, but veers west, creating a bunch of land west of NE portland but still on the east side of the river. this area is called "North Portland."

Here are some blogs that can be interesting to people just moving here to get you started:

Unabashed Portland historic nostalgia:
Stumptown Confidential.com
Cafe Unknown

Unabashed Portland neo-growth excitement:
UrbanHonking's own Portland's Future Awesome

Hawthorne blvd is Portland's funky, chunky, hippy, dippy HQ. From the funky bars at the bottom of Mount Tabor on hawthorne and se 50th, down through the thick of it between se 39th and se 32nd, on down into the se 20 blocks, and all the way to the weirdly re-named hawthorne strip (formerly known as dino's) extremely run down strip club on se9th or 10th, hawthorne blvd exudes portland counter-culture. from import stores selling chimes, incense and tibetan tapestries, to a splendorous mid-century movie theater revamped into a brew and pizza second-run movie grind-house, hawthorne blvd could be considered the most "portland" of all of the portland shopping streets. its certainly its most smelly, what with all the hippies and their fucking dogs. Check it out! you just might find your favorite shop in portland!!

Things To Do

Outdoors

SW: Zoobomb!!

NW: Go for a walk in Forest Park, it is beautiful like dinosaurs could be in there.

NE/SE: A fun way to learn about the city and its bridges and the development of SE in particular is the eastbank promenade or whatever its called, which is a cool new trail with placards all over it that goes along the Willamette river from the Rose Garden above Burnside, all the way down to OMSI (the oregon museum of science and industry). you can learn when each bridge was put up, get great views of down town and check out the weird warehouse industrial/train tracks/I-5 world of the "central eastside industrial district" one of the last remaining weird run-down warehouse areas in portland.

SE: Belmont is the street that runs east from the morrison bridge, one bridge south of the burnside bridge. there are other things on the way in the 46 blocks between this video store on 47th and the river, including a couple of record stores, many cafes, a grip of thai restaurants, quite a number of bars, and some other stuff, including a nickle arcade/kids movie theater and a historical brick fire department. worth a bike ride to check out the whole thing.

Arts

First Thursday = Art Walk in the Pearl
First Friday = Art Walk downtown Eastside
Grass Hut on March 1st, 2nd is gonna blow up, 811 ne Burnside.

PORT - Comprehensive local art blog (very comprehensive!)

Movies

Go to the Laurelhurst or the Bagdad, get a piece of pizza and a cool microbrew and watch "Jaws" or whatever cool old movie they're playing for like $3. BEST THING IN PORTLAND!!!!!!! Fancy old theaters with beer and pizza (and good popcorn with nutritional yeast you can put on it!) showing cool old movies, also regular second-run movies.

Movie Madness is one of the top video/dvd rental stores in the nation with tons and tons of hard to find movies, cool curation, etc etc.

Music

For local music, its good to check out both of the cities weekly papers, the willamette week and the portland mercury. Both papers employ young, fresh, excited and exciting writers who are obsessed with the local music community and play constant cheerleader to the local music "scene". Willy Week has Local Cut which is all about music, and the Merc has Blogtown, PDX which is about everything.

if you are into independent youth culture in general, the clubs to go to are:

towne lounge (local and touring, slightly left of center, mostly rockish or pop-ish with occasional electronic)

holocene - local and touring electronic, DJs, dance nights, slightly left of center, many gay and lesbian nights, occasional touring and local rock bands, theme nights, occasional experimental music

for all ages shows now there is the artistery. different vibes for sure, but times are also different. it is a rad place, (though i miss the old artistery with the geodesic dome shows in the back yard....)

Food

The Extramsg METRO FOOD TIP SHEET AND DINING GUIDE.

La Bonita has good burritos: 2839 NE Alberta St.
Tonnallis has amazing doughnuts on 28th and Alberta.

Go to the Vita Cafe and get vegan fettucine carbonara in memoriam of me, who you do not know, but who misses it so every day of her life.

For those who like food, there is a "slow food" revolution not-so-quietly happening in portland as we speak! In the last decade, Portland cuisine has gone from fried saloon fare and standard steak and fish houses (like the legendary Jake's) to some of the finest and most adventurously refined dining experiences found in any city in America.

One could even say there is somewhat of a style or aesthetic that is truly in the spirit of the northwest that is being developed influenced as much by the french avant guard as by the north west's dedication to ecology, "sustainability", and local pride. One might even venture to joke that "sustainability" is the new "grunge" up here in the northwest as the trend spreads nation-wide. "sustainable cuisine" and the "slow food movement" means fresh, carefully prepared local vegetables, meats, wines and all ingredients, organic, foods, furniture art etc made locally and often out of "recycled" stuff. some of it is legit and some of it seems like whole foods lifestyle branding trend hopping grossness. for a real cool deal i would suggest Navarre, on the strip of SE/NE 28th ave that stretches on both sides of east burnside, right across the street from the laurelhurt movie theater that rimsy mentioned. the owner is a nice legit man and he makes weird cool foods which are ordered tapas-style. but this is just one of many many many weird cool kind of neo-portland advanced fancy food places to eat these days.

the best donuts in the greater area: SESAME DONUT (in beaverton)

if you eat meat you should go to this place called the acropolis, they have the most amazing lamb gyro and frys for $3.50. there is a cover charge to see the naked ladies so if you don't want to pay that you can ring the bell around back and this dude will pop out and be like "what do you want?" Acropolis is owned by a cattle farmer, hence the cheap, yet high quality, steaks or that is the local legend...

The last time i visited before moving here, i ate at the delta, and let me tell you, i had a blast. chilled 40 of pbr and southern food. heaven. i'm pretty sure they were playing some radiohead remix album too.

For a lil' bit o' portland punk rock history, a legendary all-ages venue once stood where the second half of the delta now extends to (the bar part). it was called 17 nautical miles, it was run by Todd P (who now does toddpnyc.com and basically books anything cool in new york ) and it was FUCKING SWEET.

Drink

For the fucking OG portland bar experience, go to My Father's Place. unless you come from a state where there is no smoking in bars, in which case you might freak out and have an asthma attack. never-the-less, its about as unchanged as anything can be and feels quintessential to anyone's quest to understand portland bar culture or night life scene. some newbys are scared of the food, but trust me, its edible. and the drinks are extremely cheap.

for a straight shot of portland's independent youth culture on the loose partying like there is no tomorrow, check out 'the tube' a small bar built by a weird international architect to be some sort of very fancy tube shaped techno bar, but then taken over by ex-olympia punks and made into a cool place to get a fancy drink, listen to extremely loud music of all sorts (the only premise, perhaps, would be that the music should scare away lame jocks) etc. lots of youngsters sporting the hottest in Portland street fashion. its where the coolest of the cool let their hair down and hob knob. you could probably score some cocaine there if you needed it, too.