Today I walked (click here to see the map).
I walked from my hotel downtown (at SW 6th Ave. and SW Taylor St.) up to Stumptown Coffee (at SW 3rd Ave. and SW Pine St., almost in Chinatown) for breakfast-on-the-go. Great coffee and a blueberry-raspberry scone.
Then I walked across the Morrison Bridge. This in itself was a major accomplishment. Despite Portland’s aggressive and successful campaign to become carbon neutral, the Morrison Bridge is hostile to pedestrians. We will not discuss here how difficult it is for a pedestrian to find any pedestrian access to the bridge. Instead, I include here an actual unretouched photo of the attractive pedestrian environment on the bridge. This is how the engineers think the pedestrians will safely pass by the entry ramp. No one does this. We’d rather be killed in the traffic.
pedestrian ramp crossing on the Morrison Bridge in Portland, OR
I crossed the manufacturing/ industrial area on the east side of the bridge and reached the northwest corner of Ladd’s Addition at SE Hawthorne Blvd.. and SE 12th Ave. And entered an enchanted world. Why don’t more people know about this? The entire area is an historic district, and many of the houses in it also have historic markers. Most of the houses are of the Arts-and-Crafts style.
Streets are lined with trees, often elms. Except for the major diagonals, they are quite narrow.
Sidewalks, on the other hand, are generously wide, as is the green space between the sidewalk and the street. This green space is often used for gardening. Sometimes even vegetable gardening. The raised-bed vegetable gardens look surprisingly good. I want to do this at home.
At the center of the Addition is a park, confusingly entitled in google maps “Ladd’s Circle Square Park”. In each of the cardinal directions, midway between the park and the edge of the Addition is a diamond-shaped rose garden.
Moving on to Hawthorne Boulevard, I found a delightful cafe just on the far (east) corner of Ladd’s Addition. In their flower-filled garden patio, I ate roasted-beet-arugula salad and chilled cucumber soup.
Other interesting sights on Hawthorne included a hardware store surrounded by gardens, a tempting bakery, a blade store full of samurai swords (sorry, no picture), and–yes!–a grass roof!
