#43: City of Roses

The city of Portland, Oregon was the second in a multi-part Pacific Northwest travel series I undertook in 2024, with the first being Seattle, as told in Blog #35: Emerald City.  Both trips were just as much social experiments as they were cities I had always wanted to explore.  Sadly, both were also equally disappointing with their notorious post-2020 deterioration.

The theme of Portland’s natural beauty being tarnished by its own population was inescapable.  In contrast with my attempt in Seattle to keep the literal and figurative trash out of my photographs, there became a point in “PDX” where I embraced it as its own form of artwork.

I found myself creating postcard shots like this:

Only to widen my frame and see something like this:

The graffiti was everywhere.  Bridges, walls, tunnels.  Near the freeway, by the river.  Public parks, privately owned buildings.  Everywhere.

The only thing more plentiful than the graffiti was the homeless population and its garbage littered about.  These pictures were taken in areas of high tourist traffic.  I witnessed children, the elderly, and foreigners (in addition to everyday, hardworking people) being subjected to profanity, nudity, drug use, and even harassment. 

This next photograph was the most sad and disappointing to me, because it was taken in what would otherwise have been a nice, peaceful, and semi-secluded area of a public park during a gorgeous sunset across the skyline.  Out of frame to the left and right were larger encampments; one with a loud verbal dispute taking place between two homeless people.

Or maybe this next picture was the saddest, I’m not sure.  I found this while walking around Downtown next to the sign with the deer on it:

Not that there were many locals around to complain.  Everyday in Portland felt like a Sunday morning with how empty and deserted it was.  A recent news article put Portland’s downtown vacancy rate at a dismal 31 percent.  The best response one city commissioner could give to the sad reality of one out of every three buildings being empty was that at least the city is [arguably] “safer than it was two years ago”.

Luckily, certain aspects of the city are still hanging on by a hopeful thread.  One advantage to a crumbling economy is that relatively decent hotels are cheaper than usual.

Speaking of libraries, one of Downtown Portland’s famous landmarks is Powell’s Books.  Occupying an entire city block in order to house over one million publications, the business claims itself to be the world’s largest independent bookstore.  The allure rests simply with the sheer size and selection, for Powell’s is known for being a no-frills retailer.  There are worse problems to be had than getting lost in a bland maze of books though.  In typical Portland fashion, one of the entrances featured a homeless busker and a broken window covered in wood. 

Much like a handful of other big cities, Portland takes one of its nicknames, “PDX”, from its airport code.  But the more enticing name, as featured in the title of this blog, was coined before the first airplane was ever successfully flown.  It has been known since at least the late 1800s that the climate in the Portland area is ideal for growing roses.  Today, over 10,000 of the beautiful flowers are being grown in the International Rose Test Garden.  Covered thousands of bushes of – you guessed it – roses, the Test Garden with its free admission and beautiful scenery is quite the attraction for locals and tourists alike.

Conveniently adjacent to the International Rose Test Garden is the Portland Japanese Garden.  The 12-acre complex was founded in 1963 by community members seeking to heal the wounds created during World War II.  It would eventually grow to become “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan”, according to former Ambassador of Japan Nobuo Matsunaga.  Despite the successful campaign of the organization to inspire harmony and peace through serenity and tranquility, many find the return on investment to be somewhat lacking after considering the costly admission. 

It was a bit of a walk from the Heathman Hotel in Downtown Portland to the Rose and Japanese gardens in Washington Park.  Fortunately I found the perfect source of fuel and nourishment halfway to my destination: the iconic Blue Star Donuts.  In 2016, a writer for Portland Monthly titled her article, “Everything about Portland Can Be Summed Up with Doughnuts”.  That same year, an author for Oregon Business went as far as referring to Portland’s doughnut culture as a “doughnut ecosystem”.  Far be it from me to attempt to explain Portland’s weirdness within the elastic brevity of this blog post, I was content to simply enjoy the fried dough in its American mecca for whatever it was worth.  If the famous Voodoo Doughnuts are the boisterous kids on the block with an audience comprised of vacationers and Instagrammers, Blue Star Donuts are the more refined and gourmet bunch.  For research purposes, I of course tried both.

Naturally, I had to eat something other than doughnuts during my time in Portland.  I figured why not try Yelp’s 13^th best brunch spot in all of the United States:  the Screen Door Pearl District.  People rave about their “Smoked Pork Benedict”.  The confit pork shoulder nestled between an English muffin and poached eggs smothered in hollandaise with pickled peppers was a delectably scrumptious fusion of homestyle brunch staples.

Now that we’re all hungry, this seems like a great moment to end the blog.  Not to worry though, stay tuned for the upcoming conclusion to my 2024 Pacific Northwest travel adventure to see a town loved by Hollywood and relatively devoid of sidewalk tents and hypodermic needles.