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Portland City Walks: Twenty Explorations in and Around Town
From the inspired creator of the beloved Portland Hill Walks comes a rich collection of twenty eye-opening walks exploring the backstreets and back stories of the neighborhoods of Portland and five nearby towns.
Laura Foster's new walking routes are easy to follow, self-guided, and accessible by public transportation. They also include plenty of snacks and offbeat treasures along the way. From Goose Hollow to Garden Home, Laurelhurst to Lake Oswego, Forest Grove to Vancouver, walks range in length from 2 to 6 miles, with alternate loops for flexibility. Want to explore architecture and engineering? Walks include a centuries-old farmhouse nestled in a city neighborhood and a track made from 20,000 Nike athletic shoes. Interested in the stories of historic Portland businesses? Walks include fun facts about Captain John Couch, William Lair Hill, Fred Meyer, Guy Carr, and Michael Powell.
Portland City Walks lets readers peel back the layers of history as they walk the stories of a city's neighborhoods and experience its joys as never before.
Laura Foster's new walking routes are easy to follow, self-guided, and accessible by public transportation. They also include plenty of snacks and offbeat treasures along the way. From Goose Hollow to Garden Home, Laurelhurst to Lake Oswego, Forest Grove to Vancouver, walks range in length from 2 to 6 miles, with alternate loops for flexibility. Want to explore architecture and engineering? Walks include a centuries-old farmhouse nestled in a city neighborhood and a track made from 20,000 Nike athletic shoes. Interested in the stories of historic Portland businesses? Walks include fun facts about Captain John Couch, William Lair Hill, Fred Meyer, Guy Carr, and Michael Powell.
Portland City Walks lets readers peel back the layers of history as they walk the stories of a city's neighborhoods and experience its joys as never before.
- GenresTravelHistoryNonfiction
319 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 20, 2012
It's cheesy to say a book changed my life. You know it, I know it. But this book, in ways that I may never be able to articulate, changed my life.
After the divorce, I found myself adrift. I married at 21; it was hard to know who I was as an individual fifteen years later, on my own for the first time pretty much since the end of my childhood. Oddly, the universe has scattered a number of waypoints about for me to find, people and things in surprising places, which force me to pause and get my bearings.
Last January, I got back in touch with an old friend whom I ran around with after high school, when we were both aching to stretch our wings outside of our Eastern Kentucky town. As fate would have it, we both now live on the West Coast, less than three hours from each other. As we reintroduced ourselves to each other, one of the things we talked about was our love for our respective cities. I took my daughter north to visit him and his family in February. We spent two or three days wandering up and down the streets of his city. I was reminded by him of what I once knew about places where I lived: they are living beings, in all their systematic chaos. Each city has its own personality. Each city can be sullen, exciting, sleepy, stubborn, and hopeful, sometimes all at once. But most importantly, through our conversations I was reminded of the need I have to build a relationship with the city in which I live, much like one builds a friendship or romance, because I learned early on that a deep connection to my locale is one of the major factors in my definition as a person..
It's not as though I didn't know and love Portland already. It's not as though, after ten years, I hadn't already begun to think of it as home in all ways except the familial one. And it's not as though I couldn't have taken a visiting friend around to the major must-see sites, the ones which show up in magazines and news reports about the beauty of Portland. It's just that, even though I lived with and slept next to Portland, well, I didn't really know how she got into my bed or what she would look like in the morning.
When I got back into town, I knew I wanted a guide, someone who could really introduce me to the history and hidden places. At The Looking Glass Bookstore in Sellwood, I browsed through their local guides section, skipping over the ones that focused on the familiar and well known. When I picked up Laura Foster's book City Walks, though, I found something different. Sure, some of the more familiar neighborhoods were represented, and a few familiar businesses were mentioned. But most of the streets and the details were completely new to me.
I chose the first guided walk I took based on my daughter's Saturday Academy class last spring, held in Shattuck Hall on the PSU campus. The walk took me on a pedestrian right of way that, as a suburbanite, I had never even know existed, through the still sparkling new South Waterfront, and through the scattered remnants of South Portland, where the immigrant villages which used to cluster like wine grapes grapes are now strewn around the 1960s urban development projects. I was shown the genteel aging of Lair Hill just a few blocks from one of the most urban-seeming, graffiti-ridden underpasses in town, and warned away from a pedestrian tunnel I'd only read about, inhabited by the bizarre parallel world of the Portland street families. This was the real face of Portland, the one which I had been looking for.
And there are a lot of these walks. Not all of them are as dynamic as that first one, but each and every walk was deeply satisfying in some way. When I talk about them with a friend who has lived in the Portland suburbs all her life, when I tell her about some of the history I've uncovered or the things I've seen, she tells me that I'm now officially more Portland than most of the Portlanders she knows. That makes me happy.
I'm working on Foster's first book, Hill Walks, now, one more walk at a time. That book's become a local icon of sorts, and most people start there. But I have to say I'm quite pleased to have begun with City Walks. The process of getting to know Portland over the last six to eight months has been a bit like meeting a celebrity face to face, and then growing close enough to have dinner once a week. To return to an earlier metaphor, the curtains are pulled back, the sun is streaming through the window, and I'm still in love with her when I see her with no makeup and drool trickling out of her open mouth as she sleeps. Of course, I don't limit all my encounters only to those described in Foster's books. In particular, I have begun doing my own research and writing my about my own encounters with this place I've decided to call home. But Foster's curiosity, careful research, and sense of humor have forever colored how I will see Portland. I don't mind that one bit, because by letting Foster introduce me to much of Portland, I've wandered into a recognition of what it is I value about the place where I live, and in turn some of the things I value about myself.
Thank you, Ms. Foster.
After the divorce, I found myself adrift. I married at 21; it was hard to know who I was as an individual fifteen years later, on my own for the first time pretty much since the end of my childhood. Oddly, the universe has scattered a number of waypoints about for me to find, people and things in surprising places, which force me to pause and get my bearings.
Last January, I got back in touch with an old friend whom I ran around with after high school, when we were both aching to stretch our wings outside of our Eastern Kentucky town. As fate would have it, we both now live on the West Coast, less than three hours from each other. As we reintroduced ourselves to each other, one of the things we talked about was our love for our respective cities. I took my daughter north to visit him and his family in February. We spent two or three days wandering up and down the streets of his city. I was reminded by him of what I once knew about places where I lived: they are living beings, in all their systematic chaos. Each city has its own personality. Each city can be sullen, exciting, sleepy, stubborn, and hopeful, sometimes all at once. But most importantly, through our conversations I was reminded of the need I have to build a relationship with the city in which I live, much like one builds a friendship or romance, because I learned early on that a deep connection to my locale is one of the major factors in my definition as a person..
It's not as though I didn't know and love Portland already. It's not as though, after ten years, I hadn't already begun to think of it as home in all ways except the familial one. And it's not as though I couldn't have taken a visiting friend around to the major must-see sites, the ones which show up in magazines and news reports about the beauty of Portland. It's just that, even though I lived with and slept next to Portland, well, I didn't really know how she got into my bed or what she would look like in the morning.
When I got back into town, I knew I wanted a guide, someone who could really introduce me to the history and hidden places. At The Looking Glass Bookstore in Sellwood, I browsed through their local guides section, skipping over the ones that focused on the familiar and well known. When I picked up Laura Foster's book City Walks, though, I found something different. Sure, some of the more familiar neighborhoods were represented, and a few familiar businesses were mentioned. But most of the streets and the details were completely new to me.
I chose the first guided walk I took based on my daughter's Saturday Academy class last spring, held in Shattuck Hall on the PSU campus. The walk took me on a pedestrian right of way that, as a suburbanite, I had never even know existed, through the still sparkling new South Waterfront, and through the scattered remnants of South Portland, where the immigrant villages which used to cluster like wine grapes grapes are now strewn around the 1960s urban development projects. I was shown the genteel aging of Lair Hill just a few blocks from one of the most urban-seeming, graffiti-ridden underpasses in town, and warned away from a pedestrian tunnel I'd only read about, inhabited by the bizarre parallel world of the Portland street families. This was the real face of Portland, the one which I had been looking for.
And there are a lot of these walks. Not all of them are as dynamic as that first one, but each and every walk was deeply satisfying in some way. When I talk about them with a friend who has lived in the Portland suburbs all her life, when I tell her about some of the history I've uncovered or the things I've seen, she tells me that I'm now officially more Portland than most of the Portlanders she knows. That makes me happy.
I'm working on Foster's first book, Hill Walks, now, one more walk at a time. That book's become a local icon of sorts, and most people start there. But I have to say I'm quite pleased to have begun with City Walks. The process of getting to know Portland over the last six to eight months has been a bit like meeting a celebrity face to face, and then growing close enough to have dinner once a week. To return to an earlier metaphor, the curtains are pulled back, the sun is streaming through the window, and I'm still in love with her when I see her with no makeup and drool trickling out of her open mouth as she sleeps. Of course, I don't limit all my encounters only to those described in Foster's books. In particular, I have begun doing my own research and writing my about my own encounters with this place I've decided to call home. But Foster's curiosity, careful research, and sense of humor have forever colored how I will see Portland. I don't mind that one bit, because by letting Foster introduce me to much of Portland, I've wandered into a recognition of what it is I value about the place where I live, and in turn some of the things I value about myself.
Thank you, Ms. Foster.
August 12, 2013
Again, I liked this very well except why must it be so heavy? Foster knows everything about Portland, and is eager to share it with you, which is terrific. Her walks are nicely planned, and just random enough to keep you on your toes. It's a book I'd like to have in my library but not one for the backpack.
November 23, 2012
Added to record the walks I've done since moving here!
9. Grand Ave Historic District to Eastbank Esplanade Loop
16. Beaverton Loop
17. Forest Grove Loop
9. Grand Ave Historic District to Eastbank Esplanade Loop
16. Beaverton Loop
17. Forest Grove Loop
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews