My Portland Trip - Thoughts... (landlord, live, to eat)

[oldtintype]

?! For some reason half of my post got cut off

[watchmanonthewall]

The Californicators appear to have struck again.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by oldtintype

Portland also has things that San Fran USED to have that I don't think exist anymore there in comparison--a good underground music, restaurant and art scene, the ability to share a house for cheap rent (supporting the music/restaurant/art scene) and so on. I lived in the Western Addition and Mission district in the early to mid '90s and we had dirt cheap rent, lots of cool music and art around, lots of creative types, lots of great small/out of the way excellent (inexpensive!) cafes and restaurants, etc.

I wonder if I knew you. Were you ever by chance on SFNet, the cafe-based chat system that pre-dated home Internet? I hung out with a lot of younger people on there that lived in the Lower Haight, Mission, and Western Addition.

My son went to Synergy School, which was on Grove St. then, right around the corner from the "Painted Ladies." They had recess and lunch at the playground at Alamo Square when the weather was nice.

[oldtintype]

I wasn't on SFNet but when we lived in Alamo Square our backyard was diagonal from Synergy! We would hear lots of drums, yelling and general fun going on, see them running around and/or building things. My dog used to like to stand on the porch and bark at the school dog when we weren't looking! We went to their open house a few times--they used to invite all the neighbors so we wouldn't complain about the noise! They did some really neat things at that school. We lived at 960 Hayes.

For anyone who hasn't lived in a SF flat, each residential block is basically buildings of flats side by side with no gaps anywhere, so when you stand on your back steps (provided you're on an upper floor) you can see everyone's yard on the whole block and it's like a giant private park divided up that you never get a glimpse of from the street. Every group of yards is its own private behind the scenes community. We had great neighbors so it's something I now miss! Of course, you had no real privacy in your yard either but...

[ukiyo-e]

Well, given the time you lived there, you probably heard him helping make noise! I always wondered about the poor neighbors. I'm sure they were glad when the school moved to Valencia Street when it expanded to K-8.

That was a cool school. We were in SF for a chess tournament last February, and went to their annual silent auction fundraiser that Saturday night - his old teachers were shocked to see that he's now 6'3"!

[argo69]

Originally Posted by oldtintype

I know some people think Portland is changing for the worse, but I like where Portland is going. I don't think the economy here is ever going to be big enough for things to get as chaotic as it got in SF, so hopefully Portland will continue t

Excellent post...you summed up my feelings perfectly!

[GucciLittlePiggie]

i like this thread. we went in may 2006, and are going back in the spring, probably june, 2008 before trying to move in early 2009. i'm curious to see what's different after 2 years, though we're going just to enjoy ourselves, and also get a better feel for where we would want to try living. i agree with what you said about the east side. we stayed there (NE) last time, having no knowledge of the different areas. i found that little section to be sort of dirtier, more boring, and more isolated than the NW/SW area. i agree with the closing early thing, because we too often eat at 8pm, but that seems to happen at certain places, even in Paris or London. i'm sure once you get to know the area there's places that are open late. i also agree with the big-city downtown comment. i kind of liked it, but it takes some getting used to that the center of everything for a couple hundred miles is that... casual. anyways, thanks for the thread!

[Lillietta]

[quote=oldtintype;2061060]Yes, restaurants are one example, but also just a general feeling, more diversity, larger gay population, bigger creative

Thanks for the time you took with this

[Lee151]

There was a Salty's on the Willamette in Sellwood. Just South of the Sellwood Bridge.

My bad wondering if the one on the Columbia closed when in fact it was the one on the Willamette.

[Lee151]

Salty's on the Willamette closed in 1991, it was older than the Columbia one and needed repairs and the landlord wouldn't do them. To paraphrase the article I found by Googling Salty's Willamette