Flip 12--University Park

7/26/10  5:15 PM  Monday  
Location: North Wellesley and Stafford


Situated a few blocks from the University of Portland, this area is known as University Park.  Most of the streets are named for famous colleges nationwide: Oberlin, Fiske, Butler, Syracuse, etc.  A few clues indicate the presence of a school nearby--a rental sign advertising a six bedroom house with two kitchens, for example, and a head shop on Lombard Street, the busy commercial drag--but for the most part these are quiet residential blocks.

It seems to be a community in transition, as is much of Portland's east side, with a mixture of dilapidated bungalows, stunning remodels with recent additions, pleasingly funky Victorians and homes so deeply buried behind vegetation it's a wonder anyone can get in or out of them.  But these blocks are in what I would call a mature stage of transition, meaning that it's not a neighborhood that was recently run-down and that moneyed people are just starting to discover.  Rather, this is an area that has always been relatively affluent, and is well on its way to becoming more so.
 

A few blocks away is "The Bluff", on which the University sits, and from which Capt. William Clark may have viewed the Willamette in April 1806.

It's a quiet summer weekday afternoon.  Kids younger than ten pedal around the blocks in gangs of miniature BMX bikes.  Ice cream trucks.  Wind chimes.  Gardens.  In the Portland style, many of these are productive.  One yard even has a few rows of corn.

At the head shop on Lombard, a man steps out carrying a brown paper bag.  He gets into a brown car parked along the curb, inside which a front seat passenger takes a hit off an orange plastic bong.

But away from the commercial drag, it's restful.  Leafy.  Shrubbery overgrown, street trees needing pruning, providing welcome shade as the late afternoon temperatures swell.

Some of the streets are narrow and winding, bucking the grid.  This may have something to do with the neighborhood being situated close to the edge of the bluff, but it may also be a vestige of ancient paths and farm roads, a trait taught to me by a historian in D.C. I used to know.  There are alleys, too; tantalizing tunnels of mystery, some overgrown and impassable.  I am amazed at how many alleys there are in North and Northeast Portland, providing rare glimpses into the lives of those whose homes abut them.  There is something more personal about the view of a home from the back than that of the front.  The patio furniture, the state of the grass, the hot tubs, the children's toys . . . going down a back alley feels like trespassing, but there are few things more thrilling than finding a secret passageway.