What I Miss About Portland
I still live here in Portland and there are many things that I love. But I want to talk about the things that used to be so cool and aren't here anymore. We have huge amounts of people moving here and they don't really know. (When I go to parties people ask me where I am from and I answer "here" and they say "no really, where are you from?")
Lloyd Center
Lloyd Center still exists. And it's a mall - so why the heck do I miss it? (And don't get me started on the new ugly rug that they put in in the last month)
But Lloyd Center didn't used to be like that. Lloyd Center was an outdoor mall. It was one of the first malls before that was really a thing. Many of the stores, the skating rink, and the bridge over the rink were all there. But the rink and the bridge were outdoors. There was only one floor of stores (with the big anchor stores having more than one floor). The biggest Christmas tree would be put next to the rink. Before Pioneer Square had the Portland Christmas tree, it was at Lloyd Center. A picture of the mall: http://photos1.blogger.com/img/170/6216/1024/Lloyd%20Center%20Mall1.jpg
Going shopping at Christmas time was really cool. It would be nice and warm inside the stores, and then you would bundle up again to go back outside. But the best place was the entrance to Meier and Frank. Meier and Frank was (and is, but they are going to change the name - see my http://thequalityofmercy.blogspot.com/2005/09/whats-in-name.html entry) the center anchor store of the mall. The bridge was right outside the main entrance. Now it is like any other entrance to a store. But back when it was an outdoor mall that entrance was where you told people you would meet. Because the entrance, the transition from outdoors to in, had these really cool heaters in the floor. They went all the way across the entrance and blew hot air up all the time. So if you were waiting for your mom to finish shopping, you would wait on the heaters. People huddled together over the heaters.
Once the mall became a controlled environment they got rid of the heaters. It's hard to explain why they were so cool. But they were.
Church of Elvis
Chuck Palahniuk already wrote about this in his book about Portland. But I still miss it. Who would believe that you would go walking through downtown and find an actually store front with lights and kitchy stuff dedicated at all hours, to the Church of Elvis. It was the kinda funky place that a lot of new places in town try to emulate. Picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Old-churchofelvis-big.jpg
Free Performances in the Park
The Rose Garden (the one with roses, not the one with basketball) always had this huge outdoor auditorium. And in the summer, there would be performances of musicals for free. You could wander in and watch Oklahoma or Carousel. It was great. After several years they built a permanent concrete stage so that they wouldn't have to rebuild every year. But gradually they had fewer performances. They then had concerts - but you had to pay. They would fence off the entire park (complicated). And you couldn't just wander in. I saw several performances there and always dreamed of being on that stage. But they don't do it anymore.
Farrells
The original was here. The frilly shirts. The huge candy selection right before the cash register. The sparklers. The gigantic ice cream thingy you could order where they would run around. The gong for the birthday song. The servers who dressed like barbershop singers and toss ice cream scoops through the air at each other.
First the name got sold. It was the "Original Portland Ice Cream Shop" for a while. Now it's completely gone and it's a bunch of condos. (Cool condos though)
Where else do kids have birthday parties?
The Organ Grinder
If my parents really wanted to make me happy when I was a kid, then this was the place. It basically was a restaurant with a really big organ in it. But it had carnival games and video games and a monkey and pizza and the organ played music. What more could a kid want? It was really cool to watch the organ go - it had all these cool parts. The organ did music to accompany silent films and on its own. I don't know if it gave my parents and other adults that painful creepy feeling that I get when I go to Chuck E. Cheese - but I don't think so. It was out on 82nd. Once again - very hard to explain. For pictures see this link: http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/organ-grinder.htm
The (Really) Old Spaghetti Factory
I know it calls itself the Old Spaghetti Factory. But the real one was downtown on the corner of 2nd and Pine. It has been an underage nightclub for quite a while now. But the original Old Spaghetti Factory - the first one - not only had the food that they have now, but it also had silent movies that you could watch. (Man I watched a lot of silent movies as a kid) And it was in one of those old buildings that was a great example of Portland architecture.
Frederick and Nelson's
Not surprising when you think about it - I am reminiscing for these things around Christmas time because that was when we really went around the city. And Frederick and Nelson's didn't just have Santa Claus, they had the Cinnamon Bear!!
Actually the Cinnamon Bear was a Christmas tradition here in Portland starting in 1939 at the Lipman's store - a local company. When Marshall Field's bought Lipman's they changed the name to Frederick and Nelson's but they kept the Cinnamon Bear. The Cinnamon Bear and Santa Claus were both there to welcome you, hug you (and sometimes frighten the really young kids) but instead of candy canes, the Cinnamon Bear gave out Cinnamon Bear cookies - they were awesome.
The store that opened as the third location of Lipman's in 1912 was a beautiful building. Now that is the location of the Fifth Avenue Suites Hotel. You can get an idea of the ornate architecture when you visit the lobby. And at the motel, they still have souvenir Cinnamon Bears. But it's not the same - no hug, no cookie.
There are probably other things that have come and gone from Portland that I have forgotten or that weren't part of my childhood in the 70's and 80's. And I know that things change and we move on. But I wanted to take a moment to commemorate those things that were unique to Portland, made my upbringing special, and are no longer around.
Later - what still makes Portland rock.
Lloyd Center
Lloyd Center still exists. And it's a mall - so why the heck do I miss it? (And don't get me started on the new ugly rug that they put in in the last month)
But Lloyd Center didn't used to be like that. Lloyd Center was an outdoor mall. It was one of the first malls before that was really a thing. Many of the stores, the skating rink, and the bridge over the rink were all there. But the rink and the bridge were outdoors. There was only one floor of stores (with the big anchor stores having more than one floor). The biggest Christmas tree would be put next to the rink. Before Pioneer Square had the Portland Christmas tree, it was at Lloyd Center. A picture of the mall: http://photos1.blogger.com/img/170/6216/1024/Lloyd%20Center%20Mall1.jpg
Going shopping at Christmas time was really cool. It would be nice and warm inside the stores, and then you would bundle up again to go back outside. But the best place was the entrance to Meier and Frank. Meier and Frank was (and is, but they are going to change the name - see my http://thequalityofmercy.blogspot.com/2005/09/whats-in-name.html entry) the center anchor store of the mall. The bridge was right outside the main entrance. Now it is like any other entrance to a store. But back when it was an outdoor mall that entrance was where you told people you would meet. Because the entrance, the transition from outdoors to in, had these really cool heaters in the floor. They went all the way across the entrance and blew hot air up all the time. So if you were waiting for your mom to finish shopping, you would wait on the heaters. People huddled together over the heaters.
Once the mall became a controlled environment they got rid of the heaters. It's hard to explain why they were so cool. But they were.
Church of Elvis
Chuck Palahniuk already wrote about this in his book about Portland. But I still miss it. Who would believe that you would go walking through downtown and find an actually store front with lights and kitchy stuff dedicated at all hours, to the Church of Elvis. It was the kinda funky place that a lot of new places in town try to emulate. Picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Old-churchofelvis-big.jpg
Free Performances in the Park
The Rose Garden (the one with roses, not the one with basketball) always had this huge outdoor auditorium. And in the summer, there would be performances of musicals for free. You could wander in and watch Oklahoma or Carousel. It was great. After several years they built a permanent concrete stage so that they wouldn't have to rebuild every year. But gradually they had fewer performances. They then had concerts - but you had to pay. They would fence off the entire park (complicated). And you couldn't just wander in. I saw several performances there and always dreamed of being on that stage. But they don't do it anymore.
Farrells
The original was here. The frilly shirts. The huge candy selection right before the cash register. The sparklers. The gigantic ice cream thingy you could order where they would run around. The gong for the birthday song. The servers who dressed like barbershop singers and toss ice cream scoops through the air at each other.
First the name got sold. It was the "Original Portland Ice Cream Shop" for a while. Now it's completely gone and it's a bunch of condos. (Cool condos though)
Where else do kids have birthday parties?
The Organ Grinder
If my parents really wanted to make me happy when I was a kid, then this was the place. It basically was a restaurant with a really big organ in it. But it had carnival games and video games and a monkey and pizza and the organ played music. What more could a kid want? It was really cool to watch the organ go - it had all these cool parts. The organ did music to accompany silent films and on its own. I don't know if it gave my parents and other adults that painful creepy feeling that I get when I go to Chuck E. Cheese - but I don't think so. It was out on 82nd. Once again - very hard to explain. For pictures see this link: http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/organ-grinder.htm
The (Really) Old Spaghetti Factory
I know it calls itself the Old Spaghetti Factory. But the real one was downtown on the corner of 2nd and Pine. It has been an underage nightclub for quite a while now. But the original Old Spaghetti Factory - the first one - not only had the food that they have now, but it also had silent movies that you could watch. (Man I watched a lot of silent movies as a kid) And it was in one of those old buildings that was a great example of Portland architecture.
Frederick and Nelson's
Not surprising when you think about it - I am reminiscing for these things around Christmas time because that was when we really went around the city. And Frederick and Nelson's didn't just have Santa Claus, they had the Cinnamon Bear!!
Actually the Cinnamon Bear was a Christmas tradition here in Portland starting in 1939 at the Lipman's store - a local company. When Marshall Field's bought Lipman's they changed the name to Frederick and Nelson's but they kept the Cinnamon Bear. The Cinnamon Bear and Santa Claus were both there to welcome you, hug you (and sometimes frighten the really young kids) but instead of candy canes, the Cinnamon Bear gave out Cinnamon Bear cookies - they were awesome.
The store that opened as the third location of Lipman's in 1912 was a beautiful building. Now that is the location of the Fifth Avenue Suites Hotel. You can get an idea of the ornate architecture when you visit the lobby. And at the motel, they still have souvenir Cinnamon Bears. But it's not the same - no hug, no cookie.
There are probably other things that have come and gone from Portland that I have forgotten or that weren't part of my childhood in the 70's and 80's. And I know that things change and we move on. But I wanted to take a moment to commemorate those things that were unique to Portland, made my upbringing special, and are no longer around.
Later - what still makes Portland rock.
posted by Portia | 11/28/2005 09:48:00 PM
2 Comments:
I've only known Lloyd Center as a dirty mall where dirty middle school kids go and hang out at the food courts and yell at each other "Bitch, you don't know me, he my man." I repeat, dirty.
I went to Farrels a few times when I was a kid. I'd make my parents take me there because of all the candy in the front. I don't think I ever asked them to buy me any, but I liked to look at it. Weird? Possibly. However I stopped the first time I was there when someone was having a birthday. They were at the table across from us, I was minding my business, and all of the sudden some gong rang and there was this drum and all these people marching and singing and being loud. I was scared as ef, made my parents leave right then, possibly cried, and didn't go back for quite some time. I've only been there one time since When it was the Original Portland Ice Cream Shop and it wasn't the same.
I don't remember any of the other things you speak of because I am very very young.
Your list of things you miss made me very nostalgic as well. I can tell you that the 24 Hour Church of Elvis is on the way back! The first stage is already here, the lovely new 24 Hour Church of Elvis website at: http://www.24hourchurchofelvis.com
Check it out!!
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