x APT Best of the City tour routes

Things to know

10 a.m. Architecture and Parks

  • Start at Director Park, tell the story of the park being on a 700-car garage.
  • Head toward the South Park blocks. Tell the story of the Park Blocks.
  • Shemanski Fountain. AKA “Rebecca at the Well.” 1926. Designer Carl L. Linde. Italianesque trefoil, Oregon sandstone.
  • Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Paramount/Schnitz was constructed in 1928. Rapp & Rapp (Chicago firm), Italian Rococo Revival style.
  • Statue of Abraham Lincoln; tell the story of public art being given by people who like stuff (this and Teddy Roosevelt: Henry Waldo Coe). Installed in 1928. Sculptor George Fife Waters.
  • Point out Portland Art Museum. First founded in 1892, building constructed in 1932. Pietro Belluschi, modernist style.
  • Oregon Historical Society; the founding of Portland, the Portland Penny. Point out weather machine on Standard Insurance Plaza.
  • Walk down Main, to the Antoinette Hatfield Hall, constructed 1987; check out the gift from our sister city in Mexico, “Mago Hermano” and the Folly Bollards out front
  • Outside, note the old Broadway Theatre and remember this as a row of theaters, including the Paramount Theatre across the street (they kept the “P” on the sign and changed the rest of the letters to read “Portland”).
  • Gus V. Solomon Courthouse, used for everything from a US District courthouse to a post office, now used for TV and movies. Building constructed in 1933. Morris Whitehouse, Renaissance Revival style.
  • Standard Insurance Plaza (weekdays, enter west side of building; weekends, wander into lower courtyard). Built 1963. International style — a version of modernism characterized by its roots in Germany, Holland, France and its reliance on industrial materials, no ornamentation, flat surfaces, and repetitive forms.
  • Walk up to view the interior of the weather machine and the Portlandia cast and display. Talk about Portlandia, our city’s goddess, and Raymond Kaskey, her sculptor. Copper repousse, 1985.
  • Walk down around City Hall. Stories of Sam Adams, Portlandia, garden in front of City Hall donated to food banks.
  • Terry Schrunk Plaza, Lake Tai rocks.
  • Walk through Chapman Square, talk about women’s parks, tell the story of The Promised Land.
  • Walk to the north side of the elk before you tell the story of the elk.
  • Through Lownsdale Square, there is a monument to women and children there, if you want to point it out.
  • Up Salmon and into the front of the courthouse. Visit a Benson Bubbler. Talk about Simon Benson, the gift, and the teetotaling – and the resultant prohibition. Tell the story of the women’s temperance union encouraging the police to dump out liquor into the streets.
  • Point out three different styles of bus stop. Tell about Clear Vistas.
  • The Standard Insurance Center, 1970, Brutalist or modern architecture in style. At the time the largest reinforced concrete building in the world. Built for Georgia Pacific.
  • Quest, 1967, commissioned by George Pacific, Count Alexander Von Svoboda, commissioned and made in Greece of pentelic marble.

1 p.m. Art and the Pearl District

  • Start at Director Park, tell (briefly) the story of the 700-car parking garage. Focus on who the park is named for. (Helen and Simon Director, parents of Arlene Schnitzer, grandparents of Jordan Schnitzer, supporters of the arts — Harold grew up in the scrap metal business but made his money in real estate, including developing a building on Pioneer Square.)
  • Head toward the South Park blocks. Tell the story of the Park Blocks. Focus on the high canopy of trees, with very little understory, to create a cathedral effect.
  • Shemanski Fountain. AKA “Rebecca at the Well.” 1926. Designer Carl L. Linde. Italianesque trefoil, Oregon sandstone. Meant to give small animals something to drink.
  • Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Talk about how we’ll be seeing the names of the Schnitzers throughout the day. Paramount/Schnitz was constructed in 1928. Italian Rococo Revival style.
  • Visit the First Congregational Church. Completed 1895, Venetian Gothic, Henry Hefty. Go down to the bottom floor first where the art displayed here is curated by Dr Sheldon Hurst. It’s the oldest continuous art gallery in Portland — since 1875! — and has a mission to access spirituality through the arts. In the upper floor, you’ll see the more traditional forms of church art, including stained glass by the famed Povey Brothers Studio (the “Tiffany of the Northwest”).
  • Visit the sculpture garden at the Portland Art Museum (closed Mondays). First founded in 1892, building constructed in 1932. Tell the story of how Portland’s origins were the contrast in culture to the rowdy San Francisco and Seattle, where bachelors, gold diggers, fisherman, dockworkers, and other less savory sorts lived. Pietro Belluschi, modernist style.
  • Sculpture garden features
  • Walk down 9th, talk about Mark Building, the old Masonic Temple.
  • Forest for the Trees mural program. Star Catcher, Rustam QBic (Russia).
  • Southpark building, salmon swimming through building, old Rajneeshi disco.
  • Up Taylor to Central Library.
  • Into library, visit children’s room.
  • Walk past Jakes, stained glass.
  • Courier Coffee stop if desired.
  • Devil’s Triangle across from Powell’s.
  • Walk past Powell’s Books.
  • Point out Made Here PDX.
  • Armory Theatre.
  • Walk down 10th, tell story of the Pearl District.
  • Lovejoy Columns.
  • Windows in art galleries.
  • Blackfish Gallery, oldest artist cooperative in the U.S. Visit the gallery (except on Mondays).
  • Check on tourist’s energy; if good, walk down 9th to Ecotrust Building.
  • LEED certification.
  • Jamison Square, Contact II by Liberman.
  • Back through Ecotrust.
  • Over to PNCA, visit the interior. (Skip to this from Blackfish if guests are getting tired.)
  • Walk past the Nike basketball courts and bocce courts.
  • North Park Blocks and Couch.
  • Walk to the Customs House.
  • Nepenthes.
  • Walk along Broadway toward Benson Hotel OR to the elephants.
  • Back toward Director Park.

4 p.m Weird Portlandia

  • Director Park. Tell (briefly) the story of the 700-car parking garage. Focus on the fact that the Directors (park’s namesakes) and Schnitzers made their money first in scrap metal, but called it “steel.” The city’s arts are funded by scrappers!
  • Pioneer Square, weather machine. Talk about the history of the square, focusing on the battle between Frank Ivancie (down with dirty hippies) and the rest of the city council, and the stunt to paint the square. Describe the Fibonacci sequence-based design. Then describe the workings of the weather machine.
  • Echo chamber.
  • Expose yourself to art.
  • Car wash fountain
  • Keep Portland Weird sign.
  • Voodoo Doughnuts
  • Portlandia episodes, Sparklepony
  • 24 hour Church of Elvis
  • Keep Portland Weird
  • Darcelle
  • Society Hotel
  • Chinese Garden
  • Erickson’s Saloon
  • Shanghai Tunnels (if they ask)
  • Saturday Market
  • Ankeny Fountain
  • Waterfront Park
  • Mills Ends Park

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