“This thing started as a joke,” says Claudia Meza, the host of weekly podcast City Cast Portland. That joke was 503 Day, a local holiday to celebrate all things Portland.
“We were calling it ‘a totally real’ holiday,’” says Meza. According to her, listeners ran with it and submitted theme songs and videos about 503 Day. “Everyone just sort of played along,” she explains. “We thought ‘wouldn’t it be funny if we gaslit the city into thinking this was always a thing?’”
Portland is very capable of committing to the bit. After all, this is the city that once proclaimed airport carpet to be the grand marshal of a parade. Eventually Meza, the crew at City Cast Portland, and their listeners took the joke as far as it could possibly go: They actually hosted a real 503 Day celebration in 2025, complete with a proclamation from the mayor recognizing it as “a totally real holiday.” Participants gathered in Ankeny Alley to sing with Karaoke From Hell and hear from multiple city councilors, Representative Maxine Dexter, and Toody Cole of venerable Portland punk band Dead Moon.
This year, 503 Day is even real-er. It’s happening again, but City Cast aren’t the ones putting it on. The Ankeny Alley Business Association is doing it. City Cast will be there, but this time they’re just a sponsor for a block party, not the driving force behind it.
Planned activities include a variety show, silent disco, beer garden, Karaoke From Hell, and performances by Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini and Portland City Council President Jamie Dunphy’s band. (The author wishes to disclose that the producers of Misfit Academy, who are performing in the variety show, are friends of his. -eds)
The celebration coincides with a rebranding for the area between SW Pine and Burnside, which some nearby businesses have been calling the “Pink Light District.” One could suspect a Pink District is the fruition of some long standing Lauderdale plan, but it’s actually the passion project of Chris Pink, Can-Can Paris Theatre’s artistic director and founder. The area, which sits between noted pink things, like Big Pink and the waterfront cherry blossoms, is home to businesses like the Kit-Kat Club, Madam Cooper’s Parlor, the Paris Theatre, and Dante’s. As part of the festivities on 503 Day, Mayor Keith Wilson will screw in a pink light bulb at 5:03 pm.
“There’s a different energy happening with the Pink Light. It’s different than the Entertainment District,” says Pink, referencing the pre-COVID club identity Old Town took on after dark. “It’s a movement of taking back beauty and art and bringing this area back to what it was. It’s going to take some time but the energy is there.”
Meza too expresses a great deal of fondness for Ankeny Alley and recalls her old band playing Valentine’s, a business from the 2010s that sat where Madam Cooper’s Parlor is today. “That area was a really cute spot. It felt like it was going downhill,” she says. “To see just a line for Voodoo Doughnuts was depressing. We all know Portland is more than that… But that’s what people were walking away with. We were reduced to a quirky doughnut.”
For Pink and the crew at Can-Can, that’s not a joke. It’s return to form.
503 Day Portland Block Party kicks off in Ankeny Alley, SW Ankeny St between 2nd and 3rd, on Sun May 3, 1-6 pm, FREE, all ages
