Some of you noobs may hear us old-timers wax nostalgic about how great this town was before you came and sanitized it with your energy-efficient scooters and pristine terrarium shops. It’s hard to clearly define Old Portland, but we do know that its death coincided with the new millennium, and was very different 20 years ago. It was less shiny and more real (whatever “real” means), but lucky for you, some of it still exists!
Our tour begins in the birthplace of Old Portland, where nearly nothing has changed in 150 years. Even though the X-Ray Cafe and Ozone Records are long gone, from stem to stern West Burnside, our original skid row, is still blessedly raw. East Burnside is also still a pretty good representation—at least until about 20th Avenue, when everything good and pure bleeds out into condoland.
Right in the beating heart of downtown is Cameron’s Books & Magazines (336 SW 3rd), the bizarro Old Portland analog to Powell’s, where porn comes the way God intended: in print. Get more of the same across the river at Armchair Books (3205 SE Milwaukie), just a stone’s throw from the Aladdin. Throughout the 1980s, when it was no longer a reputable theater and not yet a hip music venue, the Aladdin’s marquee read “XXX Mature Audiences Only.” Deep Throat ran there for nearly eight years! Fortunately, Oregon Theater (3530 SE Division) has managed to stay open in spite of that street’s ham-fisted attempts to gentrify it into oblivion—a defiant reminder that no matter what Salt & Straw has to say about it, Old Portland isn’t going anywhere.