This morning, I went on the first of a new series of walking tours that Portland arts non-profit the Dill Pickle Club is putting on this fall. Today’s tour was all about seeing and learning about so-called “hidden gems” in downtown Portland. The series itself, which runs through December, will delve into neighborhoods all throughout the city, unveiling stories and artifacts often overlooked and unknown
The two-and-a-half-hour tour gave a sense of being in a new place without actually being in one. And the guides allowed for dialogue and stories among the tour participants—adding even more to what the tour otherwise had to offer. Even though it only covered a few blocks downtown, we saw dozens of overlooked gems. Here are some highlights!
1. This Benson Bubbler, outside the Oregon Historical Society, is one of 20 original bubblers donated to the city in 1912 by Simon Benson, an early-20th-century lumber baron. Today the city has 54. Fun fact: The bubblers were built to hydrate drunken lumberjacks so they’d keep out of saloons during lunchtime.
2. A driftwood horse statue sits in the sculpture garden at the Portland Art Museum. Except it’s not driftwood. It’s bronze. (It’s by the same sculptor whose horses grace the airport.)
3. The bike guys in the bike lane playing trumpets and wearing silly helmets are not the works of incognito graffiti artists, but city workers. The city workers had leftover asphalt during construction jobs and decided to see what they could get away with. While their additions were mostly well received, one city worker had a bike guy drinking a martini glass in front of the Benson Hotel. It caused a controversy, and critics claimed it supported drinking and biking. It was removed in 2005.
4. Most people already know that Portlandia isn’t just a TV show. She’s the Lady of Commerce, and the second largest bronze sculpture in the country behind the Statue of Liberty. But you might not know why you never see Portlandia on T-shirts and mugs like the Statue of Liberty: That’s because she’s under copyright by her creator, Raymond Kaskey. You can see an exhibit on how she was made inside the Portland Building.
5. The Portland Police Museum (which, by the way, is not run by the Portland Police Bureau but by the Portland Police Historical Society, a separate nonprofit)! Be warned: It’s a boosterish experience, glossing over the dark side of the bureau. One cool thing about this museum: Portland’s first traffic light lives here. The stoplight isn’t actually a light, but a pole manually turned by a police officer.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, you can go on this tour, too! Among many others. An Old Town/Chinatown tour is on tap for tomorrow (Saturday Sept 15) at 10am. And you can also show up for A Seedy, Seamy, and Sinful Portland Tour, the North Portland Gentrification Tour, There’s No Place Like Home Tour, and more! Learn more here.
none of this is news actually. People who were born here know all this already frankly
yeah — how dare you, fiona?!
how dare you jot down a few interesting tidbits about this fair city when you know damn well that someone who’s lived here forever might already know these things?!?!
the audacity.
(and as for anybody else who actually learned something from this post or whose curiosity was piqued because of it, well, fuck you for not knowing it before now — what the fuck are you doing here if you weren’t born here??!!)
to be fair, i’ve only been here a year and was aware of most of those things.
Nobody cares when you got here. Point being is that when “regular old” Portland is treated as a novelty for everybody who came here for “weird” Portland can be rather obnoxious at times.
That said, I didn’t catch that from this article. Show up and express some interest in local history and you’ll make it here just fine. Whine about how this town doesn’t meet your tourist brochure expectations of what you thought it would be then fuck you.
Well, I learned exactly one new thing from this post, but Fiona is only reporting on what DPC is calling “hidden jems”, so leave her alone, dicks.
Alternate headline:
“I moved here from California a couple months ago and got an internship at an alt-weekly”
I didn’t know about any of that and I’ve lived here for 20 years, you dicks*.
*I mean dicks affectionately.
@Kiala You didn’t know Portlandia was a statue? You’ve lived here 20 years and don’t remember when they barged that broad in?
Sigh… Portlandia is NOT the “second largest bronze sculpture” in the country. It is, however, the second-largest hammered copper statue in the USA.
We somehow survived the horrors of Alex Zielinski’s typos and factual errors… Fiona, please don’t go down that path.
The Benson Bubbler in front of OHS is not one of the original 20 bubblers. In 1975 Benson High School students started making bubblers. I assume the author was miss informed on the tour.
Thanks Fiona for coming on the tour! I always love hearing what parts of the tour stand out for each person. In 2.5 hours we discover a lot of ‘treasures’.. the tour is set up so those on tour also find things as well. It’s like a group-art-date! Come on the tour in October and find your own 5 things! Locals and Tourists alike are welcome. Sign up for the tour: http://dillpickleclub.org/2012/10/19/hidde… (Limit 12 people) and see the City as a Museum. Your “Museum Lady” Carye Bye