The Potlatch Tradition in Modern Portland Lives On

The coastal and river-living tribal people of the upper Northwest lived in such a superabundant place that they were one of the most materially blessed tribes in North America. They traded with the Russians for textiles and fripparies, caught no end of bounty in seafood, and carved both household goods and immense, totemic art works from fallen cedars and redwoods.  

Pacific Northwest design
representing a Potlatch

Every school child learns about coastal tribes' potlatch ceremonies: a tradition of throwing a big party and giving away one's own overabundant material items, both to secure local relationships and to spiritually challenge the giver to live more authentically with less stuff. It's a way to redistribute wealth.

The inner Southeast neighborhoods are all about living authentically with less. Some folks make an art of it. When my son and I moved here, we grabbed a disco-era oak shelf sitting out by the road, and it was our first piece of furniture before we were able to U-haul the rest of it to Portland. 

A structure outside the hostel on Hawthorne
like those used for give-aways

Settling in, we noticed several cob-style, rounded, covered structures in and around the Hawthorne area, where people leave behind their unwanted gear. The Portland give-away tradition, it is, an unconscious carry over from the native Potlatch, a tradition imprinted on the whole region surviving in its own, modern, transformed way.

Here's what we've found (and taken home!) from our local Potlatch Station:

• a glass jar of apricots canned in the summer, handwritten on romantically in French
• a hardcover book about the river Ganges 
• a shockingly hip olive green dress with a maroon velvet ribbon
• a nearly new snowboard.  You heard me: a snowboard. Right about the time the boy had been wishing to find a way to go try it out with no particular means to do so. That's called magic.
• a child's tatty antique sticker scrapbook about Hawaii
• a sheer, hot pink curtain
• a hemp messenger bag
• a small ivory and black painted wood dresser (wait until you see how I transformed it)
• a stainless steel Dualit toaster (Those things cost a fortune, just ask Williams Sonoma.)
• a whole pound of rich ground coffee, just as I was about to run out
• a guidebook for travelers to Japan--the girl will be visiting there next year!
• a sewing table from the 1920s
• 38 new, flocked clothes hangers--when it was what we most needed
• 2 enormous potatoes

And, we have left plenty behind, as well: flannel shirts and balls of yarn, magazines, and skinny jeans. Nothing quite so costly as a snowboard, though.

This gives a feeling of connection with those who have left something behind, and with those who take my things home. We not only eat and live in this area, but we, even anonymously, leave our mark whether in acquisition or in culling our own plenty. The place has the magical ability to provide things at just the right moment in time. 

The Potlatch Station is one of the pleasures of living in our inner Southeast Portland neighborhood.

Portland Neighborhoods: Hawthorne / Belmont / Sunnyside

Welcome to my weekly run down of the character of Portland's neighborhoods. Meet me here every Thursday through February to catch the flavor of Portland's inner Southeast. 

Southeast Stark Street, Hawthorne Street, Belmont Street, and Division Streets, from approximately 12th Avenue to about 60th Avenue in southeast Portland, is the range of neighborhood we're talking about today. 

To the south is Division St, and to its north is Stark St, containing Hawthorne and Belmont Streets, and this quad of East/West running streets forms the locus of one of Portland's most eccentric and trend-reflecting areas of town--while still, overall, having a feeling of intimacy and inclusive community. 

Belmont and 50th in the '20s

East of the river began to be settled in the late 19th century with large, impressive farmhouses, and gradually filled in with simple, middle- to working class homes from the '10s through to the '50s, with the last bits of free space taken by mid '60s apartment buildings, all built on a grid street system. 

Apartments on Belmont

By the 1920s and '30s the main arteries of Hawthorne, Belmont and Division were established as the commercial areas, and they still haven't lost their importance in the daily life of these Portland neighborhoods, as they are still where people shop, meet, eat, and get their needs met. 

New construction today tends to be either scraped-off, newly constructed condominiums, or modern design apartment buildings along Belmont and Division. As the city has not been requiring developers include on-site parking lots for all the people living in these structures, streets nearby them are or will certainly be filled in with cars to their very limits. 

Close-in, Southeast Portland neighborhoods are generously landscaped: trees were important in the early days, and they shade nearly every street or yard, even when structures are newer. Some streets are lined with huge trees planted last century, especially those taken up with large Edwardian or Craftsman style homes, while others reflect 1920s developments with cute brick Tudors, while still other streets are an eclectic mixture representing a range of yard-design trends in the 20th century.  

Typical '20s Tudor with few large trees

The bone structure of the areas closest to the business areas is delicate, with narrow streets lined with parked cars. Drivers must be especially mindful of numerous bicyclists in every kind of weather and season. Many houses have their own driveways, yet finding parking can be a challenge here. On the other hand, this area is imminently walkable, with a near European feeling of pedestrian-friendliness.

Sunnyside bungalow in iconoclastic colors

The urban farmer is well established in these neighborhoods: some backyards have chickens, or front yards given to sprawling permaculture, neat rock gardens, or planted-in retaining walls. 

House colors reflect the inner character of their owners: you will find a bright lilac Victorian with prayer flags hanging off the porch and a buddha surrounded by plastic animals as an altar in the front yard, just as you will find a restrained, oyster hued, late 1940s Cape Cod with a stately burgundy door and nickel fittings planted in the center of a neat grass yard. Diversity of expression rules, here. 

Stately Stark St Cape Cod 

Twenty or thirty years ago, Hawthorne street was inhabited by scruffy hipsters. The houses have now gone to working professionals, while the rentals may still be hipster inhabited. The boomtime of the '90s to about 2005 added multi-unit housing to Belmont street, upscale organic grocery retailers, and university-town style chains (Laughing Planet Cafe) or independent coffee/cupcake/ethnic gift/trendy clothing shops, along with national franchises (Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Starbuck's, Zoom Urgent Care) to Hawthorne, replacing some of the independent run businesses, but generally expanding the diversity of commercial amenities, while strengthening the position of independent run businesses.  Alongside big box grocery and drug stores live the regular-joe or distinctive places of character like The Horse Brass Pub, Nick's Coney Island, The Waffle Window, and The Bread and Ink Cafe, as well as shops: Memento, Powell's Home and Garden bookstore, and Presents of Mind. 

Hawthorne's Bagdad Theatre at dusk

McMinamin's neon-lit Bagdad Theatre anchors mid-Hawthorne with its movies, restaurant, bar, and author's nights. The economic base of this area is diverse: from well-to-do Ladd's Addition and Laurelhurst Park surrounds, to the eco-interested families and working partnerships that define the blocks surrounding the Sunnyside Environmental school. Apartments are well dispersed within these neighborhoods, too.

Multnomah County's beloved and well-used Belmont library branch is located between Belmont and Hawthorne on Cesar Chavez Blvd.

Division is well known as a hub of independent restaurants and food carts. Another food pod lives on Belmont at 42nd Avenue, and another at Hawthorne and 20th Ave.  Food cart eating is an essential part of the inner Southeast lifestyle, and has made Portland, Oregon America's preeminent independent food city of the moment: Portlanders eat well, here.

Local Stumptown Coffee on Belmont

This is an area of Portland with a sense of initiative and humor: besides having many of the most unusual and notable restaurants, shops with clever and inventive inventory that showcases local artists and illustrators live here.

What makes this area so desirable is its proximity to a wide range of human expression: everyone is welcome in inner Southeast Portland. You might see a dreadlocked cellist or a bearded man in purple tights making balloon creatures, couples or families shopping, professor-y old friends meeting to talk, or skinny-jeaned hipsters bent over their computers, writing, in coffee shops. It's a wonderful neighborhood to live in.