Neighborhood Notes

By Eric Noland
MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Launched: 04/29/2007 03:07:46 AM PDT

Upon finding your way into Portland's Pearl District, pause for a moment, close your eyes and let your imagination run free.
You can almost hear the sounds of another era. The clink of steel pails at the Holly Dairy. The chugging of a heavily laden train pulling away from the loading docks on 13th Avenue. The bustle in a warehouse in which the inventory is detailed in block letters on the brick facade: "sinks, dishwashers, mixers, choppers, waffle irons, toasters, slicers."
Today, art galleries occupy the warehouses, bistro tables and planter boxes are arranged on the loading docks, a brewpub is housed in the dairy, and the train and its tracks are long gone.
The Pearl, on the northern edge of downtown Portland, is a textbook success story of how an industrial core can be transformed into a fashionable neighborhood of boutiques, galleries, cafes, parks and stylish loft dwellings.
And a visitor to Portland is the richer for it. This neighborhood is compact, walkable and convenient to the city's exceptional MAX light rail. A streetcar line runs right through it.
Portland flourished as a seaport and rail hub in the early 1900s, and this area was the manufacturing center and rail yard. Decline began just after World War II, when truck transport and the interstate highway system became a more viable way to ship goods. But many of the venerable brick warehouses of the early 20th century still stand, and their restorations lend authentic character to the neighborhood.
Read more at Contra Costa Times...