Portland Places
Landmarks, parks, gardens, architecture and long-running local institutions across the City of Portland, the places that have been here for decades and should be here for decades more.
The essential Portland places are Forest Park and its 30-mile Wildwood Trail, the International Rose Test Garden and Portland Japanese Garden in Washington Park, Pittock Mansion above the city, Lan Su Chinese Garden in Old Town, Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the Willamette, and Mount Tabor, a park on a volcanic cinder cone. For architecture, see the 1875 Pioneer Courthouse, Michael Graves’s Portland Building and Pietro Belluschi’s Equitable Building and Portland Art Museum. For a long Portland afternoon, add Powell’s City of Books.
How to read the cards: the ◉ marks a National Historic Landmark. The boxed tag gives the year a place opened or was built, so you can see how long it has been part of the city. The ♥ is an Architecture Pick, buildings worth a special trip.
Businesses listed here have operated for many years; hours change, so check before you go.
Landmarks + History
4 placesPioneer Courthouse
Completed in 1875, the Italianate sandstone courthouse with the octagonal cupola is the oldest public building in Portland and the oldest federal courthouse west of the Mississippi still in use, 700 SW Sixth Ave
Pioneer Courthouse Square
Willard Martin’s brick plaza across from the courthouse, dedicated April 6, 1984, and home to the city’s holiday tree each December
Pittock Mansion
Edward Foulkes’s 46-room sandstone house for Oregonian publisher Henry Pittock and his wife Georgiana, finished in 1914 high in the West Hills; the city bought it in 1964, 3229 NW Pittock Dr
Union Station
Van Brunt & Howe’s station opened February 14, 1896; its 150-foot clock tower has carried the neon “Go By Train” signs since 1948. Still a working rail station, 800 NW Sixth Ave
Parks + Gardens
6 placesForest Park
About 5,200 acres of forest inside city limits, dedicated in 1948, with more than 80 miles of trails including the 30-mile Wildwood Trail, a National Recreation Trail
International Rose Test Garden
Begun in 1917, when hybridists sent roses to Portland for safekeeping during World War I; today more than 10,000 bushes of over 600 varieties, 400 SW Kingston Ave, Washington Park
Portland Japanese Garden
Opened to the public in 1967 on about 12 acres near the Rose Garden, with distinct garden styles and a Cultural Village by Kengo Kuma added in 2017, 611 SW Kingston Ave
Lan Su Chinese Garden
A classical Chinese garden built by artisans from Suzhou, Portland’s sister city, opened in September 2000, 239 NW Everett St, Old Town Chinatown
Tom McCall Waterfront Park
The downtown riverfront park that replaced Harbor Drive after the highway was removed in 1974; it opened in 1978 and was named for Governor Tom McCall in 1984. Home to the Rose Festival’s CityFair and summer festivals
Mt. Tabor Park
A 176-acre park on a volcanic cinder cone in Southeast Portland, with stairways, trails and the open reservoirs the city built between 1894 and 1911
Architecture
3 placesThe Portland Building
Michael Graves’s 1982 city office tower, an icon of postmodern architecture, listed on the National Register in 2011 and rebuilt inside and out by 2020. Raymond Kaskey’s copper Portlandia, installed in 1985, gazes down over Fifth Avenue, 1120 SW Fifth Ave
Equitable Building
Pietro Belluschi’s 1948 office tower, now the Commonwealth Building: among the first anywhere sheathed in aluminum, with double-glazed windows and a sealed, fully air-conditioned interior, a model for the glass towers that followed, downtown
Portland Art Museum
Founded in 1892, the oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest. Its home is Belluschi’s 1932 museum building, joined to the 1926 Mark Building by the glass Rothko Pavilion, 1219 SW Park Ave
The places that have been here for decades, and should be here for decades more.
Institutions
2 placesPowell’s City of Books
Founded by Walter Powell in 1971 and billed as the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world, filling a full city block, 1005 W Burnside St
Bagdad Theater
Movie palace that opened January 14, 1927, with Universal Studios money behind it; McMenamins reopened it as a theater and pub in 1991, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Eat + Drink
3 placesHuber’s
Portland’s oldest restaurant, run by the Louie family for more than a century, known for roast turkey and Spanish coffee flamed at the table, 411 SW Third Ave
The Original Pancake House
The family-run original, in the same house off SW Barbur Blvd since 1953, famous for the Dutch baby; a James Beard America’s Classic, 8601 SW 24th Ave
Horse Brass Pub
Don Younger’s English-style pub, a cornerstone of Oregon’s craft beer culture, 4534 SE Belmont St
Nearby
3 placesMultnomah Falls
A 620-foot, two-tier waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge, which the U.S. Forest Service credits as the second-tallest year-round waterfall in the country; the Benson Bridge crosses between the tiers
Vista House at Crown Point
Edgar Lazarus’s octagonal stone observatory and rest stop on the Historic Columbia River Highway, dedicated in 1918, 733 feet above the river
Oswego Iron Furnace
Built in 1866 where Oswego Creek meets the Willamette, the first iron furnace on the Pacific Coast and Oregon’s oldest industrial landmark, in George Rogers Park
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Just Portland is curated by Debbie Pisaro, a 24-year California real estate veteran, an Inman Luxury Leader and the founder of Coastline 840.
(310) 362-6429 · debbie@coastline840.com
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