Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
19 HOLLYWOOD: ALMOST FAMOUS
BOUNDARIES: NE 52nd Ave., NE Halsey St., NE 37th Ave., NE Brazee St.
DISTANCE: 2 miles
DIFFICULTY: Easy
PARKING: Free street parking
PUBLIC TRANSIT: TriMet Bus 12 (NE 42nd Ave. and Sandy Blvd.), MAX Red and Blue
Lines (Hollywood/NE 42nd Ave. Transit Center)
Anchored by a fabulous old movie theater but otherwise pretty much unrelated to that
other Hollywood, this is a fun little neighborhood that could be easily overlooked if
you didn't know better. It's usually thought of as a place you go through on your way
to somewhere else. MAX Light Rail has a stop here, adjacent to an important nexus
of bus lines, so it's a key point for public transit. Plus, auto-worshiping Sandy
Boulevard cuts right through the middle of it at a diagonal, and some of the resulting
intersections will make you glad you're walking rather than driving. But overall the
streets are mostly quiet and the atmosphere laid-back. It's a good in-between-things
'hood, close to several other parts of town, but Hollywood has come into its own as a
destination in recent years. You'll want to stay awhile.
Start at the Hollywood/NE 42nd Ave. Transit Center, where the MAX
Light Rail line stops. Turn left (north) on the pedestrian bridge and con-
tinue straight along NE 42nd Ave. At NE Broadway, hang a left; note the
excellent 1950s neon sign for Chin's Kitchen Chinese restaurant, on the
left. Where Broadway meets NE Sandy Blvd., you'll see a yellow metal
sculpture of a pair of vintage eyeglasses, lending its version of glamour to
the neighborhood.
Veer left onto NE Sandy and follow it a few blocks to where it meets NE
Halsey St. For a few years in the early 2000s, the triangle-shaped corner
building was home to The Blackbird, a short-lived but fondly re-
membered rock club of the sort that has all but disappeared, at least in
Portland: small and cozy, with affordable door prices and zero preten-
sion, but whose management was well-connected enough to book touring
indie bands you'd actually heard of, bands that usually played much big-
ger venues. (It's now home to Tony Starlight's, a Vegas-style supper club
and lounge that's one of the very few Portland venues with a dress code.)
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