Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
13
DIVISION/CLINTON, LADD'S
ADDITION: THEATER OF THE
STREET
BOUNDARIES:
SE 12th Ave., SE Hawthorne Blvd., SE 39th Ave., SE Clinton St.
DISTANCE:
About 3.25 miles
DIFFICULTY:
Easy
PARKING:
Free street parking
PUBLIC TRANSIT:
TriMet Bus 10 (SE Clinton St. and 26th Ave.) or Bus 4 (SE Division
and 37th Ave.)
A little pocket of Southeast Portland cool, the Division/Clinton area has been steadily
gaining ground in recent years as a food-and-nightlife destination. Slick new apart-
ment buildings have cropped up alongside bars and restaurants by the handful, in
what just a few years ago was a cheap, mostly residential, totally unglamorous neigh-
borhood. One result of all the activity is that already too-narrow Division Street has
become a pedestrian-dodging gauntlet for drivers, and on-street parking is a hot
enough commodity that local residents have lodged complaints against new apartment
buildings being designed without parking spaces. But ultimately, of course, so much
development and new business is good news for this area—if nothing else, it makes
for a diverting walk with plenty of inviting places to linger and refuel. This walk also
includes one of the city's prettiest residential areas, the labyrinthine Ladd's Addition,
a small, historic neighborhood whose skewed angle and repeating pattern of diamond-
shaped rose gardens make it almost as disorienting as it is attractive.
Start at one of the early anchors of the tiny Clinton neighborhood, the
Clinton Street Theater. Though it has changed hands frequently over the
years, the Clinton has maintained a fairly consistent aesthetic sensibility,
one that embraces the fringe of independent cinema. And we don't mean
“fringe” and “independent” as in Sundance; we mean everything from
Japanese gore-horror to local filmed-by-bike shorts to low-budget music
documentaries. The theater's claim to fame, however—and its sustaining
force—is
The Rocky Horror Picture Show,
which the Clinton has screened
at midnight every Saturday since time began, more or less. If you've nev-
