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"It&amp;#039;s rush hour, and the distant crown of Mount Hood glows orange as the setting sun glitters on the broad Willamette River. Hordes of commuters wend their way home across Hawthorne Bridge, their faces a physiognomist&amp;#039;s delight: an exasperated scowl at the creep of the traffic; a vacant mask of iPod distraction; an ominous knitting of brow as a frustrated daredevil accelerates around a dithering slowpoke. They are the kinds of faces that mark rush hour around the world, really. Except that these commuters are all pedaling bicycles. From its two-wheel mania to its snazzy Czech streetcars, from its organic arugula to its recycling fetish, Portland, Oregon, has carved out a reputation as the nation&amp;#039;s grooviest green city. Here, environmental chic and pioneering urban design have fused into a sustainable utopia that makes visitors stand, mouths agape, in awe. But that&amp;#039;s only half the story, and maybe not even the interesting half. What that plotline misses is Portland&amp;#039;s madcap, freewheeling exuberance: its Klingon karaoke, crystal soothsayers, garage bands, and naughty nightlife. But how did a pioneer town in the middle of nowhere become a beacon of anything? Let alone sustainable living?  Its origins were not auspicious. In 1845, two East Coast transplants\u2014Asa Lovejoy, a lawyer from Boston, and Francis Pettygrove, a shopkeeper from Portland, Maine\u2014were partners in a 640-acre claim on the west bank of the Willamette River, near its confluence with the Columbia. Each wanted to name the spot after his own hometown, so they literally tossed a coin and another Portland was born. Oregon&amp;#039;s early settlers were rugged individualists, and their unquenchable idealism remains a vital part of the city&amp;#039;s identity. Sometimes it&amp;#039;s tempting to imagine the early settlement as a model of sober ecological stewardship, but the reality is exactly the opposite. &amp;quot;This place was wild,&amp;quot; says Rick Potestio, a star of the local architectural firmament, whose jewel-like condominium complex in southwest Portland, the Lair, is a prize of modernist logic and good taste. (Locals also revere hometown boy Brad Cloepfil, the architect of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and New York&amp;#039;s forthcoming Museum of Arts &amp;amp;amp; Design. Check out the concrete-and-reclaimed timber atrium in his building for ad agency Wieden + Kennedy on N.W. 13th Avenue.) Portland was a rough-hewn barter town bustling with sailors, longshoremen, claim jumpers, and lumbermen. Passed-out drunks were hauled into the so-called Shanghai tunnels\u2014subterranean passageways that still connect the basements of many early buildings\u2014and woke up the next day to find themselves on a ship halfway across the Pacific. Saloons sported handy tiled urinals under their bars. Shantytowns crowded the banks of the Willamette, a madam named Sweet Mary ran a brothel on a barge, and boarding houses (including one operated by the mother of future food deity James Beard) filled the streets. So many trees were enthusiastically cleared that locals called the city Stumptown. By the 1960s, this disposable mentality had yielded predictable results. The gleaming Willamette was a toxic gazpacho. The snowy peak of Mount Hood&amp;#039;s silver halo was tarnished yellow by smog. Cans and bottles littered the sidewalks. Traffic clogged the streets, and every freeway and exit ramp only seemed to make congestion worse and bring Portland one step closer to becoming a second-rate Sacramento. The crazy dream of the pioneers was being crushed under the wheels of the automobile. The populace took a long hard look at the car culture of California and said, &amp;quot;Enough is enough.&amp;quot; Out of that communal outrage and refocusing came Pioneer Courthouse Square. Splashed by waterfalls and shaded by trees, the full-block site is an egalitarian stronghold, populated by everyone from Hacky Sackers and Hare Krishnas to scores of office workers relaxing on their lunch hour. &amp;quot;Portland is the nicest city I have known,&amp;quot; says Kirk Reeves, a street performer, as he took a break from playing the theme from The Flintstones on his trumpet. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s weird but not dangerous.&amp;quot; The square has the authentic feel of an Italian piazza, but like many landmarks here, it is a prime example of architectural recycling. Once the location of the august Portland Hotel (built in 1890, demolished in 1951) and later a parking lot, it was opened as a public venue in 1984 after the citizens of Portland blocked a developer&amp;#039;s plan to erect a parking garage on the land. The theme of repurposing, which also is a theme of the city, is repeated through its postmodern elements, such as a fallen pillar that incorporates chessboards. As for the iron gate of the Portland Hotel, it now frames the square&amp;#039;s southern perimeter. Oregon was the first state to pass a litter-fighting bottle bill, and recycling is practically instinctive here. On garbage day, the streets blossom with yellow tubs of paper, bottles, and cans, and Styrofoam is banned from fast-food restaurants. But the ethic of reuse runs deeper than that. Portland prizes thrift-store fashion and vintage jewelry. Residents seem to like things better the second time around.  This aesthetic is nowhere more evident than at Powell&amp;#039;s City of Books, which, with a million-plus volumes, is arguably the biggest bookstore in the world. No visit here is complete without an afternoon wandering its endless corridors, which include dictionaries from Apache to Zulu and more than 25 biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright. Part of its charm stems from the practical decision to shelve new and used titles side by side, which also fits perfectly with the city&amp;#039;s casual vibe. Powell&amp;#039;s also is a convenient port of entry to the Pearl District, where Portland&amp;#039;s genius for transformation is on inspiring display. Fifteen years ago, it was tinged with menace, thanks to the proximity of the crime-ridden Skid Road area. &amp;quot;You just didn&amp;#039;t come here,&amp;quot; says David Schargel, a native Brooklynite turned Portland tour guide. &amp;quot;Now look around you.&amp;quot; Turning warehouses into condos is hardly a new trick, but the Pearl, as the area is known, is more than a haphazard collection of buildings. It is a real neighborhood. The streets, once the domain of hoboes and bag ladies, now crackle with a vibrant array of restaurants, caf\u00E9s, shops, galleries, bakeries, and parks, cheek by jowl with the auto-detailing shops and hardware suppliers of its industrial past. Stroll down N.W. 10th Avenue and you can see that the Pearl has achieved its elusive balance of unity without uniformity. Its short blocks and historic brick fa\u00E7ades tempt you to explore, and its open spaces invite lingering. Jamison Square\u2014the Pearl&amp;#039;s most popular park and the first to be developed in the district in the wake of a 1998 conceptual plan for new public venues\u2014resounds with the delighted shrieks of children playing hide-and-seek and the soft whoosh of streetcars. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s just something about Portland I&amp;#039;ve never been able to find in any other city I&amp;#039;ve been to,&amp;quot; says Lindsay Beall, the general manager of the hip caf\u00E9 Sip &amp;amp;amp; Kranz, nursing an enormous mug of jasmine tea as she gazes out at the square. &amp;quot;It has the benefits of a big city while maintaining a small-town charm.&amp;quot; Sip &amp;amp;amp; Kranz strikes the perfect balance, too. The caf\u00E9 oozes Icelandic cool with a striking white glass &amp;quot;ice bar,&amp;quot; playful eggcup chairs, and homemade lampshades. But it also provides warmth with wicker seating, floors of handsome Chinese oak, and a special rumpus room for parents to park rambunctious children while they load up on latte. Portland&amp;#039;s progressive vibe, nonchalant demeanor, and relatively low housing costs (think of a college town writ large and kept tidy) lure young professionals from around the country. &amp;quot;Portland is a city that&amp;#039;s on the rise,&amp;quot; says fashion designer Elizabeth Dye, who is a cofounder of the English Dept., an influential clothing boutique, and is a major presence at Portland&amp;#039;s own fashion week. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s growing in an intelligent way. That ethos attracts a lot of young, creative people,&amp;quot; she adds. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re writing the story as we go along.&amp;quot; And, in case you wondered about the quality of indie fashion in the Pacific Northwest, consider this: A dress made of sustainable bamboo fiber by designer Anna Cohen ended up on the cover of Women&amp;#039;s Wear Daily last year. Perhaps the most dramatic example of the city&amp;#039;s do-it-yourself mentality is Ace Hotel Portland, an imaginative fusion of frontier cool and road-trip adventure that opened in February. The restored 1912 mosaic-tile lobby echoes with old blues tunes played on vintage vinyl. The fir-floored rooms are bedecked with reglazed claw-foot tubs and quirky artwork. Vintage milk crates serve as towel racks, and desks marry salvaged timber and re\u00ADpur\u00ADposed tubing. Guests can borrow retro-style bikes by the Canadian firm jorg&amp;amp;amp;olif to get around town (it beats a complementary Gideons Bible). &amp;quot;This place has a bohemian soul,&amp;quot; says Natasha Figueroa, an Ace executive, as she tugs on a blind to reveal the lights of the city winking on at dusk. &amp;quot;We care about our work, we want to do the right thing, and we love to have a good time.&amp;quot; After dark, the bar at Doug Fir, probably the city&amp;#039;s grooviest nightspot, casts a supremely seductive glow. Lined with the pale wood that gives the place its name, the music club is next door to the Jupiter Hotel, a former den of low-rent vice that has undergone a profound remodeling. But look beyond the surface glam\u00ADour and the boldface buzz. Doug Fir is the kind of place where you are likely to run into the clerk who rang up that vintage Kinks album or the woman who pedaled past you on Hawthorne Bridge. Don&amp;#039;t stand on ceremony\u2014buy them a drink. In Portland, yesterday&amp;#039;s florist could be tomorrow&amp;#039;s date. Out here, recycling happens at every level. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/a3777/portland-a-38480/>