A few years ago, the American Planning Association highlighted Portland’s Commercial Street, which runs alongside the harbor from Merrill’s Marine Terminal in the west to the Old Port district in the east, as one of America’s “Great Streets.”. On the inland side of the street are a typically downtown mix of vegan bakeries and high-end tailor shops, offices and hotels: a vibrant and varied mix, but not all that much different from the rest of downtown Portland.

But on the other, waterfront side of Commercial Street there are fish processing facilities, chandleries, and lobster pounds, and a couple (relatively) inexpensive seafood dives. This is the city’s legendary “working waterfront,” where some of the city’s most valuable real estate — with downtown proximity and stunning harborfront views — has been set aside for low-rent marine industries like boat repair, fishing, and seafood processing.

Over the years, lots of developers have wanted to displace Portland’s lobster boats with condos and hotels, which, they promised, could have brought dozens of millionaires downtown and pumped new tax revenue into City Hall.

Instead, the city has repeatedly made it clear that new development that’s incompatible with marine industries is not welcome here. While policies have evolved over the years, the goals remain the same: to preserve affordable berths for working vessels, and affordable workspace and warehouses for the businesses that support them.

As a result, we don’t have gated communities on our harborfront. And contrary to the rueful promises of the slick tanning booth enthusiasts who tried to build luxury hotels and apartments on the water, our economy really hasn’t suffered for it.

Quite the contrary: because the waterfront is still a place where people can find hard work, and lobster boats, and great seafood fresh off the boat, the city as a whole is much richer. I was reminded of the working waterfront’s value once again last week, when the Chicago Tribune ran a travel piece about Portland that highlighted our “still-working waterfront where gulls squawk and circle overhead.” The article continues:

“It’s not so difficult to have that old charm when your town’s engine is what it was when founded in 1786: the docks. Portland’s long, salty docks still teem with stacks of lobster traps, the hulking ships that catch the nation’s seafood, and businesses boasting, ‘Fishing Maine waters for over 100 years.’ They’re open and free for your perusal and offer classic no-frills dining spots such as J’s Oyster, which serves fish straight out of the ocean and appears to have been redecorated approximately never during its 36-year existence.”

The working waterfront makes Portland unique: it makes our city worth visiting, and it enriches the lives of everyone who lives here. Here, in the heart of our city, is a place that attracts visitors and residents alike to engage with and appreciate the value of our oceans, and the people who work them. The working waterfront is a pure and authentic expression of our city’s hardworking, egalitarian spirit.

Photo: Hobson’s Wharf, by Flickr user Timothy Valentine.

Through the years, Portland has bestowed many gifts upon the world. Longfellow. Stephen King. Otto’s pizza.

Now we can add to that list the world’s first “Urban RAID.” On June 30th, up to a thousand people will work their way across a 5K obstacle course in Portland’s downtown. This first-ever event has been put together by Tri-Maine Enterprises (which manages races across the state) and Aura360 Ventures, an event/marketing firm. Recently I sat down with Parker Swenson and Lauren St. Clair, from Aura360, to learn more about the upcoming Urban RAID.

Q: Is this like a 5K run? I see you call it “the next generation of obstacle racing.”

Lauren: It’s the antithesis of a 5K run. It’s more of a fitness challenge taking place over a 5K distance. And this is the first time it’s happening anywhere. That’s part of what’s exciting, it’s originating here in Maine, it isn’t being brought in from somewhere else.

Q: Where will the course be?

Parker: It starts and finishes at the Ocean Gateway cueing lanes. The actual run will go along the Eastern Prom Trail to just about where the boat ramp is. Then it’s up the hill of the Eastern Prom and back down Fore Street. Just before the end, there’s a seven-story stair climb up to the top of Ocean Gateway Garage, at Fore and India streets.

Q: And along the way…?

Parker: There are eight major obstacles, including monkey bar sets, 15 rows of high hurdles, 20-foot-tall cargo nets, and a tire field.

Q: But not with hundreds of people scrambling across these all at once?

Parker: The competitors will start in waves, about five to six minutes apart, based on age and gender divisions, all the way from teenagers to 60-plus. There’s also a non-competitive division, if you just want to go through the course, and you don’t want to worry about people passing you, you can do it on your own terms.

Lauren: That way, you get to compete, you get the energy, you get the endorphin rush, but you’re going at your own pace.

Q: And what happens at the finish line?

Lauren: We’ll have medals for the top three competitors in each division, and there’ll be a whole festival at the finish line with music, and product demo’s – and beer, obviously.

Parker: The way the course is laid out, you’ll be going along the Eastern Trail with the harbor right there, so you’ll get the vistas while you’re moving through the obstacles. It’s the best that Portland has to offer.

* * *

The Urban RAID is actually one of a set of three such events occurring in Maine this year. Following our dash through the city streets, there is a Beach RAID in September in Kennebunk, and a Mountain RAID in October at Sunday River. You can learn more about all three raids, and register for them, at www.raidevents.com and you can keep up with news about the events at their Facebook page.

Happy is the city with great architecture. In Portland, that happy list includes the brick edifices along Commercial Street, the varied homes of the West End, the Wishcamper and Abromson buildings at USM, the Observatory, the Victorian houses perched in Deering Highlands, the Art Museum – an embarrassment of riches.

Happy, too, is the city, with great architects. In Portland, we have long supported significant architects, going back to the 19^th Century, with Francis Fassett and John Calvin Stephens and Frederick Law Olmsted (what, you didn’t know? After New York’s Central Park, Olmsted designed Deering Oaks).

Today, the hundreds of members of the Portland Society of Architects (PSA) encourage “…innovation and vision in design and planning” throughout the city. The PSA offers a wealth of programs, from the “Unbuilt Design Awards” to “10 Minute Architect” (a free clinic for anyone thinking about whether they need an architect) to last year’s Symposium on Sea Level Rise and the biannual “Drink’n Crit.”

What is “Drink’n Crit”?  Twice a year, the PSA recreates the student experience of an architectural studio. Only this time around, the students are local professionals who, with some trepidation, present their current projects to the public, as well as a critical review by fellow architects. Unlike an actual charette in architecture school, this event does not involve pulling an all-nighter!

The most recent Drink’n Crit was on March 12^th, at the SPACE Gallery on Congress Street. As guests milled about, talked, and had a beer, four architectural teams were taping drawings and photos of their projects on the walls. The team of jurors was introduced and then, one by one, each team presented its project and listened to the critiques.

The crowd may have been most energized by the team working with the City of Portland to re-imagine the several blocks of Spring Street that bisect much of downtown, past the Holiday Inn and the Civic Center.  Should Spring Street be two lanes wide, instead of four? Become a “bicycle boulevard”? Foster new garden spaces and stairways leading off to other streets?

The suggestions flew fast and furious, and the give-and-take was emblematic of the best of Portland. Some of us worked for the city, some of us worked in the city, some of us lived in the city – but all of us cared deeply about the city, wanting it always to be a better place.

If you, too, want to weigh in on Portland’s built landscape, Greater Portland Landmarks and Maine Historical Society are co-hosting a series of panel discussions about specific streets and spaces demanding our attention (including Spring Street, and our bridges, and our waterfront). Step up to the microphone and state your opinion!

Commercial Street and Wishcamper Center, University of Sourthern Maine, photos by Corey Templeton

Erin Kiley and Nathaniel Baldwin went through two years’ worth of business planning, real estate hunting, and city permitting so that dozens of other entrepreneurs won’t have to. Their enterprise, the Portland Flea-for-All, is about to open its doors in 3 stories of a gorgeously wood-beamed former mattress factory in the heart of Bayside.

The Flea-for-All is a flea market for Portland’s craftspeople, yard sale recyclers, and other creators. When it opens for business on the weekend of April 14-15, it will offer a brick-and-mortar presence for dozens of small entrepreneurs for as low as $30 a day for a 6 foot square booth. The market will also sell crafts on consignment, and wall space will be available for artists to show and sell their work outside of a gallery setting.

“We won’t be a typical junk market,” says Erin. “We’re cultivating quality sellers, and a variety of goods — we’ll have furniture, housewares, crafters…”

“The more diverse our vendors, the more people we can bring in as customers,” Nathaniel adds.

“We want it to be a market for every age, style, and budget,” says Erin.

Erin and Nathaniel moved to Portland two years ago from Santa Monica, California. They came here, they say, because they were attracted to Portland’s affordability, its potential to grow, and its entrepreneurial culture.

Finding a space large enough and inexpensive enough for their vision was a big challenge, as was the long slog through permitting and financing the new enterprise. “For a new entrepreneur, it was often hard to find the right path through the process,” says Erin. Still, after nearly two years’ worth of groundwork, “at least we know now that we’re really ready. The fun stuff lies ahead.”

The Flea-for-All finally found a home in a former mattress factory between Preble and Elm Streets in Bayside, a former industrial neighborhood that has been the target of City Hall’s economic development initiatives for the past decade. They give their landlord, Tod Dana, a lot of credit for supporting their idea and sharing their entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

The market’s front entrance is just steps away from the western terminus of the new Bayside Trail (Kiley and Baldwin want to offer special incentives to shoppers who arrive by foot or by bike) and the new-ish Trader Joe’s. Bayside Bowl is a block away in the opposite direction. A string of empty lots alongside the trail, where a railroad yard used to be, may soon start sprouting high-rise apartment buildings. And their next-door neighbor is Portland Architectural Salvage, a business that seems to share the recycled-value aesthetic that the Flea-for-All aspires to.

“There’s good growth around here, a lot of potential,” says Erin. “I think we got here at the right time.”

Portland Flea-for-All will be accepting applications from potential vendors on a rolling basis, but if you’re interested in getting in in time for the grand opening weekend in April, you should fill out their handy online application by this Friday, March 16th.

Photo: Erin Kiley and Nathaniel Baldwin, founders of Portland Flea-for-All, on the top floor of the future market space. Photo by Christian MilNeil.

Admittedly, it hasn’t been much of a winter here, or anywhere else in North America. But Portland, Maine does occupy the northern latitudes, which means that we get snowstorms, even in a globally-heated world. This week, March came in like a lion and dropped a foot of snow over the city.

Some people gripe about the winter weather. But a lot of us (the author included) love it. On snow days, schools are closed, and so are many offices. It’s the perfect opportunity to hunker down for a day of compulsory relaxation.

Or you can head outside. In 2010, Outside magazine named Portland the best “adventure town” in the east, thanks to the abundance of outdoor recreation within day-tripping distance of the city. For skiers, there are big mountains like Saddleback and smaller, more affordable areas like Mount Abram, and then there are the miles of groomed nordic skiing trails at Pineland Farms, just 20 minutes up the road in New Gloucester, Maine.

But even when driving is terrible, there are numerous ski trips you can make within city limits.

On the Eastern Prom, a short hill that’s popular for sledding can also be skied, from the end of Congress Street to a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean. There’s also a shorter, steeper pitch through the trees next to the playground. The slope between the street and the ocean is short and not terribly steep, but how many ski runs end on a beach? Even though it’s only in the 20s, on a sunny day you can still manage to get a suntan.

The Eastern Prom area is also good for cross-country skiing. It’s about a mile from the abandoned railroad trestle to the north and around to the Portland Company complex to the south, and finding a few lines of untracked powder on the hills in between.

Skiers less concerned with scenery can find a slightly bigger hill on the other side of town, at the Western Prom. New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is also visible from the top on clear days, which lends this ski run more of an alpine flavor. It’s also longer and steeper, although you’ll have to watch out for the plowed walkway that traverses the hill in switchbacks. This is a good place to ski off into the sunset at the end of your workday (as my wife Jess is doing in the photo at the top of this post).

On the other side of Back Cove, the city parks and recreation department has been building a terrain park on the hill in Payson Park for the past several winters, thanks to donated equipment from some of the state’s big ski areas and local enthusiasts. The hill even has snowmaking equipment to keep it going through snow droughts.

On the outskirts of the city, several large parks and open spaces host extensive trail networks for cross-country skiing. My favorite places include the Fore River Sanctuary (where you can ski along the edges of Portland’s biggest salt marsh), and the Riverside Golf Course, where volunteers from the Portland Nordic Ski Club groom trails for skate-skiing (they ask for a small donation, but it’s a bargain).

So if global warming’s got you down, there’s no need to burn gallons of petrochemicals to get away to the mountains – ski Portland instead!

Photo: Jessica skis the Western Prom. Photo by Christian MilNeil.

Three o’clock in the morning is when a city is most still, most calm. One day’s activities have ended and the next day’s have yet to begin.

New York City may never sleep, but Portland does close its eyes for a bit in the middle of the night. At 3 a.m., the first thing one notices is the lack of people and traffic. When else can one experience Congress Square, or Longfellow Square, or Monument Square, with no vehicles passing through, none at all?

A few nighthawks are around, of course. Allison, at the reception desk at Maine Med’s Emergency Center (17 patients have been checked in since midnight). Kevin, working the 4 p.m.-4 a.m. shift in his taxi near the Eastland Hotel. Josh, behind the counter at the all-night Irving station on Commercial Street. And the police. And the street-sweepers. And the baker rolling out dough at Standard Baking.

But in general, on a mild Wednesday night in February, town is tranquil. Down by the water, no boats are yet moving in or out of the docks. The Casco Bay Line’s ferries are quietly moored under a crescent moon – it’s still a few hours until the first ferry departs. Even Becky’s Diner is empty.

At 3 a.m., the town’s statues reassert themselves. In Longfellow Square, the seated poet gazes down a quiet Congress Street. Outside the Nickelodeon Cinema, the lobsterman statue has a usually busy intersection all to himself.

Most office buildings are dark, but the refrigerated trucks keep up their hum here and there, and the B&M Baked Bean plant seems active. Then, as the hour hand moves towards four, a few more cars appear, a few more people hurry down the streets, a few more lights flicker on…and a new day starts.

Photos by John Spritz

Were there bakeries in Portland before Standard Baking opened its doors in 1995? Of course there were, but it feels like Standard has, well, set the standard for a constantly expanding class of artisan bakers throughout town. (Creative Portland’s Andy Graham remembers the bread when he arrived in the 70s was, in fact, being pretty dismal.)

Today, Portland is renowned far and wide for its baked goods. Just ask Bon Appetit, or Road Food authors Jane and Michael Stern, or FoodieMommy. But don’t spend too much time reading about our amazing bakeries. Instead, come here and enjoy what we enjoy, including…

Big Sky Bread, milling wheat and turning out delectable loaf after loaf in Woodford’s Corner for close to twenty years.

Borealis Breads, with cheese ficelles to die for, and a strong commitment to Maine grain farmers.

Katie Made Bakery, where the cheesecakes and pies overflow with love.

158 Pickett Street (aka One Fifty Ate), at the SMCC campus in South Portland, with legendary sourdough bagels worth crossing the bridge for.

Micucci’s Grocery, where baker Stephen Lazalotta has set up shop in the back, producing luna breads that are snatched up the minute they appear on the racks.

Scratch Baking Co., in South Portland’s Willard Square, where each day of the week brings different specialty breads.

Two Fat Cats Bakery, where the pies cry out to you, yearning to come home with you and meet your family.

Rosemont Market, three branches and counting, great baguettes, whole wheat scala and the closest thing to a New York bagel.

And that’s not even mentioning Mr. Bagel, or The European, or Good East Boutique, or Bakery on the Hill, or East End Cupcakes, or, or –

‘Nuff said. Time to eat.

Big Sky Bread

Two Fat Cats

Part of what makes Portland’s First Friday Art Walks so much fun is that they have no epicenter. As the crowd surges along Congress Street, with smaller group investigating eddies in the Old Port, the Place To Be shifts from one locale to the next. One sure thing: if you stroll enough, and walk through enough doors, wonderful things will happen.

Last night, the December Art Walk that leads up to the holidays, there was an extra energy in the air. You could sense it at Congress Square: on one side, the line snaked into the State Theater for The Fogcutters present Big Band Syndrome (Lauren Wayne posted a video of the finale of the show); the other side of the square featured the Portland Museum of Art (free on Friday nights) and their hypnotic show on classic Shaker artifacts. Meanwhile, in-between, Art Walkers trundled up the stairs of the Flat Iron Gallery, in the pie-slice-shaped Hay Building, to sip and chew and ruminate on Art, Life, and Living in Portland.

Another wonderful thing, as always, took place at Otto Pizza, a few steps down Congress Street. Your correspondent was among the many who stood happily on the sidewalk, waiting in line to purchase a slice of what many consider to be the finest pizza north of Boston (and now Otto is in Harvard Square, too!). When it comes in as ideal and manifold a presentation as Otto offers, pizza can crystallize the creative economy.

Outside Otto, the sidewalk mambo was wending its way down Congress Street to Space Gallery, with many a stop along the way. Inside Space, one of First Friday’s mainstays, there was music, there was art, there was laughter, there was drinking, there were jostling crowds and a buoyant sense of pleasure in the air. There was also an Alternative Gift Market where you could buy donations to a wide range of curated non-profits and deliver them in a selection of limited edition, hand printed cards designed by artists Beth Taylor, Erin Flett and Jacqueline Dubois.

If you prefer your art au plein air, you could step outside of Space onto the sidewalk, where an open-air truck had pulled up to the curb. Just climb the ramp into the truck’s back to observe the paintings hanging within.

The crowd kept surging, now on to the Maine College of Art. Every year, MECA combines their First Friday participation with a huge holiday sale of items by college students and alums. This year, three floors were given over to a cavalcade of holidazzles, and so the crowds were especially strong here. Among the (hundreds of?) tables and booths, there seemed to be a particular emphasis on recycled treasures: playing cards converted into wallets, umbrellas converted into aprons, stamps converted into earrings.

For those who needed to retreat from the gleeful cacophony of MECA, there was quieter contemplation at galleries where one could, for instance, admire scale models, photos, and blueprints celebrating the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Or, upstairs at Cross Jewelers, you could sample “tastings” of various hot cocoas. Then back out into the street and more galleries, more stores, more music.

Until, in the words of Samuel Pepys, one has turned First Friday into First Saturday, “and so to bed.”

Photos by John Spritz

Nobody writes poems about hardware stores. But if they did, Portland’s Maine Hardware would be a worthy subject.

In business since 1935, and on St. John Street since 1978, Maine Hardware is a paradise of practicality. At some point, everyone needs a hardware store, and at some point (or many points) each year, you’ll find yourself blissfully wandering this emporium’s aisles, examining and considering objects you never knew you needed.

If you’re fond of hardware stores elsewhere, rest assured, Maine Hardware fulfills the Four Basic Criteria For A World-Class Hardware Store:

1. Way too much parking.
2. Uniformed staff, each of whom can build or take apart an aircraft carrier.
3. Ridiculously extravagant selections of toilet seats, downspouts and chinking chains.
4. Free popcorn!

Entering the store, you see a circular checkout counter shaped like a 20-foot doughnut. Within, wizard-like staffers, many of whom have worked here for eons, process orders, hunt down arcane objects, and answer more questions than the New York Public Library. The countertop is chockablock with all manner of doodads: Timex watches, lip balm, sunglasses, balsa airplanes, lollipops, magnifying glasses, city maps, and dozens of other tchotchkes galore.

Off to your left is the Rental Place, stocked with a bewildering assortment of machines whose purpose one can only imagine. If it pulls, cuts, tamps, measures, drills, sands, tills, washes, or stretches, it’s here.

Over in the true hardware aisle (what they call “Fasteners”) are hundreds and hundreds of those cute little cardboard drawers, each holding its own trove of metallic goodies. Consider, for instance, the nut. There are separate drawers for breakaway nuts, cage nuts, cap nuts, castle nuts, expansion nuts, hex nuts, jack nuts, jam nuts, knurled nuts, lock nuts, push nuts, rack nuts, slotted nuts, spanner nuts, speed nuts, square nuts, T-nuts and the ever-popular wing nuts. Do you need a knurled nut? Maybe not, but if you do, this is the place.

Roam the aisles and discover acres of extension cords, tons of toilet plungers, legions of lengthy ladders. And when you leave – remember what George Harrison said, all things must pass – pay attention to the smile on your face. You’ve just been shopping, exposed to the beastly belly of American commerce, and you’re smiling. You’re happy, because you’ve been inside a top-notch hardware store. And isn’t that a fine thing?

Photo by John Spritz

The creative economy runs on coffee, and as you would expect, Portland, Maine, has a plethora of fine coffee and great coffeehouses. If you’re a creative thought worker trying to figure out where to park your laptop when inspiration strikes, the variety can be overwhelming. How do you choose the the right café for you? Contributor John Spritz has come up with a clever psychographic taxonomy based on movie stars for Portland’s java joints to help you find your spot:

Perhaps the current epicenter of Portland’s Coffee Universe is Bard, at the corner of Middle and Exchange streets. Here’s where budding entrepreneurs set up shop early in the morning, laptops open and buzzing, conducting business all day long. There are some obligatory sofas at Bard, but the crackle of commerce (or, at least, intense discussions) is in the air. If Bard were a movie actor, it’d be George Clooney.

For a more relaxed cup, mosey two short blocks to Arabica, at the head of Free Street. You’ll see a few more suits than you do at Bard, because of the nearby law firms, but even so Arabica is a bit more laid-back. It registers slightly higher on the goofiness scale. If Arabica were a movie actor, it’d be Jim Carrey.

Need to dial it back ever more? Meander up to Hilltop Coffee House, on Congress Street. The place to be if you want to run across Munjoy Hill pols or neighborhood technocrats, Hilltop is quiet, quiet, quiet, all except for the hiss of the espresso machine. Movie star? Morgan Freeman.

For many people, downtown Portland means Commercial Street, and the coffeehouse reigning there is Port Bean. It’s a good deal brighter than the other venues, with large plate glass walls and a menu that stretches beyond the bean and leaf to include Real Food. Not much coziness, but a pleasant spot from which to watch the tourist world stroll by. Movie star? Julia Roberts.

Smack dab in the middle of Monument Square is the aptly named Spartan Grill. Good coffee, but hard to linger there. Low on ambience, high on efficiency. Movie star: Tommy Lee Jones.

Coffee by Design is the mini-empire that really built Portland’s coffee culture. Three locations across town offer different levels of funk and squeezed-in pleasure. The Congress Street location is Cameron Diaz, India Street is Will Smith, Washington Avenue is Michael Keaton.

Of course, if you want to wander further afield, there’s Borealis—the one bread bakery of the bunch—on Ocean Avenue (Tom Hanks), Udder Place on Brighton Avenue (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Yordprom—which features a light Thai lunch menu—on Congress Street (Johnny Depp).

And then there are the tea emporia – but that’s another article…

Arabica Coffee, photo by John Spritz