I've only lived in Portland, OR a short time, and this weekend our home was christened with our first visitor.
As anytime a friend and tourist comes to your city, you suddenly find yourself doing the tourist-y things. When I lived in New York City these tourist-y things might have included standing on line at the Statue of Liberty or your ears popping as you ascend to the observation deck on top of the Empire State Building. In Portland, I was at a loss. What was the equivalent? A walking tour exposing the subterranean history of Portland.
I had never really thought much about what all these tourist activities mean. Not why people wanted to participate. We do have this burning need to have a photograph in front of whatever represents the locus of our travels as a monument to our own adventurousness. What I began to think about is why are the people of a town compelled to give such a tour. Clearly it wasn't for money.
Our guide was what one would expect, a long-time local, a man fascinated with history, someone rather overweight with a microphone around his sweaty head. As most well-trained guides, he had his stories well-rehearsed. He was quite the raconteur. He engaged the audience with questions. He got excited by architecture. He even pulled a magnet out of his pocket to prove that, yes, these buildings were cast irons. He was giving the tour because he loved his city and he wanted to share it with us.
He also wanted to brand it for us. His stories were the vehicle. They constructed the city's brand in each word and street corner finger-point now stare at that building/monument/field.
Portland, a town where you'll find a number of cars with bumper stickers shouting "Keep Portland Weird," certainly likes to present itself as progressive, edgy, a bit fringe, arts-y, maverick, indie. The stories our guide chose helped to frame this impression for the "tourists" and implant these tales in their bodily experience, unpeeling the streets and buildings to reveal the seedy history as we all marched along. His stories were about racism turning into recognition of racism, sex scandal, shanghai-ing (the tour itself was billed as such), mayors who expose themselves in front of statues and get re-elected, prostitution and graft, crime--all stories that construct the history of a progressive, edgy, fringe-y, arts-y, maverick, indie city.
Not a bad brand to have in this post-cool, post-Bush world, at least for a certain market segment.
Portland Walking Tours
As anytime a friend and tourist comes to your city, you suddenly find yourself doing the tourist-y things. When I lived in New York City these tourist-y things might have included standing on line at the Statue of Liberty or your ears popping as you ascend to the observation deck on top of the Empire State Building. In Portland, I was at a loss. What was the equivalent? A walking tour exposing the subterranean history of Portland.
I had never really thought much about what all these tourist activities mean. Not why people wanted to participate. We do have this burning need to have a photograph in front of whatever represents the locus of our travels as a monument to our own adventurousness. What I began to think about is why are the people of a town compelled to give such a tour. Clearly it wasn't for money.
Our guide was what one would expect, a long-time local, a man fascinated with history, someone rather overweight with a microphone around his sweaty head. As most well-trained guides, he had his stories well-rehearsed. He was quite the raconteur. He engaged the audience with questions. He got excited by architecture. He even pulled a magnet out of his pocket to prove that, yes, these buildings were cast irons. He was giving the tour because he loved his city and he wanted to share it with us.
He also wanted to brand it for us. His stories were the vehicle. They constructed the city's brand in each word and street corner finger-point now stare at that building/monument/field.
Portland, a town where you'll find a number of cars with bumper stickers shouting "Keep Portland Weird," certainly likes to present itself as progressive, edgy, a bit fringe, arts-y, maverick, indie. The stories our guide chose helped to frame this impression for the "tourists" and implant these tales in their bodily experience, unpeeling the streets and buildings to reveal the seedy history as we all marched along. His stories were about racism turning into recognition of racism, sex scandal, shanghai-ing (the tour itself was billed as such), mayors who expose themselves in front of statues and get re-elected, prostitution and graft, crime--all stories that construct the history of a progressive, edgy, fringe-y, arts-y, maverick, indie city.
Not a bad brand to have in this post-cool, post-Bush world, at least for a certain market segment.
Portland Walking Tours
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