Broadway at West Burnside (Portland, Oregon)

Broadway is a street in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

that runs from the Southwest Hills into the Rose City Park area of Portland. It is north-south in

Downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found. ...

, crosses the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward ...

over the

Broadway Bridge Broadway Bridge may refer to: ;Canada * Broadway Bridge (Saskatoon), in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan ;United Kingdom * Broadway Bridge (Liverpool), in Liverpool, Merseyside ;United States * Broadway Bridge (Clarkdale, Arizona), listed on the Nation ...

, and is east-west on the east side of the river. The Memorial Coliseum and

Lloyd Center Lloyd Center is a shopping mall in the Lloyd District of Portland, Oregon, United States, just northeast of downtown. It is owned by Arrow Retail of Dallas. The mall features three floors of shopping, with the third level serving mostly as prof ...

are located on or near Broadway. Many old

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

s are on Broadway in the Hollywood District. The street also runs through historic Irvington and Sullivan's Gulch.

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

is also located on Broadway. The section west of the Willamette was the most vibrant street in downtown Portland even before it was renamed, in 1913, from 7th Avenue to Broadway, and this continued for decades. During the day, it was a bustling shopping street, and remains a busy shopping street today. The street hosted several movie theaters and

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

playhouses, and at night their many neon signs and lighted marquees gave the area a look that was similar to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

's more-famous

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

. Almost all of the movie theaters have since closed, most in the 1960s and 1970s, but the street remains the center of downtown's nightlife. Theaters still located on Broadway in downtown include the

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (opened as the Portland Publix Theatre before becoming the Paramount Theatre after 1930) is a historic theater building and performing arts center in Portland, Oregon, United States. Part of the Portland Center ...

(in a former Paramount Theatre) and the

Antoinette Hatfield Hall Antoinette Hatfield Hall, formerly known as the New Theatre Building, is a complex located in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. It is one of three buildings in the Portland'5 Centers for the Arts (formerly known as PCPA), which also include ...

. Over a dozen buildings on Broadway are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

, but the street is meant to be a busy and commercial, and to provide a route through which Portlanders could commute. Due to an advanced lighting system installed in 1925, it was once called "the brightest street in the world.""Memorandum"
23 April 2009. Retrieved October 21, 2010.

Transit

In downtown, Broadway is parallel to, and one block west of, the Portland Transit Mall. On the east side of the Willamette River,

TriMet TriMet, formally known as the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, is a public agency that operates public transport, mass transit in a Transportation in Portland, Oregon, region that spans most of the Portland metropolit ...

bus lines 17 and 77 serve Broadway, and the

Portland Streetcar The Portland Streetcar is a streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, that opened in 2001 and serves areas surrounding downtown Portland. The NS Line runs from Northwest Portland to the South Waterfront via Downtown and the Pearl District. The ...

's CL Line follows Broadway from Grand Avenue to and across the Broadway Bridge.

References

{{Streets in Portland, Oregon Streets in Portland, Oregon

Transit

See also

References