Best Sights

Best House with Attitude

Nick and Jan Longoria moved into their home at the corner of Southeast 58th Avenue and Harold Street in 1972; since then, they have added two bedrooms, a second story, a basement dug by hand, and a helluva lot of character. The Longorias' front yard overflows with statuettes, fountains, cacti and other fantastic folderol; Nick is an ironworker focusing on the ornamental side of things, which explains the kooky casa's coup de grâce, a hyperdecorative massive wrought-iron gate.

Jan, who runs a day care in the house next door, explained that the gate grew from the utilitarian purpose of keeping the kids in and safe, but "since that's the kind of work [Nick] does, he just kind of got carried away." A few years ago, as Jan reports, one neighbor complained to the city, apparently about the height of the gate. This led to all manner of red-tape rigmarole: meetings, registering the gate (and paying fees for it) and a neighborhood survey to make sure no other neighbor objected. All this "just because it's different," says Jan. "It doesn't fit in to the decor of the rest of the neighborhood."

The Longorias' penchant for the bizarre garners them drive-by fans: "We've met a lot of people this way," says Jan. "They'll stop by and talk, then ask my husband to build them a handrail or something." Lately the two have been busy making the new house work as a daycare space—less wrought iron, more kid-friendly. But though the weeds may be growing up at home, still the cacti are in bloom and the fountains are running. This character won't be quashed. CAITLIN MCCARTHY.

Best Outspoken Public Message Board

Twisted aphorisms are just part of the service at Courtesy Auto/Care (5215 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, 244-0760), an auto repair shop midway between Johns Landing and Beaverton. Owner Chris Richter has been offering not-so-helpful advice on the chain-link fence outside his business for over a decade, swapping out the neon yellow-lettered messages "at least once a month."

Richter says the curious missives—"one good turn gets most of the blankets"; "raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree"; "this might be as bad as it could get…but don't count on it"—are usually well received, but occasionally one of his deep thoughts, which he draws from books, the Internet and his own imagination, rub someone the wrong way. "I'll tell you the one that got me: 'You can vomit long after you think you've finished,'" Richter said. "One day this lady drives in and says, 'I don't think that's funny. I deal with people with dietary issues, and they don't think it's funny either.' And I said, 'Well, you know, thank you for your input.'" BEN WATERHOUSE.

Best Wannabe Tarantino Set

The thing is, you've seen this movie before. A down-and-dirty bar filled with heavily inked patrons and even more inked-up strippers rages well into the night. But the dirty fun hides unseen dangers: the building is home to supernatural horrors. From Dusk Till Dawn may have been set in Mexico, but I'm willing to guess Tarantino and Rodriguez got their ideas by strolling down East Burnside. Because the building that houses Union Jacks strip club (938 E Burnside St., 236-1125, unionjacksclub.com) might as well be the site of the Amityville horror, with broken windows and paint that's lost its hue, chipping over boards that creak their own discontent. This building refuses to reflect even moonlight, an abandoned ghostly frontier home looming over a luck-proof streetwalker sector and a sexed-up den of iniquity. What ancient evil, pray, still lurks in those ancient halls? What death still hangs suspended? MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best Labor of Love

When John Chandler bought a dilapidated shop-house at 3039 SE Stark St. on March 7, 2007, he got a little more than he bargained for. Along with four 40-cubic-yard Dumpsters of junk and dead cats, rats and mice, Chandler and his wife, Heather, found sterling silver, what appears to be a Nazi dagger, and walrus tusk scrimshaw. "The guy who owned the building for decades before us was a hoarder," Chandler says. "It's been a renovation of discovery." The Chandlers also got an 1891 building that leaned 20 inches to the southeast and had the first 20 feet of a 70-foot elm growing out of the basement. (The tree had to be cut down, but Chandler saved slabs of it to make tables and benches.)

Over the past three years, Chandler, 38, an Intel construction contractor, has poured all of his spare time and a considerable amount of money into the building, which formerly housed a brew-and-smokes emporium named Sindee's Market. To correct the Pisa-like lean, Chandler dug out a new foundation; adding a new iron fence around the building triggered a city requirement that he install a new sidewalk. This being Portland, Chandler is most excited about the building's green features and energy efficiency. "We spray-foamed the entire building [for insulation]," Chandler says. "My gas bill was only $5 last month."

The Chandlers live on the building's second floor. Next month, they hope to start test-roasting coffee for their new company, Oblique Coffee Roasters. "It's what gets me out of bed in the morning," Chandler says of the new venture. "You've got to follow your dream." NIGEL JAQUISS.

Best Book Drop

A little over a year ago, a bright yellow, lidded tin container with a Velcro clasp appeared atop a newspaper box at the corner of Southeast 33rd Avenue and Belmont Street, in front of Zupan's Market. Written on the side were the words "Community Book Exchange." Inside were a half-dozen paperbacks. Passersby took them, and left others, and checking the current contents became daily entertainment for many in the neighborhood. No one admitted to knowing who was behind the venture, and notes dropped in the box went unanswered. Over time, weather and abuse took their toll on the little yellow box. It was moved across the street when Zupan's was remodeled, the paint flaked, the latch broke, and eventually the box disappeared altogether. It was a sad day. Then, one day in June, it was back, wholly transformed: Community Book Exchange 2, Son of Book Exchange is a blue-painted mailbox anchored in a five-gallon plastic bucket with a pair of tomato plants growing up around its post. Pickings have, so far, been slim—mostly mass-market romance and lost-pet fliers—but we know the impromptu, anonymous community of readers birthed by the original Book Exchange will return before long. Take a look next time you're in the neighborhood. If you see any 17th-century novels, they're probably my castoffs. Enjoy them. BEN WATERHOUSE.

Best Gypsy Cemetery

In 2006, a strange story involving large amounts of cash, used cars and the IRS brought Portland's insular Gypsy population into the public eye. Police raided the home of Bobby Ephrem, owner of a pair of 82nd Avenue used-car lots and patriarch of a Portland Gypsy clan, seizing $2.7 million in cash on the suspicion of tax evasion. But long before this reminder of their presence, evidence of Portland's Gypsy community was literally carved in stone at Rose City Cemetery (5625 NE Fremont St.). Amid the graves of Oregon governors, a mayor and a decorated Civil War hero, the tombs of Romany locals dating back to the mid-20th century can be spotted, often gaudily decorated and featuring embedded photos of the deceased. They are refreshingly un-solemn and bare evidence of frequent visits: flowers, pinwheels, teddy bears. These headstones aren't designed to blend in and be forgotten, and they clearly haven't been. ETHAN SMITH.

Best Metaphor for Portland

Portland's got more than enough nicknames, from Stumptown to Bridgetown to Rose City, each keying in on one aspect of our city's heritage. Heck, some people even feel comfortable calling us PDX, after a semifunctional airport housed in a bruised industrial district at the city's northeastern fringe. Rarely, though, do you see the town so wonderfully summed up in a single image as when you look up to see a big, amorphous hunk of tree magically suspended in the air. You see, PGE doesn't always keep its lines clear of Portland's dense, persistent foliage, and so sometimes our stalwart trees grow not just into and against but also through the power and telephone lines crisscrossing our city. When the technicians come through to cut the trees away (for obvious safety reasons), they cannot cut the branches entirely free from the wires because the wires are now quite literally part of the tree. Thus, all over the city, the techs areforced to leave behind little reminders of the thick tree branches that once grew there—monuments of former trees permanently raised up against the sky by the tethers of the industry that displaced them. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best Saddening Ode to Bucolic Childhood

Not all youth is misspent, and not all of it is gone. We understand that we're older now and we're supposed to be more excited about the tasty nouveau Mexicana of North Mississippi Avenue's ¿Por Que No? than about the vacant lot just south of it. But we can't help ourselves:

It's hung from that great American Gothic symbol—the lone, craggy tree—on tatty rope borrowed from Norman Rockwell's prop drawer. Not only that, but it's hung too high for the children. It's a hilltop tire swing

and the downhill frontier we overlook is accordingly not rural fields but rather abandoned warehouses and the homes of the poor, all soon to be displaced—as is, most likely, the tree. But for now, it's a very nice swing. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best Metal Heads

East Portland's

is seriously

"Portland boasts the second-largest collection of cast iron-fronted buildings in the nation," the AHC website proclaims (and then quietly mentions something about New York's SoHo district being No. 1). This season's exhibit at your friendly neighborhood preservation champion showcases the ferrous side of Portland's architectural history, lamenting all that was destroyed in the "race to modernize Portland." Included in the facade fun is an Aug. 20 walking tour through the Skidmore-Old Town area, a designated National Historic Landmark thanks to its cast-iron collection. CAITLIN MCCARTHY.

Best Cozy

Since at least March,

outside the Couch Street entrance to Powell's City of Books has been sporting a

that could rival Joseph's Technicolor Dreamcoat. Only about 2 to 3 feet long, the cozy has weathered many days of rain since an unknown knitter (or knitters) wrapped the lacy creation around the previously unadorned rack. Yet the cozy has withstood the harsh elements, not to mention the wear and tear from hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of bikers hitching their rides to the woolly whatsit. From one angle, the cozy looks like the ice-cream watermelon roll from Friendly's. From another,

Either way, it's equal parts weird and cute, Portland's yin and yang of DIY. BETH SLOVIC.

Best Accidental Wet T-Shirt Contest

Portlanders love greenspaces—especially Tom McCall Waterfront Park. With its expansive Willamette-side walkway and grassy oases, it's rife with joggers, walkers, bikers, skaters and people lazing in the grass. On blistering summer days, nothing beats a soak in the park's

—and therein lies the hilarity. Maybe it's heat exhaustion, but something about

dissuades Portlanders from considering their wardrobes before a drenching, and many a small child have been exposed to

from sweaty Portlanders spontaneously opting to cool off. Sometimes it's obviously intentional—witness the sultry blonde in the skimpy tank top, or the sinewy meathead in the wife-beater strutting their dripping bodies—but oftentimes it's wholly accidental, and the look on the face of a dude who suddenly realizes all 23 inches of bellybutton diameter will be visible on the bus ride home is priceless. AP KRYZA

Best Asylum from the Apocalypse

If the dead rise hungry for flesh, Portland will be a hipster buffet. The savvy survivor will run to the hills and wait out the apocalypse with like-minded stalwarts. Luckily, the

a national organization looking to improve our understanding of the undead, has established the

near Beaver Creek. Courtesy of

a former military man who runs war-games company

the

includes shelters, food stocks, a first aid center, machine gun bunkers, fresh water and ample wild game. "Instead of asking 'what if,' we're acting like it already happened," says Gunn, whose expertise also covers human marauders and outbreaks within the fortified lands. "The outbreaks will happen in major metropolitan areas. If the infection took place out here, there would be, at the most, 30 people infected." Sites are popping up throughout the country with a ham-radio communication network. But the only way to get on the guest list is to register at zombieresearch.org. AP KRYZA.

WWeek 2015