By Anna Walters
North Mississippi Avenue might just be the perfect microcosm for Portland. This hip, eco-friendly and vibrant street, and its surrounding neighborhood is basically a composite of all the elements that make the Rose City a smashing place to live.
Telephone poles taken over by neon fliers and yards overgrown with wildflowers that stretch right to the sidewalk's edge are quintessential details that add to Mississippi's personality. Customers seem to be enjoying a little "me-time" in the various cafés and shops, either clicking away on a laptop at The Fresh Pot or pursuing the Rebuilding Center's collection of light fixtures.
The Fresh Pot, a coffee house located on the corner of Mississippi and N. Shaver Street, is yet another classic example of an independent coffee purveyor in Portland. The Fresh Pot's claim to "cooldome" is the building itself, a remolded drug store, with the non-functioning neon sign "Phipps Rexall Drugs" still protruding from the second story corner.
The coffee's good too, though no better than the average Portland coffee house fare. And good news for pet owners: dogs are more than welcome to lounge next to their java-jonesing owners at The Fresh Pot.
The Rebuilding Center, a home-improvement Mecca sustainability style, also makes its home on Mississippi Avenue. Lanky trees are carved into the red stucco entry that leads into a connection of warehouses, exposed to the elements by the lack of a fourth wall in the back. The one missing wall gives the center a kind of open-market type feeling, yet the merchandise sold suggests that this place is all the weekend garage sales rolled into one.
The Center is a company in connection with Our United Villages, a non-profit organization dedicated to making a positive difference in neighborhoods. People from all over Portland donate used building materials - everything from sinks and cabinets to front doors. Then the Rebuilding Center resells the goods at low prices to Portland residents hankering for a bargain on their home remodeling venture. The Center also contributes materials to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings that are constructed in Portland.
Peter Fleskes, a Center employee, describes the place as the "hub of the neighborhood" which, to him, is "fitting."
A soothing sea-foam green building houses Pistils Nursery, the only urban nursery in Portland complete with bantam hens scurrying through the springtime greens.
Pistils caters specifically to the urban gardener with an array of plants that are well adapted for "container culture," meaning they survive and even thrive confined to a pot or a small planter, said Pistils' employee Katie Boeh. The Nursery also sells soil, fertilizer and chicken feed by the scoop so apartment owners with a few potted plants don't have to buy more than they need.
What does chicken feed have to do with gardening? Well, essentially nothing. In addition to selling plants and gardening supplies, Pistils sells bantam chicks in the springtime, as a cheeping box in the front of the store revealed.
The business even holds urban chicken keeping community workshops according to Boeh.
Mississippi has everything a 20 to 30 something wants in a street: cool bars with live music, old yet funky turn-of-the-century houses in a bright assortment of hues, as well as a safe haven to start a family. In fact, over the last decade and a half, the Mississippi area has undergone a radical shift in residential demographic, according to an article published in a recent issue of "the Portland Mercury." The predominantly lower-class neighborhood of the past is now a haven for hipsters and young professionals seeking an "out" of the mainstream residence that is appropriate for their growing families.
Sean Dinsmore, a 2006 graduate of UP, and his housemate Mario Deluca moved to a duplex a few blocks off Mississippi Avenue in November of last year. Dinsmore said he was disappointed when he heard that his landlord was going to evict their African-American next-door neighbors.
"I felt the same way as Sean did when I heard about our duplex mates," Deluca said of the "inevitable" gentrification of the area. But Deluca does consider the neighborhood to contain a diverse population, a factor that he enjoys.
Colie Belieu, a current UP student and frequenter of Mississippi Avenue, thinks that the displacement of residents of a lower income bracket due to rent hikes caused by wealthier residents moving to the neighborhood is a problem for the Portland Development Commission.
Belieu explained that the city has a duty to provide low-income housing affordable for the area's poorer residents, much like the city accomplished in the Pearl District.
"You can't blame people for moving into an area that's cool," she said.
