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Performing in front of the Skidmore Fountain where SW 1st Avenue and Ankeny Street come together.
A May afternoon in the year 2010.
I can't remember what music they were playing, but judging by the instruments involved, that combo needed some authentic courage.
First and Ankeny exist on a boundary of the old original town of Portland on the south and the Couch tract on the north; streets change direction at that point from aligning with the river, which trends NNE-SSW, to roughly aligning with the North Star. And it kind of shows; Ankeny is an incredibly skinny street, and First jogs its way through. The result is a delightfully oddly shaped space where the streets almost, but not quite, align. Were it now for the MAX tracks running through it would be a most lovely public square.
We have a block in town we locals nicknamed "Pioneer Square", but it's full name is Pioneer Courthouse Square, named for the building that overlooks it from the east, and despite a similar rubric, it has no spiritual congruence with Seattle's Pioneer Square.
There is a place in Portland that feels like Seattle's Pioneer Square, though ... it's the Skidmore Fountain.
