Northwest District, Portland, Oregon
The Northwest District is a densely populated retail and residential neighborhood in the northwest section of Portland, Oregon, United States. Craftsman-style and Old Portland-style houses are packed tightly together with old apartment buildings and new condominiums, within walking distance of restaurants, bars, and shops. The Portland Streetcar's NS Line terminates there, connecting the Northwest District to the Pearl District, Downtown Portland and points south to the South Waterfront. Several TriMet bus lines also serve the district.
The Northwest District stretches west to east from the base of the West Hills (Tualatin Mountains) to Interstate 405, and north to south from NW Nicolai Street and the Willamette River to W Burnside St. It borders the neighborhoods of Forest Park and Hillside on the west, Northwest Industrial on the north, the Pearl District on the east, and Goose Hollow on the south.
This part of Portland is known more by names for various streets and areas within it than by its official name. These include:NW 23rd Ave. – Dubbed Trendy-third, this major shopping street is lined with clothing boutiques and other upscale retail, mixed with cafes, restaurants and pubs. This area is also known as Uptown and includes Nob Hill. On October 19, 2016, a natural gas pipeline was breached, causing an explosion that damaged several buildings on Northwest 23rd Avenue.
- The Alphabet District is an area of streets running from below Burnside to Reed Street. The naming scheme for the Alphabet District came about in 1865 when Captain John H. Couch platted his first subdivision. Each street on the plat was indicated by a letter of the alphabet. In June 1866, a city ordinance was approved to name "A" as "A Street", "B" as "B Street" and so on until "K Street". This was further extended to L, M, N and O Streets in 1869. This is how this area became known as "Alphabet District". From 1865 to 1891, this naming scheme was kept until they were assigned the street names, each beginning with its respective letter, that they are known by today. Today, every letter is included alphabetically except for X, which was named Roosevelt Street after President Theodore Roosevelt, and Z, named Reed Street after Simeon Gannett Reed.
Several characters in Portland native Matt Groening's television show The Simpsons have names based on the alphabetically named streets in the Northwest District, e.g. Reverend Lovejoy, Mayor Quimby and the bully Kearney.