Grand Chapiteau

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The deep Southwest corridor along the banks of the Willamette—easily and often bypassed with I-5, Barbur Boulevard or Macadam Avenue—is a thick mixing of the beautiful and the profane. (read more) By car, the southerly route emerges from a long, grim tunnel into a no man’s land of threatening road grades en route to Tigard. But the Willamette Greenway Bike Trail follows the river through some of the city’s prettiest public real estate, with scads of reintroduced trees, great blue herons nesting on Ross Island across the river and an honest-to-god Butterfly Park (7720 SW Macadam Ave.). And if all that ain’t wholesome enough, the Oregon Public Broadcasting building (7140 SW Macadam Ave., 244-9900, opb.org) is close by, sending out service journalism and boredom on the airwaves. Still, Riverfront is a neighborhood in transition: Splendidly mossy, ramshackle houses on the banks that seem to have bloomed from the river itself lie beneath slopes of gaudy new construction. But it’s still damn pretty here. —Matt Korfhage

• Grand Chapiteau Stage
• South Waterfront Discovery Center Dance
• River Room, Thirst Wine Bar Visual Arts

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