Down East Magazine, April 2021

Features

Street View

The pandemic left Portland’s streets quieter than usual last fall, and a photographer captured a ground-level portrait of the buzzy city at an inflection point, taking stock at the end of a strange and sometimes turbulent year.

Photographed by Séan Alonzo Harris

Who Wields Power in Portland?

The crusade to rewrite the city’s municipal charter was started almost unwittingly. Its popularity at the ballot box surprised even its champions. And while there’s no predicting its outcome, it could fundamentally alter who calls the shots in Maine’s biggest city.

By Brian Kevin

Reshaping Portland

From sky-high condo buildings to gleaming mixed-use citadels to a whole new waterfront neighborhood, ambitious developments are altering the skyline (and perhaps the character?) of the Forest City.

By Edgar Allen Beem, Sara anne Donnelly, and Alexandra Hall

Special Advertising Section: Ask the Experts

Planning for the future has never been more challenging, but these Maine pros can help show you the way.

North by East

Muralists Ryan and Rachel Adams paint their way around Portland, a bartender remixes Geno’s Rock Club, and time is ticking for historic preservationists. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, a couple of rare feats of flight.

Food and Drink

How hard has the pandemic hit Portland restaurateurs? How did Washington Avenue morph into the city’s culinary epicenter? How do old-school dishes stack up against new takes?

Good Things from Maine

Haute couture struts into town. The Deering Center neighborhood is so hot right now. And so are Portlanders’ posteriors, thanks to locally made heated seat cushions.

Maine Homes

A couple wants their off-peninsula Queen Anne house to show its age, whereas a cardio tour of historical architecture is for the young at heart. Also, the city council makes some landmark decisions.

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, reader feedback, responses to February’s Where in Maine, and more.

Columns

Tech: The Roux Institute’s Portland of Tomorrow. Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Poet laureate Linda Aldrich, on Portland’s Fort Allen Park.

On Our Cover: Portland’s U.S. Custom House,by Tory Welton.