Looking for a special connection with the city of Portland? Kick off your weekend this Friday with KYC’s smart and savvy tech tour. Don’t be afraid of commitment: pick up your tickets now to Keep Portland Wired! A Tour of Portland’s Tech Community.
The tour is held in conjunction with tech conference The Wild and departs from ZIBA (1044 NW 9th Ave). Board the bus for a ride through Portland’s technology industry, including some of the major institutions our city is known for, as well as some of our emerging start ups, including Portland Incubator Experiment, Second Story, Nike+ Accelerator and Free Geek.
This is a great opp to learn about some of the most innovative tech projects happening in our region, and the tour is happening one-time-only. There’s just a handful of tickets left (seriously less than a dozen seats left on the bus). Don’t miss out – tickets are just $25 general/ $20 members. Get the full itinerary and your tickets now. Hope to see you there!
We just posted a new promo video for our upcoming Portland Politics tour. The tour connects Portland’s political institutions, politicians and policies, providing an inside look at the city and the factors that shaped it. It’s led by Phil Busse, the former and founding Managing Editor for local arts weekly the Portland Mercury. The first tour starts June 8 and tickets are now online. The tour will join our recurring tour list and be repeated in the coming months (look for new dates to be added soon).
Special thanks go out to our friends at Brighthouse Films. Adam Willumsen has been a great resource for Know Your City. New promo videos for our Nob Hill Tour and more in the works, so check back often for updates!
Author Sarah Mirk is thumbs up about Tom McCall and Comic for Change project
In case you missed it, author Sarah Mirk and historian Doug Kenck-Crispin were on KBOO’s “Word and Pictures” show yesterday. The topic of the show?
Renowned Oregon Governor Tom McCall would have turned 100 years old this year. To commemorate this larger-than-life figure, Know Your City (formerly the Dill Pickle Club) commissioned a comic book about McCall’s controversial decision to fund the Vortex I rock festival in 1970, which drew anti-war activists away from an American Legion convention in Portland. Author Sarah Mirk, who created the comic with artist Daniel Duford, joins Kick-Ass Oregon History founder Doug Kenck-Crispin to regale listeners with the history they didn’t learn in school.
Listen to the show archived on KBOO’s site here: http://kboo.fm/node/56006. Don’t have a copy? The Tom McCall & the Vortex comic is available here at our store, and at select stores in Portland, including Powells, Tender Loving Empire, Land, Crafty Wonderland, Floating World Comics and Bridge City Comics.
Also of interest is our upcoming Comics for Change comics series and the deadline is but two weeks away (May 24th). The series honors the lives of outstanding community activists and we want you to be involved! Be a part of this project by:
- Submitting your portfolio to be a participating artist ($500 grant award!)
- Submitting your writing samples to be a participating writer ($500 grant award!)
- Nominating an outstanding community activist (no grant award, but still pretty sweet)
Full details on over at the program page. Several submissions have already started rolling in and that deadline is May 24th…so don’t miss out!
We’ve had a recent surge of interest in volunteer opportunities at Know Your City, and our interns are kicking things into gear for our spring and summer programs. We wanted to introduce our readership to some of the people who make our programs happen. Today we asked volunteer Phobe Flanigan a few questions for our blog…
volunteer phoebe flannigan
Q: Tell us what you do at Know Your City.
Hello there, Know Your City fans! My name is Phoebe, and I’m KYC’s newest Development Assistant, which means I get to help out with their fundraising and development efforts. This is my first experience with this sort of work, but Polly has been a kind and patient mentor! I’m looking forward to learning more about the inner-workings of non-profit administration throughout the upcoming months.
Q: How did you find out about the organization?
While I was out in Boulder, Colorado finishing up college, my lovely mother sent me an article about KYC (then known as the Dill Pickle Club) that she had found in the Oregonian. As a student of both history and anthropology, I was immediately attracted to the organization’s mission. Though I wouldn’t be back in Portland for another five months, I immediately sent Marc an e-mail asking how I could get involved. I continued to pester him once I moved home, and this spring he and Polly welcomed me on board!
Q: What do you appreciate about the organization? What drew you to volunteer with us?
I’m a fifth-generation Oregonian and a second-generation Portlandian, so the history and culture of this city is very near and dear to my heart. Know Your City does an amazing job of addressing Portland’s multicultural history in meaningful and inclusive ways, and I found that very attractive.
Q: What programs are you looking forward to and why?
I’m really excited about this summer’s new flagship tours! Stay tuned to find out more about the new programs that we’ve got coming up!
Thanks Phoebe, we wouldn’t be able to provide all of our programs without the help of folks like you!
It’s that time of the year again! It’s time for the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale and Know Your City is excited to be included – plus I hear we are right next to the CAT Cat Adoption Team organization! Sweet! It all goes down this Saturday, May 11th 11am-6pm at the Convention Center. This is where the region’s premier crafters, artists and creatives showcase their spring wares – don’t miss out!
Of course, we will have our publications, including the Oregon History Comics box set and our new Tom McCall comic, as well as info about our tours and handmade, artisan Pickles. Plus we are using this as an opportunity to push our May membership special! At the $85 level you get all of those great incentives like discounts on publications and tickets – including the coveted Know Your City tote bag – plus our May membership deal: you receive a FREE jar of PERFECT PICKLES. That’s right! It’s picnic-ing season – bring along these artisan, handmade pickles and impress your guests! Pickles available from these great places: Perfect Pickle winner: Lutz Tavern, 1st runner up: Olympic Provisions, Biwa, Blossoming Lotus and Yume Confections. A $20 value, yours free.
Get in on this deal while you can – it’s only for the month of May and only while supplies last (*we have less than 20 jars left*). Orders must be picked up from our office at Union Station. Once you place your order, we will e-mail you to coordinate a time that is convenient for pick up.
Architect Bill Hart talks to us at the Goldenwest Hotel
An update on our app project – we’re making good progress but are pushing back our launch date until June. A preview party will be held in late May for our Kickstarter backers. If you were on of those to help support the project, stay tuned – we’ll be sending out details about the party next week.
Several weeks ago we caught up with architect Bill Hart of Carleton Hart Architecture to talk about the Goldenwest Hotel, Portland’s first African American hotel. Bill’s company has been working with Central City Concern on preservation efforts – including architectural renovations and an oral history project, currently on display outside the building. Hear a preview of Hart’s content in the below clip.
For more on the Goldenwest, visit Central City Concern’s online exhibition. Also of interest is Will Bennet’s blog. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting more previews. We look forward to making this great resource free and available to everyone!
