Grant Park
Tree-lined streets, a beloved neighborhood park, and the childhood home of the author who gave Portland its most famous fictional resident — Ramona Quimby.
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Grant Park is named for Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President and Civil War general, whose name graces the park at the neighborhood's center. The area developed as a residential suburb in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its tree-lined streets and well-maintained Craftsman and Colonial Revival homes reflecting the aspirations of Portland's growing middle class.
The neighborhood has retained its residential character and much of its original housing stock. The park — a large, tree-filled rectangle near NE 33rd and Ulysses — serves as a genuine neighborhood anchor, hosting community events, sports leagues, and pickup games year-round. The surrounding streets have some of the best-preserved early 20th century residential architecture in NE Portland.
Beverly Cleary, who was born in McMinnville but grew up in Portland in the Grant Park neighborhood, set her beloved children's books on Klickitat Street — a real street that still runs through the neighborhood. The Ramona and Henry Huggins books, written between 1950 and the early 2000s, gave Portland's Grant Park neighborhood a global literary identity that it wears with genuine pride.
Food & Drink
Grant Park's immediate neighborhood is primarily residential, but the surrounding corridors on NE Broadway and NE 33rd have a range of dining options. Tasty n Daughters on NE 33rd has been one of Portland's more celebrated breakfast and brunch spots since it opened. The Hollywood District commercial strip on Sandy is a short walk and provides the density of options the quieter Grant Park streets don't.
What to See
The Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park features bronze statues of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and his dog Ribsy — created by sculptor Lee Hunt and installed in 1995. The statues are on NE 33rd Avenue in the park itself and are a genuine pilgrimage destination for fans of the books.
Grant High School, one of Portland's comprehensive public high schools, anchors the north end of the neighborhood. The school has a long athletic tradition and is one of the more racially diverse high schools in the city. Rose City Golf Course borders the neighborhood to the north.
Curious Facts
- →Beverly Cleary set her books on NE Klickitat Street after remembering it as "a good name for a street" from her Portland childhood. The real Klickitat Street, which runs through Grant Park, has been a pilgrimage destination for Cleary readers for decades.
- →Cleary attended Fernwood Grammar School (now Fernwood Middle School) and later Grant High School — both within a few blocks of the neighborhood where her fictional characters lived.
- →Beverly Cleary died in 2021 at the age of 104. Portland's library system, Multnomah County Library, holds one of the most complete Beverly Cleary collections in the country.