McClymonds

This is in large part an industrial area with wide lanes and unattractive warehouses with doors covered in graffiti. It is not unusual to see vagrant types pushing around shopping carts in this area either.

Many companies occupy this neighborhood. Many of them are directly related to the shipping industry or have to do with heavy duty labor like the fixing glass, metal and rigging companies that have their headquarters here. You can also find a Toyota parts place here, a stove place and a papermaking place. When people speak of our nation turning away from the down and dirty of actually making things, they are definitely not speaking about this neighborhood.

The houses that do crop up here are older, rundown looking Victorians and bungalows with walk ups. In fact, almost three quarters of the homes in this area were built before 1950—and they unfortunately look as if they haven’t been maintained since then either. There is some slightly newer row housing here which is tightly packed and reminiscent of working class neighborhoods in Northern Ireland in away—though without the attractive brick facades that make those Irish neighborhoods oddly appealing to our Americans minds.

At the center of the neighborhood is Mcclymonds High a well-respected and well-run public school that receives pretty good reviews when test scores are considered.

On a personal note, this is the neighborhood where I often had lunch back when I briefly worked at the port. There was usually mobile Mexican food truck that would roll in. This however, is not a recommendation. I never really found a dish that I enjoyed (they were quite frankly pretty awful, even if you were hungry for it at the time) and after eating something from this van I would often feel quite unwell later and get the runs within a week. Definitely not worth it.