In New York City, 12,000 hastily built curbside “streeteries” were rushed into place as part of the “brutal economics of COVID-19,” according to curbed.com. The year 2021 was Portland’s pandemic peak, with 33 streetside dining structures, says Zachary Lenhert, Licensing and Housing Safety Manager for the City of Portland. Many of our alfresco eateries were masterpieces of ingenuity. I drove through the Old Port to see them one more time before they disappeared. They were here, now they’re gone, but not for good.  

Maybe the real value of these curbside accommodations—which cynics call dilapidations—is as mirrors to who we were, or thought we were, in 2021 and 2022. They were testimony to how creative we can be in an emergency, and this extended to our embellishing the names of our dyscurbia: parklets, shanties, pergolas, bait shacks, bubbles, igloos, dining shelters, and sheds. Um, some of these are what we used to call parking spots.  

Read the full story in the digital magazine above.