Come To Summer Nights 2024 in Parkrose

Summer Nights, happening in the Parkrose neighborhood, is coming up on Wednesday, July 10, from 5pm to 9pm. So what is Summer Nights? It’s a community gathering with a night market, live music, dancing, and family-friendly activities, hosted by Historic Parkrose. I spoke with Samantha “Sam” Montanaro, the Summer Nights Event Coordinator at Historic Parkrose to learn more.

Historic Parkrose

So what is Historic Parkrose? “Historic Parkrose is a nonprofit that is dedicated creating economic resilience,” explains Sam. “It started out as a Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative (NPI), part of Prosper Portland. We support local businesses by giving grants, and promote activities like Summer Nights.”

The Neighborhood Prosperity Network is “a Prosper Portland program designed to support social equity-based community economic development at the neighborhood level. The Network is a citywide initiative to foster economic opportunity and vitality throughout Portland neighborhoods, with a focus on low-income populations and communities of color.” (Note: It is not a full-blown TIF)

You can see the boundaries of Historic Parkrose on this map—it’s mostly along NE Sandy Blvd between NE 99th Avenue and NE 121st Place.

Some Background and What It’s All About

The concept underlying the Summer Nights event is “to have a beautiful fun family-friendly street fair in the Historic Parkrose District,” explains Sam. “We want to support local businesses, many of which are immigrant-owned.” And it will be a celebration of summertime.

Now in its third year, this event has origins and inspiration in couple of former notable events in Parkrose. One, is the Taste of Parkrose, which used to be held on Rossi Farm, and was ticketed; Summer Nights is essentially its progeny. Also, it’s worth noting that Rossi Farm, all the way over on NE 122nd Avenue, is about one-and-a-half miles away from the Historic Parkrose offices (104th and Sandy). It make sense to hold this event in the Historic Parkrose district.

“It feels really good to bring this event down to the business district. We hope the businesses on Sandy will et more exposure, as an event like this naturally brings more awareness to the area,” Sam remarked. “There are a lot of new businesses in the area.” (Case in point: Sandy-Os)

The other event that inspired Summer Nights is the Parkrose Marketplace, which was originally organized and run by community members outside of the Historic Parkrose organization, and took place at NE Sandy Blvd and 108th Avenue.

The event is free to attend, which means browsing the night market, listening to live music, and dancing is free; food and drink will be available for purchase. The event is funded by grants from Venture Portland and the Portland Events and Film Office.

What To Expect

As I mentioned earlier there will be vendors at a night market, food, entertainment, and activites like free face painting and circus type stuff—think juggling, balancing, jumping, silly clowns, and acrobatics—as well as resources like the Bookmobile Babe.

At last count, they’ve gathered close to 50 vendors, many of which are based in Parkrose, but some who are outside the neighborhood. One business Sam was particularly excited to talk about was the Parkrose Greenhouse, which is just blocks from Historic Parkrose—and the owners live up the street from their office. They do plant sales every year.

Food vendors include:

Getta Gyro
Pomo Sno Cones
Sky Hi Foods
Urban Fried Indian Tacos
Black Rose Liquor (new to Parkrose, originally in Woodlawn)
Level Beer

I asked Sam what she was looking forward to the most. “The music!” was her immediate reaction. She continued, “The way the community comes together. Seeing people dancing. Seeing people’s smiling faces.”

One of the bands that will be playing are “Dreckig,” performing “kraut/cumbia/club” music. “It’s really unique,” quipped Sam.

So will this be the only Summer Nights event in Parkrose this summer? The answer is yes—and they plan to hold it every July going forward. If you want to connect with Historic Parkrose in other venues outside of Summer Nights, head to their monthly happy hour, which usually takes place at O’Dear. They also support a Black Santa event at Christmastime, and other community events throughout the year.

“COVID hit us [Parkrose] hard and it has been hard to recover; it really challenged the economics here,” remarked Sam. “We are excited to bring people to Sandy Blvd and activate this area with the vibrant community we have!”

I hope you are able to stop in during Summer Nights and enjoy the entertainment, food, and vibe in the Historic Parkrose District.

Summer Nights
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
5pm to 9pm
NE Sandy Blvd and 104th Avenue, Portland
historicparkrose.com/summer-nights | Instagram | Facebook

Updated July 8, 2024.