Astoria Panorama - Pier 11 on the River Walk

Astoria's waterfront curves along the Columbia River. The red building is Pier 11. It now houses two restaurants and a couple of shops. The streets in Astoria are named alphabetically (starting with A at the water and L near the top of the hill) running parallel to the river and numbered from west to east going perpendicular to it. Thus, Pier 11 is at the end of 11th Street. The downtown area is approximately 7th Street to 15th Steet and Astor to Exchange, although many other businesses exist outside of this grid. Since the town is on a curve and many of the streets are straight, Astor is a short street, Bond stops where downtown starts, and Commercial is what would typically be known as Main Street, with most of the older downtown business buildings located there. I think the City Fathers must have been quite proud of themselves for managing to find such a fitting name for their business street starting with an appropriate letter for that location! The River Walk runs the length of town and much farther than downtown. You can see it on the right with its trolley tracks. Some of it is boardwalk as you see here, and some is paved. There is a lot of bike traffic here, too, skateboarders, runners, wakers, people with their dogs, baby strollers, and more. It's really pleasant in nice weather, but people use it even on our rare snow days. The old pilings in the water are typical. They practically line the waterfront. So many of them held up canneries at one time. The bump on the horizon is Tongue Point, forming a peninsula in the river. If the photo were wider, we'd see the expanse of the Columbia upriver to the left of Tongue Point.