On The Waterfront: Portland "Could've Been A Contender. " By M. Reed Bergstein.

PORTLAND'S WORKING WATERFRI

~rop down from the sky, the city taking shape below through the gauzy air. Blank office highrises command the bluffland, and the waterfront's an escarpment of white hotels. Blue helicopters land in ranks, bearing crates of nouveau beaujolais and baby asparagus. Harborside it's a maze of architecture as I search for the water, dodging urns of flushing geraniums and street mimes dressed like Pee-Wee Herman

Margarete C. Schnauck This is now: A similar bird's-eye-view of the Portland waterfront in 1987.

That was then: Saloons, grain elevators, railroad tracks, 'new' electric power, two coalyards, sawdust restaurants, and oyster shells - the bustling Portland waterfront when the city was the third-largest seaport on the East Coast.

NT, PAST AND PRESENT

By M.Reed Bergstein

- hawking miniature lobster rolls, tiptoeing up invisible ladders toward h· "not mgness ...

My clock-radio rescues me, and the awesome manifestation seeps away into Shostakovich, soft and sanguine in the dull light of morning. By the second cup of strong-brewed Kenyan high-grown, the future doesn't seem quite so grim, and I face East with confidence, toward the piers, the harbor, the bay.

Sure, the waterfront's up for grabs, but maybe that's always been the case, ever since the Colonialists inched out the Native Americans, who inched out the deer and the antelope before them. Today it seems possible to strike some compromises and amid myriad pressur~s for use, there's potent opinion at hand to prevent the waterfront from becoming Little Fort Lauderdale on Casco Bay. Our own Galt Mile, shimm~ring.

But even as the cries rise for a "working waterfront," I remind myself that the term itself has a history of varied

Tourism on the waterfront: Some observers have called Portland's booming tourist industry "an empire built on sand ... " Could the popular vote and sentiment, as some have suggested, for a 5-year moratorium on nonmarine development be a vote against the proposed Gulf of Maine Aquarium, since the Saco Aquarium on the Route 1 strip has already proven that you need no waterfront to attract viewers and exhibits? In light of the historic passage of the waterfront ordinance on May 5, it will be interesting to see if one of the more cacophonous elements of the working waterfront - the Merrill scrap metal loading operation - will receive support from the City of Portland in its bid to appeal the recent D.E.P. decision to limit its activities.

Brown's Wharf during the days of heavy industry on the Portland waterfront, when there were two coal and lumber wharves here. Brown's Wharf has been combined with four other old Portland wharves (Merrill's Wharf, Richardson's Wharf, Merchant's Wharf, and Greeley's Wharf) to form the base for the city's new Fish Pier, created with $2.8 million from a state grant.

Maine Historical Society