Urban Legends: The Museum and Its Neighborhood

Since 1908, the Portland Museum of Art has been located at the center of the Portland peninsula in the block bordered by High, Spring, Oak, and Free Streets. As the museum looks to the future, its plans are informed by an urban setting rich with more than two centuries of history. Using maps, prints, architectural drawings, and photographs, State Historian Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. will trace the evolution of the museum’s surroundings from a fashionable Federal Period residential area to the present day commercial crossroads of Congress Square. Central to this story are the buildings that comprise today’s museum Portland campus: the McLellan House, the Clapp House, the L.D.M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, and the Charles Shipman Payson Building. Their history and architecture are the special focus of this illustrated journey both backward and forward in time.