Update: Come celebrate our city! Our first official 503 Day block party is coming up May 3, 2025. RSVP here.
Portland is struggling, but we love this town. So we’re celebrating with a new, very real holiday we’re calling 503 Day.
We have been asking podcast guests, along with readers and listeners, to weigh in with their ideas for how to celebrate our city on this new holiday:
- “I think it should be an individual holiday, and people should go back and think of the things that they loved about Portland when they first moved here and do those things … That's a cool day. My grandmother and my mother had the same birthday. They're both gone now, and that was their birthday: 5/3.” — Sarah from Woodstock/Brentwood Darlington
- “There should be cultural criticism on 503 Day about 503. I've grown so much living in Portland just hearing people have kind of pissy little conversations about what kind of fertilizer they're using. And I'm just like, ‘I'm learning so much just listening to like Kristen and Kirsten argue about this.’” — Suzette Smith, arts & culture editor of the Portland Mercury
- “This 5/03, I’ll probably do what I do most Fridays: leave work at noon and hit up a couple of the city’s many record stores, stop at a local coffee shop to do a little reading/writing, and later, a food cart for dinner.” — David “I live on the west side but love the east side” Sloan
- “I would go get a Spanish coffee at Huber's, which I never do. But that feels very 503.” — Eater Portland editor Brooke Jackson-Glidden
Listen: This episode of the City Cast Portland podcast has new 503 Day traditions, including random acts of kindness and smoking cannabis.
Share: Please email us your ideas for how to observe 503 Day.
Vote: Please pick your preferred new slogan for the city.
RSVP for 503 Day 2025
