Hollywood

The Hollywood Theatre on NE Sandy Boulevard has been showing films since 1926 and is still independently operated — repertory cinema, first runs, and a bar inside. It's the neighborhood's most important landmark and a good signal of what Hollywood District is at its best: old bones repurposed well. Sandy Boulevard is the commercial spine from NE 33rd to around NE 52nd, and it runs the full range from genuinely excellent restaurants to check-cashing storefronts within four blocks of each other. You take the strip as a whole or you don't take it.

Hollywood Transit Center sits at NE 42nd and Halsey and is one of the most functional transit hubs in east Portland — MAX Red and Green lines, eight TriMet bus routes, and covered waiting areas. For buyers who work downtown or at OHSU and don't want to drive, this is one of the few NE neighborhoods where transit is a real alternative. The housing mix is broader than most NE neighborhoods: single-family 1920s–1950s homes on the residential streets, 1990s and 2000s condo buildings closer to Sandy, and enough newer apartment complexes to keep the neighborhood's density visible.

Hollywood's median for single-family homes sits around $480k, but the neighborhood's reputation is mixed enough that buyers with options sometimes skip it. The blocks east of NE 42nd toward the transit center have more foot traffic and some of the grit that comes with commercial density. A few blocks off Sandy in either direction and it quiets down considerably. It's not a neighborhood you buy into without knowing which end of Sandy you're on.