Under your feet runs the line that defines Portland. Burnside Street and its bridge over the Willamette River form the east-west axis that divides the city into north and south, and for generations it has also marked a social divide between the settled respectability of the west side and the more contested territory of the east. The current Burnside Bridge opened in 1926, replacing a wooden bridge from 1894, and its bascule drawspan still opens to let river traffic through.
From this bridge you can see nearly every element of Portland's geography at once: the Willamette River running south to north toward the Columbia, the West Hills rising steeply behind the downtown skyline, the flat east side stretching toward Mount Hood — when it's clear, you can see the volcanic peak seventy miles away framed perfectly by the bridge towers. Burnside has also been a front line in Portland's social struggles: the Old Town neighborhood to your north has been the center of the city's homeless services since the 1970s, and the block just west of the bridge's east end has seen repeated cycles of tent encampments, sweeps, and return. The river below you is not decorative.
Portland is a port city, and the Willamette has always been the reason for that.