Street PONY, Where Have You Been?

Almost three years ago, when I was first started editing PDX Magazine, I also began noticing toy horses tied to rings on the sidewalk around town. At the time, there wasn't this website to explain the phenomenon. But researching it for one of the our "PDXplained" columns, I discovered that a local artist, Scott Wayne Indiana, looked at the old rings where Portlanders used to tie real horses as a sadly discarded relic of a bygone era, and decided to resurrect them with the tongue-in-cheek toy horses. It became a community effort, with new horses appearing all over town, one of those fabulous, spontaneous creative projects that makes Portland so vibrant.


I hadn't seen a new horse, though, for a year or more until yesterday, when I stumbled on this pink pony in Southeast. It quite simply made my day. I hadn't realized how much I missed them. And what it symbolizes – the urban canvas of a city bursting with visionary talent – speaks for both New York and Portland. So I've decided it's the new "mascot" of PONYtales. Now we just need a name...