Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Guide

Munjoy Hill was built out largely between 1850 and 1925, by families working the Portland Company railroad foundry, the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, and the fisheries. The triple-deckers that went up across the hill in those decades — 32 Wilson Street among them — were built to house a growing, largely immigrant population, and that fabric is still the character of the neighborhood.

The hill lacks the formal architecture of the West End. What it has instead is a continuous nineteenth-century streetscape at a walkable scale, which is why the City partnered with Greater Portland Landmarks and the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization to survey more than four hundred buildings here, and why 32 Wilson Street is recorded as a contributing structure.

The Eastern Promenade runs along the hill's seaward edge — an open green above Casco Bay, one block from the door. Below it the land drops to the water, where a boardwalk and trail run the shoreline past East End Beach. People jog and ride the trail, put a kayak in at the beach, and eat from the food trucks that gather along the Prom through the warm months.

Follow the boardwalk south and it runs past Fore Points Marina, where Twelve and Douro sit across the water — fine dining and weekend brunch, both an eight-minute walk from the door. Keep going and Commercial Street is a lazy fifteen minutes, where the urban side of Portland starts to show itself.