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Michael O'Connor wants Last Thursday to feel the way it did in the early 2000s, before it became too rowdy.

(Casey Parks/The Oregonian)

Whenever the prospect of managing Last Thursday seems too big or too hard, Michael O'Connor reminds himself of what he calls the most magical moment.



It was 2010. The Northeast Alberta Street art walk had become an all-night party, with visitors peeing and defecating on residents' lawns. About 300 people crowded the Acadian Ballroom to brainstorm solutions.



Among those who rose in defense of Last Thursday was an 8-year-old who said she'd earned $70 playing her violin at the freewheeling street fair.



"She was putting her hopes and dreams out on that street," O'Connor said recently.



The monthly event has only grown bigger and rowdier since 2010. But O'Connor, 29, has a plan to restore Last Thursday to an atmosphere where an 8-year-old street musician can flourish. His solution, coming from an events promoter, might sound surprising: Eliminate about half the visitors.



"It just got too big, which created a problem," he said. "There is a tipping point to good things. It's tough when you've passed that point to come back, but I'm willing to take the risk."



O'Connor's determined risk-taking has already run him afoul of city staff. When he declared last month that he was forming a nonprofit to run the event and collect fees, officials told him he had no authority to do so. His written response: "I don't need your authority."



O'Connor is in for an uphill battle. Returning Last Thursday to its glory days will take time, money and many, many uncomfortable conversations. But the 8-year-old violinist represents the best of what Portland once was, O'Connor says -- and the best of what it can still be.



Last Thursday to Hump Day





A ukulele band set up near the Waffle Window at the May 2014 Last Thursday.

Like other activists who have tried to preserve Last Thursday, O'Connor is an artist. He creates sculptures for music festivals, earns about $20 an hour doing special events for Kruger Farms, and recently started designing corn mazes for farmers.



O'Connor grew up in Beaverton, but now lives near Southeast Belmont Street. He has pale blue eyes and a floppy blonde haircut that makes him look like Michael Pitt, the heartthrob indie actor who starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Boardwalk Empire.



He started going to Last Thursday when he lived off Alberta because it was free entertainment.



"You never knew what you would see," he said. "But you knew it was going to be a spectacle every time."



By 2010, vendors and neighbors agreed: The spectacles had become too wild. After the meeting at the Acadian, O'Connor joined a volunteer group called Friends of Last Thursday that wanted to bring some order. But group members didn't get along -- with each other or with city officials. They saw five conflict resolution mediators that year, O'Connor said.



"Nobody had the experience of this level of event production," he said. "It wasn't gearing up for a peaceful resolution."



By 2012, O'Connor felt hopeless.



"He had a hard time being a team player or following through to make an idea happen," said Maquette Reeves, the head of Friends of Last Thursday.



He quit the group and created a new monthly art fair on Belmont Street. The fair, called Hump Day, attracted about 1,500 visitors.



"He always had a new idea and a new way to do something," said Michelle Purvis, a painter who first met O'Connor when she was selling acrylics at Last Thursday.



She followed him to Hump Day. When winter brought rain, O'Connor organized painting parties.



"He had great energy," Purvis said. "Twenty to 50 people would get together and paint and talk about art."



Taking over





Michael O'Connor plans to survey residents living near Northeast Alberta Street.

Still, O'Connor kept thinking about Last Thursday. The remaining members of Friends of Last Thursday quit in 2013, and the city took over managing the event.



Mayor Charlie Hales ordered the event closed at 9 p.m. this year. In May, staff began writing up people drinking or smoking pot in the right-of-way. In June, city workers began citing musicians for noise violations at the event. Hales has said he is considering fees for some vendors.



O'Connor said the new rules were "causing harm to good people." Vendors wanted a say in what the city charged and how the money would be used.



In July, O'Connor emailed Hales' office to say he was forming a nonprofit, Artists United, that would charge and register vendors.



"I am taking over the responsibility of managing this event whether you give me permission or not," O'Connor wrote Chad Stover, the city's project manager for Last Thursday.



Stover's reply was pointed. He told O'Connor he saw no reason to negotiate.



"You are not involved in this event in any official capacity," Stover wrote. "So long as Last Thursday is taking place in the public right-of-way, then no party will be managing in official capacity without having been granted an official permit from the City of Portland. That's not my opinion, that's the law."



Any group that takes over the event faces a "long list of things that need to be accomplished in order to make the event safe and manageable," Stover said later. Among them he listed theft, public nudity, drunkenness, drug use, double parking and fights. The city spends $80,000 a summer to manage the event.



Reeves, the former head of Friends of Last Thursday, is skeptical that O'Connor can pull it off. Her group came up with a proposal for providing trash services, closing the streets and insuring the event, she said, but the city still wouldn't issue the permit.



O'Connor "cannot just bully the city into letting him 'take over' Last Thursday," she said. "That is not a solution."



Intensive research



O'Connor said he has begun treading lightly with the city, documenting all correspondence and funneling his energy into public records requests and city council testimony.



Meanwhile, he has begun meeting with vendors to determine how big a fee they can afford. He's hosting a meet-and-greet for vendors in September.



Next, he wants to survey residents, many of whom are too new to remember the days junk cars were used as barricades and Clown House was a main attraction.



"Do residents even want this event anymore?" O'Connor wonders. "We have no data on how residents actually feel about it."



He believes he can draw away crowds from Alberta by hosting other events.



Although O'Connor sounded brash and headstrong in his emails to the city, he considers himself more of a numbers guy. He once sold life insurance, and he says he has begun a process of intensive research.



"How you get 10,000 less people to show up is the real challenge," O'Connor said. "That's tough. My goal is to be the best ear I can be."

-- Casey Parks