Photo: Tamanoeconomico / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Before the Bayfront drew crowds, visitors came to Newport for Nye Beach. In the early 1900s the area west of downtown was a resort neighborhood with cottages, hotels and bathhouses.
A walkable district
Today Nye Beach is a small grid of streets with galleries, bookshops, cafes and inns, a few blocks from the sand. Its scale makes it easy to spend an afternoon on foot.
Arts anchors
The Newport Visual Arts Center sits at the beach turnaround, and the Newport Performing Arts Center is a short walk away. Events at both bring steady traffic to nearby businesses.
Small businesses, big season swings
Like the rest of the coast, Nye Beach businesses depend on summer and holiday weekends. Owners there have long worked together on events that draw people in during the off-season.
Silas Kerrigan covers business, the tourism economy and household finance in Lincoln County.
