The low-rise parking lot on the southwest corner of SW Morrison & 1st Avenue is just being constructed in this 1965 photo. We’re looking south through the intersection with the old Riverside West (now Hotel Fifty) on the east side of 1st.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
If I had to describe this area as it was in the early 1960’s, in a word it would be “seedy”.
The picture looks like a slightly snowy, frontier town. Surprisingly a lot of it is still there, but now it’s all upscale.
http://goo.gl/maps/CDhoJ
while my memories don’t start til the next decade, this is the “ahh, that’s the old portland i remember”…before it became cool in these last 10-15 years 🙂
The Harbor club was one of the few stealth “gay” bars in Portland. Declared off limits by the Navy. The city spent years trying to close it down and finally suceeded just this year of the photo 1965.
I Googled the same scene and it looks so different today than when I was in high school. I wonder if the city of Portland has a disaster plan for the amount of timber that will be on the ground after the next BIG ice or wind storm hits. We haven’t had ether in about thirty tears and when I look at all the trees nowadays I see a disaster that could shut the city down for over a week or two. Possibly with loss of life in the hundreds. The last big ice storm the power was out for 3 days. There are probably 2 to 3 times the number of trees today as then and they are allowed to grow out over the streets. When it happens, it will be like the apocalypse.
Take better look little backward— http://goo.gl/maps/DWx2i
Hotel Fifty is now Hotel Rose, as of a couple of weeks ago.
I love the billboard with the ad for the new SS 396 Chevy. Hot car with a big block motor….what could be better? Ahhhhhh how about cheap gas to run that big block? :+)
I was noticing the sudden excess of telephone poles in the distance…. As a young girl I was always fascinated by the poles and wires that webbed across the city.
I agree with Ecogirl about the “ahh” moment when the picture came up on my screen.
It looks like they are in the middle of demolishing the small cast iron building on the left. The parking structure for the Hotel Fifty is on that site today
Or rather a ground level parking lot
Did anyone notice the vintage car in the corner of the parking garage in Dave Brunker’s link? I had to do a double take to figure out which photo was from which decade.
Good eye, Steph! Even I didn’t see that.
Ian,
I think the “demo” equipment is actually in front of the Harbor Club. This makes sense if the photo was taken around the time the infamous club was finally shut down.
I believe the two story building across the street on the left was the Wakefield Glenn building. According to Dan Haneckow’s Cafe Unknown post on the great fire of 1873, it was the termination line on First of the fire, while the neighboring original Pearne and Poppleton Buildings were lost. Shortly after, they rebuilt using some of their surviving cast-iron elements.
The Glenn Wakefield building was demolished sometime in the 70s and the Pearne and Poppleton Buildings remain as anchors of the Yamhill historic district.
That vintage car in the corner is a Nash Metropolitan! I had one until recently. Great little cars. I sure do miss driving it around town. Lots of people would honk and wave.
Thanks Jim, it does indeed look like the work is being done on the Van Rensselaer building, current home of Paddy’s. According to ‘The Grand Era of Cast Iron Architecture’ by William Hawkins the building on the other side of Yamhill was the Wakefield and Glenn building, constructed in 1865. It’s a shame we traded it for what is now a sparsely used surface level parking lot.