The Eastbank Freeway, or I-5, begins cutting through North and Northeast Portland in this 1962 aerial photo. The Memorial Coliseum parking lot at center right, and Lloyd Center in the distance, were both about a year old at the time of the photo. All the houses in the lower right are gone now.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
It’s rather ironic that most of the houses in the lower right were replaced with the administrative offices of the Portland Public Schools. As I understand it, PPS is now (or was) looking for funding to purchase or construct a new building because remaining in their “outdated” headquarters has become too expensive.
Sheesh.
A real pity. A neighborhood chock full of spacious late Queen Anne, 4-squares, bungalo and craftsman homes. A real significant cross-section of late-19th and early 20th century Portland Architecture. A proud, tidy neighborhood. Looks like folks took care of their houses. I’ve worked on remodels on structures like these. A lot of the “bones” and woodwork of houses of this era were constructed of flawlessly knot and blemish-free old-growth Oregon lumber. Keep a good roof on ’em and keep ’em well painted and caulked, and they’ll last practically forever, What a waste.
When I first started working, all the freeways had names. The southern portion of I5 (south of I26) was the Baldock, the northern portion was the Minnesota, what was I80N was the Banfield. I don’t recall exactly when I80N became I84. The Banfield is almost the only one you actualy hear of by name anymore.
Roxanne,
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the interstate numbering system and the change of 180N section to I-84:
“In the numbering scheme, east-west highways are assigned even numbers and north-south highways are assigned odd numbers. Odd route numbers increase from west to east, and even-numbered routes increase from south to north, though there are exceptions to both principles in several locations. Numbers divisible by 5 are intended to be major arteries among the primary routes, carrying traffic long distances.”
“Several two-digit numbers are shared between two roads at opposite ends of the country (I-76, I-84, I-86, and I-88). Some of these were due to a change in the numbering system as a result of the new policy adopted in 1973. Previously, letter-suffixed numbers were used for long spurs off primary routes; for example, western I-84 was I-80N, as it went north from I-80.”
I recall that the Banfield was changed to I-84 in the early 70’s and we didn’t think it would catch on. It was mostly done to remove some of the confusion if you were coming from out of town.
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But, I still refer to the west side of the river portion of I-5 as the Baldock 😦
this is the closest thing I’ve found to seeing what the neighborhood looked like before massive development of the area between MLK and Lloyd Center. I lived in a house on the corner of 6th and Halsey for a short time (basically in the burger king parking lot) that was built in 1904, and always wondered what the area looked like before the Burger King, McDonalds, Taco Bell etc all went up.
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