SW Columbia Street looking east to 2nd Avenue appeared borderline industrial back in 1962. The KOIN broadcasting studio on the right would move into a new high-rise tower a block to the west of this location (just to our right in this view) a couple of decades after this photo. The cornice of the Ladd Block can be seen beyond the Boyd’s coffee building on the left.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
Wow, it’s completely unrecognizable today. http://g.co/maps/ae2cc (That Ladd Block picture is really beautiful, by the way.)
Ah yes, Channel 6-KOIN TV…Mr. Duffy and Cartoon Circus for us kids and Walter Cronkite and the “national news” was only on for 15 minutes every weekday evening. That Rambler American parked just outside the TV station looks like something Lois Lane drove but I think I’d rather have that ’57 Mercury instead! What a fun photo!
I have fond memories of walking by the old KOIN Building as a kid. The news writers would be typing away on the second floor with the windows open on a hot summer day. It is a neat coincidence that the local affiliate of the Columbia Broadcasting System is on SW Columbia Street.
The building on the right with the vertical sign was Oregon Laundry