We’ve seen this intersection before but this view looks west on NE Ainsworth where NE Union passes through. Both the Texaco and the 76 gas stations are long gone but the house on the north side of Ainsworth is still there. The lad on the bicycle, just barely captured for posterity, may still be with us, too.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
I’ve seen this house! Walked by it a week ago last Saturday to catch a bus over to Interstate Avenue. So cool to see this old photo. Thanks!
Actually, I think the Texaco building is still there, heavily altered into a Starbucks.
The little boy on the bike graduated to a Harley Davidson now on Google Earth.
I love this. Yes the Texaco is now where Starbucks is which means the garage is on the current site of the Walgreen’s. Love seeing where my neighborhood came from, even before my dad’s time (he was born in ’46). Thanks for these!
Heh. The play of light and shadow creates an optical illusion that makes it look as though the garage is gigantic and is strandling the intersection; the far post of the garage appearing to be directly behind the pump canopy of the Texaco station.
Douge Martin: After looking at the street view, I don’t think the Starbucks is the same building as the original Texaco. It appears the Starbucks is further back from the street with the front parking lot. I can see where you see a similarity in the buildings; the heavy post facade of the Starbucks might be a design reference back to the old Texaco canopy. I’m not sure if Starbucks puts that kind of historic architectural detail into their buildings, but if so, I applaud them!
The street view is below. I could not go further back due to a parked semi truck blocking the view 😉
http://goo.gl/maps/ZhZn5
I think the buildings are in the same place. The canopy over the pumps is long gone, and it looks to me that the main part of the building is well back from MLK (Union then). I looked at Portlandmaps, and they did not have a building date for the building there now, which means it was a long time ago. Does anyone know how to look up the building date for that building?
Douge, I see what you mean, I was just looking at the canopy over the gas pumps. Yes, nice catch, it does look like the main Texaco building could be still there as the Starbucks.
There is another “pueblo adobe” style gas station still existing on NE Halsey. (used for something else). Does anyone know of any others that may still be around? I wonder if that was the trademark style of Texaco..
@jackinport, there is another Texaco adobe station still standing at 28th and Stark; https://vintageportland.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/se-stark-28th-1937/
It’s now a coffee shop and convenience store. And, yes, they were a standard design used by Texaco until replaced by the Walter Dorwin Teague design in 1937.
Thanks Mike, I went to Central Catholic so remember now passing that all the time. Also, in that thread someone mentioned another adobe gas station that is still in existence on 69th and NE Glisan. It is now an auto repair shop (street view linked below). Good to see some of these still around.
http://goo.gl/maps/BT5wL
So there is more than one CC grad following vintage portland. Interesting….. As it happens I grew up just a few blocks from this intersection. Love the picture.
Thanks all, for providing more info and insight. Mike, you mentioned the architect Teague. Was he the one who also designed those wonderful art deco “wedding cake” Signal gas stations, a few of which are still around?
I remember growing up In NE Portland in the 50-60’s you couldn’t go more than 1-2 miles and not see a gas station. Nowadays more like 10 miles in the city. Only one gas station left on Sandy Blvd from 7th to 102nd. On NE Fremont alone there 7 or 8 gas stations between 24th and 57th in the early 60’s.
Coffee People was the previous tenant of the starbucks coffee shop. Not sure what it was before that.
If this picture is from 1937, Ainsworth Avenue garage would now be on Ainsworth STREET, since Portland updated it’s street names in 1933. Streets now run east to west, and Avenues north to south.