Today’s photo shows a neighborhood, and even a section of street, that no longer exists. Look east on NE Oregon Street from 1st Avenue today and you’ll be standing almost under I-5 looking at the back of the Oregon Convention Center. In the distance is the North Pacific Dental College building at 6th Avenue, probably the only thing in this image that’s still around today.
(City of Portland Archives)
NICE ’46 CHEVY COMIN AT YA !!! WHILE THE BIG, FANCY CHRYSLER RESTS AT THE CURB IN FRONT OF THE ’47 CHEVY. MAYBE THE ’46 DRIVER IS HEADING HOME AFTER TAKING HIS DRIVING TEST FURTHER UP OREGON STREET OR GETTING NEW TIRES AT THE SEARS STORE CLOSE BY !!
I wonder what the traffic cone on the painted line in the middle of the street was for?
Looks like the cone is there because they are doing some sort of work in the street. The truck straddling the line is parked there and there are what appear to be workmen standing near the front of it. It also looks like there are more cones, with the bottoms facing the camera, in the truck.
Fine collection of power poles. Often one of the major features of east side streets even still.
Is this the place of the current Oregon Convention Center? Anything still standing? Interesting photo, like others I noticed the cone & center white line, like maybe it is new, the paving looks pretty sharp too.
“Trackless
Paving crews began Monday to cover with blacktop the double lane streetcar tracks on Union avenue formerly used by Alberta trams. The tracks run from N. E. Oregon street to N. E. Killingsworth”
With picture, The Oregonian, 08/30/1949, Page 28
“Commissioner William Bowes Thursday announced completion of the N. E. Union avenue blacktopping”
“the project to bury the old Alberta streetcar tracks of the Portland Traction company”
The Oregonian, 09/16/1949, page 14
About the cone, I’d guess they’re striping the road and the work truck ahead is following the paint truck, as you’ll often seen today. The line looks very bright white and you can still see the slight over-spray on either side of the line which wears away pretty quickly, so in any even that is pretty new paint. Also there’s the small bead of paint off to the left that is also sometimes seen near newly striped roads.
Speaking of striping,here’s an example from a decade earlier.