This 1949 photo of street deterioration on N. Greeley Avenue at Buffalo Street was probably documentation for city work crews or engineers. The street has been repaired, in case you were wondering. This view is south on Greeley.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
I walk past this view every day on the way to the bus. Not much has changed at all.
This is 2 years after my house was built. Most of the homes in this neighborhood were built in the 40s, but a few in the 50s. Would love to see what it looked like in the 30s. I’ve heard it was a walnut orchard. I am pretty sure which house was the farm house — it still has a giant walnut tree on the property.
This is my corner.
Here is an approximate view today from Google: bit.ly/15NJjsR
My house and my neighbors’ were build in the mid-20s, which is also my sense when the “burrage tract” was developed. But Laura I think you may be right about the bluff area west of Greeley.
What has changed from this picture is mostly the landscaping. The image here shows tall doug fir trees in the front lawns of 7134 and 7146 n greeley (on the left of the photo). By their size they are dozens of years old but hardly “old growth”. These are gone today, but other trees and shrubs have sprung up.
Today there are fewer telephone/streetcar poles – this picture shows one in front of every house practically but that isn’t true today. I wonder why we needed so many poles back then?
I see also the streetcar tracks are gone by this time.
I’m curious, are any other shots in the file that might show a better view of the houses?
I’ll bet there are streetcar rails under those linear ruts……
the poles on right side of street could have been catenary poles
I’ll bite: What is a catenary pole?
Could this have been the route of a trackless trolley?
Catenary poles are there to support the overhead wires for streetcar/bus.
While there *do* seem to be more poles, the visual difference is partially an illusion due to the difference in depth of field between the old photo and the modern street view. Count the number of houses visible and you’ll see what I mean.
One theory for the necessity of more poles would be the increased carrying capacity – the old photo poles have 4 crossbars vs. 1 today.
Brian, this is a former streetcar route that has been converted to electric bus (trackless trolley). You can see the dual overhead wires.