Our Number Man was captured in this 1932 photo that’s identified only as “Street in St. Johns.” Can anyone identify the exact location?
Found: N. Leavitt Avenue and N. Ivanhoe Street – southwest corner.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland
Our Number Man was captured in this 1932 photo that’s identified only as “Street in St. Johns.” Can anyone identify the exact location?
Found: N. Leavitt Avenue and N. Ivanhoe Street – southwest corner.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
it looks like “202” on the building
and the west hills in the background
Is it 202->7239 N Leavitt Ave, based the two background buildings.
The building wall to the rear says Hotel something or other. And what’s with that second story door? I’ve seen more than one building in Portland with doors to nowhere…
Door going to no where on the 2nd floor.
There must’ve been a stairway or fire escape at one time where the 2nd floor door is. I lived in a house on NE 11th & Hancock that had a ‘door to nowhere’.
This building looks like it previously had a porch/balcony. Note that the siding immediately above the ground floor windows doesn’t match the rest of the siding on the building. Since the mismatched siding stretches the whole width of the building, it was likely added to patch the hole left when the porch/balcony was removed.
I think oldoregon is right. This would be the southwest corner of N Leavitt Ave. and N Ivanhoe St. (or, given the angle of the streets, this is looking almost due west). Here’s the view today. The building on the right is still there.
Perhaps left after the porch removal to move furnishings to the second floor. I expect a narrow convoluted stairway existed within the building.
If this is N. Leavitt and N. Ivanhoe, the concrete building on the left appears to be still standing as well, labeled ‘Letson Garage’ on today’s view. A friend of my father, Mark Letson operated a car repair shop there for may years, restoring a number of Pierce Arrows and Packards. I knew him in the ’60’s and would think that the building was easily there in 1932 as well.
202 became 7239, after the1931 address change.
Historic Oregonian search for “7239 North Leavitt” returns 3 hits:
March 10, 1935; William Swartz of 7239 North Leavitt; drivers license revoked for driving while drunk.
April 4, 1936; “Charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor were placed against Perley and Patrick McGarvey, 7239 North Leavitt Street, following their arrest late Thursday by Sargent Maxwell. A 16-year-old girl was involved.”
May 10, 1937; “William Schwartz, 41, of 7239 North Leavitt Street, was arrested on the St Johns Bridge by Patrolman Robertson on a charge of reckless driving. Bail was set at $100.”
So I’m gonna go out on a moral limb here and say this building might qualify as a “flophouse”…
With all the apparent imbibing going on there, that makes the door to nowhere even more disconcerting.