One could almost imagine tumbleweeds blowing down an old west street but it’s actually the corner of N. Ivanhoe Street and Chicago Avenue in St. Johns. The Star Hotel, a rather rough-looking establishment, fronted on Ivanhoe which goes off to the right in this circa 1932 photo.
(City of Portland Archives)
The building just to the right of the two featured yesterday also did not fare well during its street-widening makeover. Today’s look is a far cry from this handsome 1929 facade. At least that little space (a stairway) between buildings is still there.
(City of Portland Archives)
Today we find our Number Man standing on the west side of NE Union Avenue just north of Russell Street in 1929. The buildings still stand but look a bit different today. I suspect they lost a few feet of their fronts when Union was widened, the reason they were being documented here in the first place.
(City of Portland Archives)
Yesterday’s location at SW Barbur Blvd. & Bancroft Street can be seen in this terrific aerial view from roughly above OHSU looking eastward. The main east-west street below us is Bancroft while Terwilliger and Barbur are the main streets that cross from left to right. The large building near the upper-right is the old Holman Public School. The manufacturing plant along the river sits about where the Old Spaghetti Factory and the South Waterfront district are now.
(City of Portland Archives)
Crews work to add another southbound lane on SW Barbur Blvd at Bancroft Street in this 1953 photo. The roadways are much the same today but these buildings are all gone.
(City of Portland Archives)
A century ago, crossing NW 14th Avenue west on Davis Street would lead you to a row of residential homes and apartments. Today you’d take your life in your hands crossing an off-ramp from I-405 and then a fence would stop you from accessing what’s left of that block.
(City of Portland Archives)
The north side of W. Burnside between 15th and 16th Avenues was a lively hub of commerce in 1917. A newsstand and a barber shop, art, antiques and salvage material, a Saxon automobile dealership, and a garage all shared this block.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 