This aerial gives a great perspective on the Lloyd District. Lloyd Center, Holladay Park, the Banfield Expressway, and Benson Polytechnic High School are visible.
Aerial view Lloyd Center area, April 24, 1964 : A2012-005
Lloyd District, 1964
Vintage Portland
Vintage Portland 
I can see the Albertina Kerr building on NE 22nd and my apartment building, too, plus the building at NE 20th that houses the Blue Diamond, the best neighborhood spot for live music every night of the week, bar none. I really like this photo! Thanks!
My stomping grounds in 1964. I was 14 & remember it all very well.
Here is the approximate view today.
The view in the link in the previous message is at least three years ago if not longer.
For anyone who might be curious, I used the Lloyd District as the site for my M.Arch (urban design emphasis) thesis project. Check out the images here, and if anyone is interested I can share the thesis book, too:
It’s such a shame that the city and Metro continue to throw money at the area via excellent transit connectivity (MAX, trolley, busses) and study after study is undertaken on “what’s wrong with the Lloyd District,” but no one ever seriously questions the underlying premise of the District: an area of pedestrian-unfriendly, single-use mega blocks filled with surface parking, banal parking garages, and cheap and brutish high-rises. The area stands in stark contrast to just about every lesson the rest of Portland teaches about quality mixed-use, small-block, varied-density urbanism, and imports its architecture from Dallas-Fort Worth. As long as this fundamental problems with the District (including the very notion of a “special district” that is so heavily single-use) remain unacknowledged, nothing will really change and everyone will keep asking, “what’s wrong with the Lloyd District”.
Reblogged this on Oregon Real Estate Round Table.
It was actually planned in the early 20’s, just as the American car culture was just beginning.and was built as it was at it’s height with all of it’s excesses and the freeways that border it. I had a unique look at this because I watched block after blocked razed and the building of what replaced it, all from my schoolroom window in the old Holladay School.
RE: Soundslike: I am a practicing landscape architect and have been involved in numerous public and private projects in NE Portland and the inner NE urban renewal projects, including the Lloyd district. You are right on with the labyrinth of problems that the area suffers through. The develop-by-covenant approach (i.e. Dallas) that was undertaken in the 20th century has left its marks here. It takes the recognition of this ‘stratified problems’ condition to begin to approach sustainable renovations. It’s worth it though. Keep it up!
@Randy,
Blame Bing.
Yeah oil man Ralph Lloyd wanted to build a hotel but was thwarted by the depression and then WW11. A foundation was actually dug at one time. If I remember one of Lloyd centers biggest tenants was supposed to be Allied? or something like that.
In looking at the modern photo, it’s interesting to see that the low-rise portion of the Sheraton (with the interesting roof line) still exists, though it has been hidden behind the horrible blank wall addition on NE 9th.
I was able to approximate a modern, 3-rendered view
Soundslike,
The problem with the Lloyd district is, it was built to serve the customers of the developments, not to serve, Portland’s failing transit system.
Ah…The Sheraton Hotel…and The Kon >Tiki…Superb Curries, Polynesian and Continental Cuisine…Exotic Drinks, intimate atmosphere…For Reservations, call Ming Lu 288-6111 !
Funny…I remember all the hub-bub about The Lloyd Center and how far away from town everybody thought it was…just too far away to drive to…yeah…way too far away! Imagine!
Great old shot tho…thanks!