5609 SE Milwaukie Avenue near SE Ellis Street, 1973.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, VZ 7-73: 5609 SE Milwaukie Avenue, A2011-013, 1973.
SE Milwaukie Avenue, 1973
Vintage Portland
5609 SE Milwaukie Avenue near SE Ellis Street, 1973.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, VZ 7-73: 5609 SE Milwaukie Avenue, A2011-013, 1973.
Vintage Portland 
Which has now grown a second floor!
What was the reason for angling out the side of the building?
I’m pretty sure that is a 1963 Buick Riviera parked in the front. I so wanted my dad to buy one of those. At that time we had a 1954 Buick Special. It had well over 100,000 miles on it.
What was the reason for angling out the side of the building?
Did the store on the right sell jugs, or is that part of the name?
The business is Meeks Monuments; the bump out is probably for extra storage, etc.
if the building has an overhead crane for lifting stone (it is a tombstone/statue shop) the angling may be contain buttressing to help the walls carry the load.
i once lived next to a monument shop that had been there since the 1870s… they still had the 1890s edison motors to power the travelling crane; three 25hertz dc motors the size of a vw bug. that had stone walls 2′ thick
Miscellany: The apparent last owner of the monuments business was Harold E. Meeks. Meeks was born in Peoria, IL in 1904 and came to Portland as a teenager. He was a metalworker in Portland shipyards during WWII and seems to have gone into the monuments business (with his brother?) around 1953. He died in Portland in 1975. Incidentally, according to press, he was chairman of the Portland Chrysanthemum Society in the 1950s. The business property at 5609 SE Milwaukie was offered for sale in 1982 for $115,000.
Richard, will you look up who owned of the property on the right side of this picture.
Should be listed as Kunies gas station at that time, later to become Cool Radiator.
The old gas tanks are still in the ground under Milwaukie ave.
Surprised this sight has not been cleaned up yet!
Jon: I can’t find anything that points specifically to the ownership of a property that looks like a business (“Jug…”) just north of the 5609 monuments shop, as shown in the VP photo. Everything around there that shows up in accessible newspaper archives appears to have been private residences ca. 1968-1973. That would be whatever was on the lots with addresses 1524 SE Ellis and 5603 SE Milwaukie. Maybe someone else can help?
JUG [milk]?
The “jug” building was selling milk.
Milk and gas?I
What a combo.
@Jon. According to the 1941 Polk 1941 Portland City Directory the property at 5603 SE Milwaukie was occupied by Vincent, Roy B. Gas station. If that is helpful. No idea what brand.
I do not remember any brand association for gas or the jugs of milk.
I think it was just partial name of a Gentlemans Club disguised as a service station.
Based on my research, a gas/service station type set-up was there at 5603 from the 1930s-1990s/2000s. At one time, it was a Richfield station. Later on, by the 1970s and 80s, it appears to have been a radiator shop and was torn down around the millennium. Before the 1930s, there was a very small house there.
5609 was actually vacant for a period in the 1970s; in fact, it was when this photo was taken in 1973.
Looks to me as though the “Jug” definitely referred to milk. The three lines just below the word appear to say “Gal. Homo”, “Gal. 2%”, “Gal. 1%”. Or are my elderly eyes fooling me?