NE Union Avenue [Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard] and NE Schuyler Street, 1929.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2009-009.1818.
NE Union Avenue, 1929
Vintage Portland
NE Union Avenue [Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard] and NE Schuyler Street, 1929.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2009-009.1818.
Vintage Portland 
Classic shot of the older Number Man.
I noticed the “For Rent”sign in the window, and looked up houses in that vicinity in 1929. The Historical Oregonian database has several multi-roomed houses, furnished or unfurnished, running between $35 and $60 a month.
Is there a way to use the Number Man’s number to pin down the exact address of the large house?
Assuming we’re looking Northeast in the shot, there’s almost nothing left of this scene.
Liz, if it helps, this is about 1800 NW MLK today.
When’s the last time we saw a billboard for Crisco with a pie!
Interestingly, in today’s view the big old blue house (on Schuyler) behind the 1-story brick building is of very similar architectural style to the house in the 1929 photo. They were probably built about the same time. Wonder when that was?
Speaking of Crisco here’s a great story on its successful business strategy starting 1911…almost every American household bought 3 cans of it per year.
How Crisco toppled lard — and made Americans believers in industrial food
For decades, Crisco had only one ingredient. But most consumers never knew that, and that ignorance was no accident.
by
Helen Zoe Veit,
Considerable, December 26, 2019
https://www.considerable.com/home/food/crisco-history-industrial-food/
Whoops, turns out we’ve already seen the NE corner of this intersection. I wonder which corner is in today’s shot…SW?
Igor– Haugen Motors was located at 380 Union ave N in 1929, and I do believe is the building from your streetview image that has the address today of 1804 NE MLK, and Portland maps dates to 1921. The duplex in the photo today should be on the SW corner, and was likely torn down or moved when Union ave. was widened.
I wonder how many of those two- and four-plexes were built in this city. They are all over Buckman and elsewhere.
The grim reaper. A few years ago I tried really hard to figure out who he is but got nowhere,
Had one of those buildings on the NE corner of SE 21st and Clinton for years as a rundown tenement structure.
yes!SW corner. theres a powerline that runs along the south side of Schuyler, and after the far left house is a commercial building getting close to broadway, this is my best guess.
I located this building on Portland City Maps. I’m pretty sure this is the one, architectural details seem to almost match. It faces Schuyler. Built in 1931, this date doesn’t match the above posting.
and Haugen only closed in the last couple of years!
The commercial building on the far left is a Safeway grocery store with the Crisco billboard on the roof. The VP photo from February, 17, 2016 has the numbers man on the corner Broadway & Union and the houses can be seen on the far right with the For Rent signs in the windows, but it was photographed on a different day since Crisco is not on the billboard.
The 1931 Polk Directory lists this block as:
361 Safeway
365 Tiffany Bakery & Lunch
367 vacant
369 Rose City Cafe
371-375 vacant
The 1930 Polk has the same info, except:
361-3 Skaggs Safeway
By 1933, the block looked this way:
1701/363: Safeway
1709/365: vacant
1711/367: vacant
1713/369: M and J Restaurant
1719/371: John Cray, restaurant
1719A/371 1/2: Lyle Edwards auto repair
1723: Interstate Auto Wreckers #2
1725: Interstate Auto Wreckers #3
So Dennis is right, the building was gone from that location by the time the street’s widening was done.
1731/373: Charles McLaughlin gas station
I didn’t know it would format that way! Anyway, switch the last two sentences and at least it’ll be in order.
What’s the address on that?