This walk goes through two Portland streets transitioning from lower income, heavily minority communities to upscale "hipster" inner city neighborhoods. The route goes by both the old and the new, and provides a look at neighborhoods changing, for better or for worse, depending upon your perspective. The walk is 3 miles long, and is on mostly level terrain.
This walk starts at the New Seasons market between Williams and Vancouver Avenues, on the south side of Fremont Street. There is perhaps no surer sign of a Portland neighborhood going "upscale" than a New Seasons market. The Williams Avenue location opened in 2013, and is the 13th market in this local chain, which opened its first store in 1999.
While all 13 New Seasons stores are very "Portland-y" types of markets, none of the other stores boasts this size of a bike parking area, located along the Williams Avenue frontage. Williams and Vancouver, one-way couplet streets, boast some of the highest volumes of bike traffic in the city, and unlike many unused bike racks in suburban shopping malls, this one gets lots of use.
Across Williams Avenue from New Seasons is a vacant site that is soon to undergo construction. It will be eight stories tall, and will include a
co-housing project (which back in the 1960's would have been called a commune) for baby-boomer senior citizens who want to share common facilities as they age. The project as a whole, proposed by local developer Ben Kaiser, has been the subject of
much local controversy, exemplifying the tensions in the neighborhood between developers, long-time residents, and newer residents who would just as soon not have too many new neighbors.
Continue three blocks south on Williams Avenue. On the right, between Cook and Fargo Streets, is the Tropicana Barbecue in a funky old commercial building, with two vacant lots on each side of it, one of which contains a community garden. One has to hope the Tropicana Barbecue will remain - its
positive yelp reviews indicate that it's been in operation for over 50 years. UPDATE 11-10-2014: The Tropicana Barbecue has closed and been replaced in this spot by the
People's Pig, which has graduated from being a great food cart to real bricks and mortar status.
At Fargo Street, turn left and go one block to Rodney Avenue, where you will turn right. In the five blocks of walking along Rodney Avenue you will see three old churches, St. Marks Baptist (1904) Greater Mt. Gillard Baptist (1907) and Community Outreach Christian (1909). This photo is of Community Outreach Christian. A brief discussion of churches in the Eliot Neighborhood, including these three, is found
here. Of note is that none of the three churches has an active website, and St. Marks Baptist building is currently for sale.
Continuing on Rodney Avenue, on the left are four new single-family homes. These homes, built in 2013 and sold this year, are each on 25 foot wide lots. But unlike some other homes in Portland recently built on such narrow lots, these four are not marred by placement of a garage at the front of the house.
At Knott Street, turn left. On your right will be the Title Wave Used Bookstore. This Spanish Renaissance Revival style building was built in 1912, and was the Albina Branch of the Multnomah County Public Library until 1988, when the library moved to a new building. This building is operated by the library for the sale of used books, either from the library shelves or otherwise donated.
Continue east on Knott to Martin Luther King Blvd. Directly across from you is the Nike factory outlet store. Nike opened this store in 1984, long before this area started gentrifying. In fact, when this store opened, Martin Luther King Blvd. was still known as Union Avenue - the name change
happened in 1989.
To the left is a small pocket park that is a memorial to
Gladys McCoy. McCoy was the co-proprietor with her husband of McCoy Plumbing, which is a block south on Martin Luther King Blvd. More importantly, she was the first African-American member of the Portland School Board (1966), the first African-American Multnomah County Commissioner (1979), and Chair of the Board of Commissioners from 1986 until her death in 1993.
Cross Martin Luther King Blvd. at the signalized intersection with Knott St. Go left for one block, then turn right onto Graham Street. Continue one long block on Graham - note the mixture of older houses with one very different modern residential structure. At 7th Street, turn left, and continue for several blocks along this pleasant residential street. lined with large street trees. At the corner of 7th and Stanton on the left is the Northeast Fellowship Community Church, a foursquare church in a building constructed in 1898. At 7th and Monroe Street on the left is this group of attractive attached townhomes, built recently, and fitting into the neighborhood (once again, no garages in the front of the homes emptying out into the street).
At Fargo Street, enter on the right into Irving Park. Continue in a loop into the park, past the off-leash dog area, and then turn left and head back toward 7th Street. The park contains a public restroom. The 16-acre park was established in 1920, and is named (as is the Irvington neighborhood to the south) for Portland pioneer and steamship magnate William Irving.
Exit Irving Park one block south of the intersection of 7th and Fremont, which is the corner of the park. The first street parallel to Fremont to the south is Ivy Street. Cross 7th Street and walk along Ivy back toward Martin Luther King Blvd. On your right is the Albina Head Start, occupying buildings along the whole block. On your right is a series of older homes, punctuated by this modern design.
At Martin Luther King, turn right and go one block to Fremont Street. If you look to the south, on the left side of Martin Luther King one block away are the five story
Magnolia apartments, completed in 2013, with 50 affordable rental units above commercial space. At the northeast corner of Fremont and Martin Luther King is this three-story newer commercial development, with townhouses to the east along Fremont.
At Fremont, turn left and go one block to Garfield Avenue. At the northwest corner of Fremont and Garfield are the
Allen Fremont Apartments, a 64-unit affordable housing project for seniors. The project was completed in the late 1990's. This site plus the construction site along Garfield to the north used to be an elementary school.
At Garfield Avenue, turn right. On the same block as the Allen Fremont Apartments (left side of the street) is this construction site (for now). Eventually the 1.1 acre site will hold 61 low income apartments in five buildings, one of which will be four stories high. The units will be a mixture of alcohol and drug-free apartments, and studio apartments serving as a residential treatment program for African-American women and their children.
Continue north on Garfield. On the next block, also on the left side of the street, are the Maple Mallory apartments, an older low-income housing project extensively renovated in 2007. This project has 48 units
Continue north on Garfield, past Failing Street. On the next block, to the right is another new construction project - two new row houses.
Continue one more block to Shaver Street, then turn right. On this block between Garfield and Martin Luther King is an interesting contrast - an old auto shop at the corner of Shaver and Garfield, and a new six-story apartment building at the corner of Shaver and Martin Luther King. The
Shaver Greens building has 85 units, 71 rented to households earning less than 60% of Portland's median income, and 14 rented to households earning less than 30% of Portland's median income. The building was partially funded by the Portland Development Commission, and is LEED certified, which means it met standards for energy conservation and sustainability. The building does have a few parking spaces on the first floor, although they may be reserved for commercial tenants - the building is listed among newer apartment developments in Portland with no automobile parking for residents.
At Martin Luther King Blvd., turn left. Back in the days before the I-5 freeway was finished through North Portland in 1964 this boulevard, designated as U.S. Highway 99E, was one of two major routes from the Interstate Bridge to the north over the Columbia River and the appropriately-named Junction City (a small town a few miles north of Eugene). The other, U.S. Highway 99W, ran along Interstate Avenue to the west, also in North Portland. Once U.S. 99W crossed the Willamette River at the Steel Bridge it stayed on the west side of that river all the way to Junction City, while U.S. 99E stayed on the east side of the Willamette.
This street is seeing a lot of changes. One of the changes is the five-story
Miracles Club Apartments, located on the right side of the street between Mason and Skidmore Streets. The building was constructed in 2011 primarily with city funds, and has 40 lower rent apartments available to recovering addicts who have been clean for at least 12 months. The club, formed by local recovering addicts in 1993, has its meetings on the first floor.
Continue north on Martin Luther King Blvd. On the right side of the street, covering two blocks between Skidmore and Going Streets, is
McCoy Village, a 55-unit low-income housing project, named for Gladys McCoy (discussed earlier) and her husband Bill, who was a long-time State Senator in the Oregon Legislature representing this area. Opening in 1993, the original project was so poorly constructed that it was largely dilapidated and mostly vacant within ten years. Catholic Charities of Portland spent $13 million reconstructing the development, and it reopened in 2012. Unlike other low-income and other projects in the area, McCoy Village has a large underground parking garage.
At Going Street, turn left and go west for five blocks to North Williams Avenue. You'll see a mixture of old and new residential architecture along this street. Here are two very new single-family residences to the right, built in an architectural style mimicking the "Old PDX" residential architecture of the early 20th century.
Continuing on Going St., to the left is this interesting duplex, built recently on a small corner lot. It has no yard to speak of, but that might be a good thing for some who don't wish to spend their time on yardwork. Each unit does have a single-car garage.
At North Williams Avenue, turn left. Williams Avenue has the distinction of being the dividing line between Northeast Portland and North Portland in the city's street addressing system. Along the right side of Williams is the modest Powerhouse Temple Church.
Continue south on Williams to Skidmore Street. On the southeast corner of Williams and Skidmore a
massive new construction project is underway, which will result in a 268 housing units and a ground floor commercial space that will take up an entire city block. When finished the project will have a "
woonerf" between the two main buildings.
At Skidmore, turn right and go one block to Vancouver Avenue, the other half of the Williams - Vancouver one-way couplet set of streets. On the corner to the right is the
First A.M.E. Zion Church, a cornerstone of Portland's African-American community, in this location since 1917. A.M.E. is short for African Methodist Episcopal - this national church was founded in 1816 as an independent Methodist denomination for African-Americans. In 2012 the national African Methodist Episcopal Church entered into full communion with the United Methodist Church of the U.S., the descendant of the church from which it originally split in 1816.
Turn left on Vancouver Avenue, and after two blocks turn left again on Shaver Street, and then right onto Williams Avenue. On the right side of the street you will see, from north to south: 1) a four-story building with the Hopworks Bike Bar on the first floor and
EcoFlats apartments, 18 units with no automobile parking (but lots of secure bike parking) above; 2) an asphalt parking area with a food cart serving out of a double decker bus; 3) the psychedelic façade of the Sidebar, associated with the Lompoc Brewing Company; and 4) the
Lompoc Brewery, with a tank that is presumably filled with beer above the brewery.
North Williams and North Vancouver Avenues handle approximately 3,000 bicycle trips daily. A recent attempt by the city to improve the street for bicyclists opened up a lot of old wounds along this important street in Portland's Albina neighborhood, historic center of the Portland African-American community.
This article in the Portland Mercury puts the recent controversy into a great historic context. It appears that the city has resolved, or at least papered over, the issues, and the street improvements for bicyclists on North Williams are going forward.
Continue south on Williams. On the block between Shaver and Beech Streets to the left is a shopping area which includes R&R Roasters, reputed to have the best coffee in the city by some, and Tasty & Sons, an acclaimed new restaurant. On the right side of the street, at the corner of Williams and Beech, is
The Kiln, a new (opened in 2014) 19-unit apartment complex, five stories high, with no automobile parking, designed to be extremely environmentally sensitive.
On the southeast corner of Williams and Beech are the
Albert apartments, 72 units in 4 stories. This building has 17 on-site parking spaces, but also a dedicated carshare space and four electric charging stations for cars.
Continue south on Williams. To the right is new construction going up on North Vancouver Avenue. This is the Radiator Building, which will have four stories of office space above retail commercial development on the ground floor. Perhaps the developer is counting on medical office spillover from the Emanual Hospital complex a little farther south to fill the building.
On the next block, after crossing Fremont Street, is the New Seasons Market where you began this walking tour.
