Alberta Street - NE Portland

Northeast Alberta Street is definitely one of the hippest streets in the City of Portland. The street has certainly gone upscale over the past decade, but keeps a great mix of local businesses that are fun to browse among. The walk not only takes you along the NE Alberta stores, but also visits nearby changing residential and commercial neighborhoods, and starts and ends at a great McMenamin destination. This walk is 3.7 miles long, and traverses flat terrain.

The walk begins at the Kennedy School. This elementary school was opened in 1915, and after sixty years of service it closed in 1975, deemed too old and expensive to renovate by the Portland School District. However it wasn't torn down, and finally in 1997 the McMenamin brothers reopened it as part of their growing empire of brew pubs. The school is much more than a pub, encompassing several restaurants (some with outdoor patio dining) and taverns, party rooms, lodging, a small outdoor pool, a cinema, and even a cigar bar. All within the confines of a traditional elementary school, most notably the long and wide hallways, decorated with artwork and photographs, that connect the different attractions. It's worth a stroll around before the walk begins, and a nice meal, drink, movie, or even cigar afterwards.


From the front of the Kennedy School along NE 33rd Avenue, cross the street and walk west on Jarrett Street. You will be walking by a mixture of different styles and eras of houses, some old and seedy, some old and refurbished, and some, like these two residences on your right, recently built. These two homes are on a corner lot, having been built within the last couple of years.


Continuing down Jarrett, also on your right a couple of blocks before entering Alberta Park are these two homes, also built within the past couple of years, in a much more traditional "old-PDX" architectural style. In home plan books from Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and other 1920's "house-by-mail" sellers, these homes would have been called labeled as four-square or farmhouse architectural style.

Directly ahead, Jarrett Street stubs into Alberta Park. This 17-acre park, with lots of trees, has been around since 1921. This interesting story from 2011 gives some information about the park, including bike polo activities on an old tennis court. Once you reach the park, turn right and navigate its circumference, all the way to Concordia Street at its north end (the location of a baseball diamond) and then back to Killingsworth Street and 20th Avenue on the south end of the park.

Across Killingsworth on the left side of 20th Avenue is Vernon Elementary School. On the right side is the Redeemer Lutheran Church, also the home of the Portland Tool Library. This is exactly what it sound like - a place where patrons can check out tools for a specified period just as a standard library checks out books.

Cross Killingsworth and walk south on 20th Avenue. After one block on the left (the intersecting street is Emerson) you will see these two older houses that have been refurbished and restored. Probably built at the same time by the same builder, they represent a craftsman two-story bungalow style from the early 20th century. Turn right on Emerson Street and walk four blocks to 16th Avenue. Turn right on 16th and walk one block back to Killingsworth Street.

It's a sign of changing times in NE Portland that commercial revitalization is coming even to this stretch of Killingsworth, between 13th and 17th Avenues. On the north side of Killingsworth, between 16th and 17th and to your right, is this commercial structure, hosting Podnah's Pit Barbecue and La Taq Mexican restaurant. Meanwhile, on the south side of Killingsworth is the very modest Killingsworth Market.

Turn left on Killingsworth. In the block between 15th and 16th on the south (left) side of the street is Fruteria Don Pedro, an open air market with an interesting display of food items and flowers. Contrast this four-block stretch of Killingsworth to NE Alberta later on this walk -it will be interesting to see what happens to this smaller commercial area over the next few years.



Continuing on Killingsworth to 13th Avenue, you will see these newer townhome-style residences on the north side of the street. They were built in 2008, and are still "pioneers" among the mostly older homes in this area.

At 13th Street, turn left. Go one block to Emerson, then take a jog on Emerson to the right and then continue on 13th. At 13th and Roselawn, one block later, you will see this beautiful home on a narrow corner lot. It looks like it could be new, but it was originally built in 1906 and renovated in 2008. Other signs that it is an old house - there is no garage on the property (a new house would include a garage), and it has a basement (a new house, even in a period style, would most likely omit construction of a basement). There's plenty of street parking in this area, so a garage isn't really needed.

At the southwest corner of 13th and Roselawn is Roselawn Park, a small patch of grass, without even a sign to identify it. There's nothing much on the web regarding the history of this little park, and why it came into existence, other than a mention on the Portland Parks website that it is 0.12 acres and was acquired in 1996. Here's a cute yelp story, and one other mention that is equally baffled by this park's existence. But the house on the south boundary of the park has this childishly cute mural for you to look at.

Proceeding to the right on Roselawn Street a couple of blocks, you will see three newer homes that exemplify the design pitfalls of including a garage in the front of a narrow lot. A positive spin on the story of the 25-foot wide single family lot in Portland can be found here. I think a better solution would be to skip the garage entirely and let the occupants of these skinny houses park on the street (each driveway means less on-street parking). But you be the judge ...

Continue on Roselawn to NE 9th Avenue, then turn right. Proceed two blocks to Alberta Street. At 9th and Alberta is St. Andrew Catholic Parish. The parish has served the community from 1908, since 1929 in this stately French Gothic building.

Turn right on Alberta. At the southeast corner of 10th and Alberta (on the right side of the street) is this building housing the Eritrean Community Association of Oregon, a non-profit group. Eritrea is a nation along the African side of the Red Sea, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991.

Continuing east on Alberta brings you to the Alberta Street commercial district. This area is a mixture of old and new, funky and shiny, and has a lot of places to shop, dine, drink, or just browse. Most notably, the street seems devoid of national chain stores.  It will be interesting to see if this pattern continues - national chains have moved in to other once funky now fashionable inner Portland commercial districts such as SE Hawthorne and NW 23rd. The Tin Shed, on the south side of Alberta between 14th and 15th Streets, is a well known restaurant known for its breakfasts, but also serving lunch and dinner. There is usually a line to get in.

While the pictures and text below provide some street highlights, there are many more restaurants and shops that might catch your eye and your wallet. Feel free to explore the establishments that interest you

Continuing down Alberta Street, at the southeast corner of Alberta and NE 17th Ave. (on the right) is the Community Cycling Center. No self-respecting Portland neighborhood is without a local bike shop, but this one is unique in that it is operated by a non-profit organization devoted to increasing access to cycling for persons of all ages and income levels. The Center's bike shop, with its colorful side wall mural, sells only used and refurbished bicycles, but also new parts and accessories. It also includes a full-service repair shop

Continue east on Alberta Street. On the left (north) side of the street between 20th and 21st Avenues is another new Portland icon, Salt & Straw Ice Cream. Beginning only 10 years ago in a food cart, success led to establishing this permanent location a few years later, and a second location on NW 23rd Avenue more recently. Exotic and unusual flavors are given to very tasty ice cream. The line out the door and down the sidewalk is the norm for this very popular establishment.

Continuing three blocks further east, the corner of NW 23rd Avenue and Alberta presents an interesting contrast. On the south (right) side of the street is this new mixed-use building, with an upscale sushi restaurant on the ground floor and what look like fancy apartments above. On the north (left) side of the street is a funky collection of food carts on an old parking lot, serving up various inexpensive eats.

Three blocks further east, the corner of NE 26th and Alberta (on the right) is the site of this new development of condos, built in 2011.

Continuing four blocks further east, on the south side of Alberta at 30th Avenue (to the right) is the Alberta Rose Theatre. This 400-seat venue hosts a variety of events, including acoustic music concerts, art house films, and live performances. Opened as a movie theater in 1927, it became the home of a church in 1978, and was reopened by its current proprietors in 2010.

From the Alberta Rose Theater, continue on Alberta Street two more blocks to 32nd Avenue. Turn left, and go two blocks through a residential neighborhood to Emerson Street. Turn right at Emerson and walk two blocks to 33rd Avenue. You will be facing a sure sign of a changing Portland neighborhood (the positive adjective is "revitalized," the negative adjective is "gentrified"), a New Seasons Market. Started in 1999, this grocery chain now has 13 stores, and is located in several formerly run-down, now hipster Portland neighborhoods.


Turn right on 33rd Avenue and go two blocks north, past Killingsworth Street, to your starting point at the Kennedy School.

Williams and MLK - streets in transition - N and NE Portland

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.