NW PORTLAND FROM 1980 TO YESTERDAY

I take snap shots of NW Portland, not out of nostalgia but celebration, where you walk past buildings like this block after block.

It’s the only area in town where authentic city life happens, where new people arrive, settle in, and walk from apartment to work.

That’s the plan, the dream, and when it works it’s worth a cheer.

Yesterday was a big cheer.

NW Portland is littered with three story apartment buildings.

A studio apartment, a bedroom/living room, kitchen/dining room, and bathroom/bath tub, rented for $155.00/month in 1980 when I got there.

It was just right for recently divorced men who’d lost their way, nursing students, and unmarried professional women, along with guys who didn’t meet the standards of young women looking for maturity and wisdom.

Weren’t we all mature and wise in 1980.

I came to Portland to date a former Rose Princess and life happily ever after, which lasted about three months. If I had been twenty years older it would have lasted longer, maybe four months.

As a former forty year old I can see that. Add another thirty years and it’s crystal clear:

Some women were ready to settle down with a man, some man, any man, with their ticking clocks going.

After running the gamut of 1970’s dating there’s little room for error.

My error? I wasn’t fun enough. I wasn’t un-fun, just not girly-fun, family-fun, and soon enough, not couples-fun.

I moved from a house on SE Rural to an apartment on NW Lovejoy.

While I was looking around I walked past building corners and alleyways just like the one in the picture.

 

NW Lovejoy And The Burgess In 1980

In 1980 the manager lived in the one-bedroom on the bottom right, a tall fat man with long hair who drove a red Cadillac convertible and drank in a biker bar on 21st.

That’s where I met him to sign the lease.

When I say biker bar, it really was a bar full of rowdy motorcycle guys, who I generally stay away from in case one of them takes an interest in strangers.

I pushed in and signed the papers.

In short time I learned the manager also managed working girls in another apartment, the inspirational couple for the movie Drug Store Cowboy lived on the second floor center, and the Cadillac convertible jumped the curb in the parking lot and punched a hole in the building’s wall.

The townhouses to the right of the Burgess used to be a small parking lot for the apartment and the house on the other side.

My break-in period also included a fire in the apartment across the hall from mine, third floor center.

My place was fire command center.

 

A Northwest Portland Sidewalk

Yesterday I stood there taking pictures in the sprinkling rain when a guy in a hurry walked past with coffee in his hand.

Me: Excuse me. I’m taking pictures of my old place from 1980.

Guy: 1980. Has it changed? I love it here, living two blocks over that way and working two blocks that way. I moved here from New York and it’s been incredible for my wife and I. I’m retired, but I like to keep an office, a small space for special projects.

My guy had a very un-retired look about him. He was a live wire kind of a guy, someone you hoped to run into on the sidewalk every so often until you buddy up and make coffee plans.

We had so much in common, both moving from Brooklyn, both history guys, and both loving the vibe of NW.

Then my wife walked up.

Guy: I was just holding the door for her and her two coffees.

Me: That’s my wife bringing coffee while I document forty years marriage.

Guy: That’s what you’re doing?

Me: We first met right here on this sidewalk.

Wife: I had an office in the medical building next door.

Guy: What did you do?

Wife: I’m a doctor.

Me: A retiring doctor.

Wife: After forty-five years.

Guy: Congratulations. What will you do now?

Me: I think we’ll do more of this, mingling and taking notes. I’m a blogger, a history blogger at boomerpdx.com. Check it out, you might like it.

Wife: If you had a card you could give him one.

Guy: Alright, it’s starting to rain and I’ve got calls to make.

 

Northwest Portland April, 21, 2026

I dropped my wife at Good Samaritan for an appointment and instead of parking the car I drove the NW hills above Westover.

These were the hills I called my own when and ran and biked them.

I once rode up Thurman, crossed the bridge up past the Heights, and all the way up to the lowered crossing bar where the gravel starts.

I ended up on Leif Erikson Drive. Eleven miles later I was on Germantown Road.

While I was turning around yesterday a shirtless guy who looked like Rambo’s brother ran past.

Just another part of the Forest Park story?

 

While conducting my research I noticed I was almost out of gas.

Back in my bike riding days I thought the Chevron station on 21st an Lovejoy was a mistake, an eyesore.

Not today.

But, the $6 per gallon had to be a mistake? So was the $5.50 at Astro on 21st and Marshall?

Me: This is expensive gas.

Wife: Not at Radio Cab on 16th. That’s where I always got gas here, didn’t you? Oh, that’s right, you didn’t have a car.

Me: It’s still open?

Wife: Let’s see.

We wheeled into a big garage with gas pumps in the middle and a happy smiling guy at the ready with $5 gas.

He might have been fifty with a stringy ponytail, and just the biggest smile.

We told him our Radio Cab story and he repeated what the first guy had said: “I love Northwest Portland. I live a few blocks away and fill-in here a few times a week. It’s the best.”

It was the best yesterday.

Wife: If you had a card for your blog you could have given him one.

 

PS:

Why do baby boomers, Portland baby boomers in particular, have such fond memories of the past?

In my theory of history, fond memories come with recalling the times of a certain age, like mid to late twenties.

From Google AI:

Albert Einstein was 26 years old when he published his groundbreaking special theory of relativity in 1905. Working as a patent clerk, he published this and other foundational papers in the journal Annalen der Physik during his “miracle year,” which revolutionized physics at a young age.

PSS:

My Portland life started where so many had been before me.

In 1980 the old timers said I was five years late for the best times in NW.

During my early strolls there I saw Heavy Number Taco on the corner, Wheel of Fortune down the block, and two theaters, one on 21st, the other on 23rd. Looked right on time to me.

Now I’m the old timer telling new guys these is the best of times?

Yes, I am. I say it to my wife, my kids, their partners, and their kids.

As an old bird in the warm embrace of family, if these aren’t the best of days, I don’t what it is.

Pass the word.