Black business owners fight to restore culture in Portland s historic Albina neighborhood
Albina was once hub for African Americans until gentrification
and last updated 2021-02-27 22:00:14-05
PORTLAND, Ore. â When buildings no longer tell the story of a neighborhood, we hold onto the photographs left behind. Yet, the real history lives on in the stories behind these pictures.
âI have vivid memories just right down the street here,â said Sharon Maxwell, pointing at an empty lot behind her, reminiscing on her childhood neighborhood.
The lot was once home to stores, businesses and family dwellings.
âEverything was just sort of like a roaring 20s, but in the 80s and in the 70s,â she said.
by Alex Zielinski • Dec 17, 2020 at 11:23 am
Boys on an unidentified corner of in Albina Neighborhood, in 1963 seven years before the Emanuel Hospital development City of Portland Archives
When Brian Morris recalls his early childhood years in Northeast Portland s Albina neighborhood, he remembers a sense of belonging. I was just a kid, but it seemed like I knew everyone in the neighborhood. we were all family, Morris, now in his 50s, told the
Mercury Wednesday. It was a safe place. I would walk from my house on NE Fargo down to visit my grandfather at his tavern [on NE Russell] by myself, and it wouldn t be an issue. It was a community that looked out for each other.