Gentrification in North and Northeast Portland, Oregon
by Thomas Robinson
Part One: Deep Background
A substantial percentage of Portland area Black housing was swallowed by the 1948 Vanport Flood. Vanport was a community located approximately where the Metro Portland Expo Center halls, West Delta Park, Portland International Raceway, Heron Lakes Golf Course and some industrial properties are now, in North Portland. Vanport, established in 1942 as a housing project for wartime ship-workers, had grown to be Oregon's second largest city. photo by Allan deLay, May 30, 1948. Source: 4x5" original negative
In Vanport's last recorded survey, compiled May 1, 1945, Vanport had 6,317 Black residents, which was 20.5% of Vanport's population, making Vanport one of the larger Black neighborhoods in Oregon. photo by Allan deLay, May 30, 1948. Source: 4x5" original negative. Additional information about this image is available, please click here for more details. 
Most of the black flood victims were given temporary housing in dilapidated war surplus mobile buildings trucked to vacant land at Guilds Lake. After a little over a month of living in these circumstances, the residents organized a caravan to Salem and protest their conditions at the State Capitol. photo by Allan deLay, July 7, 1948. Source: 4x5" original negative.
Most of the Blacks who stayed in Portland moved into temporary housing or were funneled into inner North and Northeast Portland. Census figures for 1950 show 9,528 Negroes living in Portland, with approximately half of them living in tracts 22 & 23, commonly known as the Williams Avenue District. It was about a mile and a half long, bounded on the north by Fremont, on east by Eighth, on the south by Sullivan's Gulch (now the I-84 freeway) and on the west by the Willamette River. The dwellings in this area were 58 percent renter occupied, much higher than the city as a whole. The only other significant concentrations of Blacks in 1950 were two temporary housing projects: Guilds Lake and University Homes. Shortly after the census, these were closed down, and most of those people moved to the Williams Avenue area.
In the middle 1950s, Portland was subject to numerous construction and redevelopment projects. Federal highway planners were moving the main Interstate Highway from the east to the west side of the river, as well as adding an eastbound freeway. A war memorial to Oregon's WW2 casualties in the park blocks downtown was in need of resiting as a permanent structure, and the idea was expanded to a giant exposition & recreation building which ultimately became the Memorial Coliseum. Four proposed locations were considered, and the area selected was the heart of the black neighborhood, the entire area where the Colesium and Rose Quarter are today. Almost the entire Black neighborhood was condemmed and demolished. The photo above shows the neighborhood as it existed before demolition in 1957. The photo below shows the land after the first phase of clearing. upper photo by Allan deLay, October 5, 1955. Source: 4x5" original negative. lower photo by Allan deLay, May 2, 1958. Source: 120mm original negative (580502-B07).
The Williams Avenue District was the center of Black businesses and culture in Portland. The above photo shows Duke Ellington blowing out the candles on his 54th birthday cake at the Cotton Club on Williams Avenue. April 30, 1953. photo by Allan deLay. Source: 4x5" original negative
Additional construction of the I-5 and I-84 freeways, and Emmanuel expansion in the 1960s and 70s took out much of the available nearby housing, forcing the Black neighborhood further north into North & Northeast Portland.
Bibliography for this page :
The Negro In Portland, by the Portland City Club Bulletin, July 29, 1945
History of Albina Gentrification by Icky in Doom Town Nosedive, March 1997
Nonwhite Neighbors and Property Prices in Portland, Oregon, by The Urban League of Portland 1956