Alameda Old House History

Grant Park Grocery and Market, NE 33rd and Knott, about 1933. Photo courtesy of Jerry Hoffelner. The man in the first row, second from the right with the blue "x" penned onto his apron, is Jerry's dad, George Hoffelner. The other men have yet to be identified. Can you help? I'm researching a very old house near 29th and Knott. One of the many people who lived in the house over the years...

I've been going through early issues of The Oregonian in search of stories and photos about homes and neighborhoods. It's been a fascinating journey marked with some real jackpots of information about Alameda, Olmsted Park and Beaumont. Photos, catchy advertisements, stories about who was building what, and where. The Portland of 1909-1915 feels definitely more boastful, a little rowdier than...

I've been in touch with Dick Taylor, who grew up in Alameda during the 1930s. He's one of the men whose brain I've been picking for details on the "old man" who I've heard stories about. Dick grew up on Shaver between NE 34th and NE 35th. A few weeks back I sent him a copy of the Sanborn map of that vicinity from 1924. He kindly added some detail showing who lived where in the 1930s, and where the...

A great observation about old houses and their sometimes brash new neighbors. This column appeared in The Sunday Oregonian on March 16, 2008. One thoughtful reader, responding to Emma's column, writes: Don't you wonder what story the purple box is telling us? If the older homes were about family, and a love of making things that are handsomely decorated, or about sitting in the sun on our...

In the last week, I've spoken with three men — three Alameda boys — who grew up in the neighborhood in the 1930s and 1940s. None of them live here any longer, though fragments of memories from their growing up years are crystal clear. We've been concentrating on overlapping memories about a single person and situation. Even though these three were all here, living just a couple blocks...

A recent visitor to this blog asked if there was anything he could do to help with capturing the history of the Alameda neighborhood. Absolutely. Bruce Morrison, the little boy who grew up in my house, remembered the day his younger sister Jean and brother Robert took a ride on the goat and cart out in front of the house. You never know what might turn up in an oral history interview! There's no...

Funny how decisions are made sometimes, and how unpredictable forces shape the way things turn out. For 80 years, Alamedans have known the Alameda Park Community Church building- today's Subud Center — as a friendly-looking building on an island just off Regents Drive at Mason. Passersby inclined to wonder about its history perhaps think it was a big house originally, or a community...