Built in 1912 at the north end of Portland’s central east side, the Alco Apartments opened at a time when east Portland was rapidly urbanizing, with competing commercial and residential uses vying for available space. Of key importance to these developments was proximity to streetcar lines connecting residential neighborhoods and suburban communities with the east side business district and downtown Portland. As a response to these competing needs, a new type of mixed-use building emerged in Portland in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century, combining storefronts at street level with apartments above, meeting the needs of both sectors. As development of new buildings in the central east side progressed during 1912, the Alco Apartments was featured in an ongoing series in The Sunday Oregonian, following their construction and highlighting their modern amenities and fine design. Strategically located on the streetcar line that traveled along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (then Union Avenue), the Alco was completed just before the rapid expansion of the automobile in the city, which would ultimately replace the streetcar as the dominant transportation mode until the late 20th century reintroduction and expansion of mass rail transit. Source: Oregon State Historic Preservation Office., National Register of Historic Places (Listed, 2017), This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
Picture caption: O. M. Dezendorf's apartment-house, which is now under construction on the east side of Sixteenth street, between Salmon and Taylor, representative of buildings of this class of moderate cost, many of which are being erected in Portland. It was designed by Claussen & Claussen architects and a four-story and basement brick structure, 60 by 100 feet. It will contain four five-room apartments on each of the upper floors and three in the basement, or 19 in all. The buildings will be equipped with automatic electric elevator, four electric dumb waiters and the usual modern conveniences of apartment-house construction. There will be an ornamental iron balcony for each apartment, built-in furniture and disappearing beds. The entrance will be of carved stone and the vestibule of marble. The cost will be about 50,000. , The building is currently known as the Raintree Apartments (2016)., This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
