Monthly Archives: February 2009

Atlantis Alternative Gifts, 3509 NE MLK

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Scotty has just opened Atlantis Alternative Gifts on MLK, a shop for art, hemp jewelry, books (from mysticism to photo collections), and “functional glass”. The shop is impossible to see in this photo below, but you can see the commercial building it’s housed in:

Inside:

One suspects the store’s proximity to New Born Tribe won’t hurt its business at all.

Scenes, 2/16/09

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On the Irvington Covenant Church administrative building, this strange undersea-creature sticker has appeared (it’s the size of a sheet of paper):

…and on the traffic sign a few feet away:

Looking north on MLK Boulevard:

Between Fargo & Cook, this sign helpfully lets you know that the folks  (the Bed Guyz) who used to sell mattresses on this lot have now taken over the store further north on the boulevard:

Sumner to Webster, on the east side of NE MLK.

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This building, standing between Sumner and Webster on the east side of MLK, holds these businesses:

  • Western Union, which sports a new “Grand Opening” sign in the window, even though it’s been open for at least a year;
  • A Step Above Shoes & Men’s Apparel;
  • Tiffany Nail Salon (I sometimes think of this as the “Tiffany Building”, because this salon is right in the center of it);
  • Tana Market, formerly Angel’s Minimart;
  • H&R Block, which is only open in this location every year from 1/1 to 4/3o.

The building was constructed in 1927. Among its tenants over the years include:

–Bop City Records, a store opened in 1970 by Fitzgerald Beaver, DJ and journalist who founded The Facts, Seattle’s oldest African-American community newspaper (Bop City Records had been on Williams Avenue since the mid fifties, and Beaver had done a live broadcast for KGON radio from the store from 1955 to 1961);

–World Village, a boutique run in the late 80s by local businesswoman Diana McKnight, who was one of the members of a business support/networking organization called “Thriving Black-owned Businesses of Northeast Portland;”

–something called the Cheer-e-o Inn, whose ten-cent tokens can only be wondered at.

This building was sold in 1995 for (wow) thirtyfive thousand dollars.

Albina Fuel.

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Billboard on MLK:

How many people still think of the area surrounding MLK Boulevard (north of Lloyd Center) as Albina? It seems like this name is beginning to fade. Is it possible that “MLK” has almost completely replaced “Albina” as the catchall term for the area (along with a switch from ‘Albina’ to ‘MLK’ as a codeword for ‘African-American neighborhood’)? Will Albina be forever relegated to a historical term for the area (Albina, once a separate city, became a description of an agglutination of neighborhoods, and a buzzword for urban revitalization projects in the fifties and sixties)?

I suspect that city projects such as the MLK Heritage Markers and Gateway Project will hasten the disappearance of “Albina” as a viable term to describe the area, rather than preserve it.