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I expect this is true all over town but was reminded today of some old street names in my neighborhood. Someone, likely during the street naming of 1891, after the incorporation of East Portland, Albina, and Sellwood, was clearly into Walter Scott's Waverley novels.
Anglophiles naming stuff is not specific to my neighborhood, as evidenced by Sellwood/Milwaukie's Waverley Country Club and neighboring streets St. Andrews, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Eton (and their American versions, Exeter and Andover).
Spelling of Waverley varies, with my hood featuring things like Waverly Village Apartments, Waverly United Church of Christ, and strangely, Waverleigh Boulevard (oh I should point out the rest of this is all sidewalks).
So, sidewalks. Though many street corners have been updated to be ADA compliant, there are still remnants of street names (and tags of companies (and dates) who laid the sidewalks) in the concrete. These almost exclusively came before the 1931 new street renaming.
That means streets now named SE 28th Place or SE 35th Place used to have other names. In these cases, Kenilworth and Marguerite, respectively. Kenilworth is the title of Scott's 1821 novel, and Marguerite was his wife's name.
In the case of Marguerite Ave, the name was changed to 35th Place in the early 1930s, and when the corner of Francis and 35th Pl was redone, likely in the aughts, they were kind enough to put the old name back on the corner.
There are other former names in my hood, though I can't find any connection to Scott or his novels. Swanson St is a small part of 36th Ave now and Marvin St is what's now Lafayette Ct.
The corner with Swanon St still visible is a pretty busy one, where it intersects with Center St, as you can see here. Two street names, and the names of two different sidewalk companies, fourteen years apart.
Even for streets whose names haven't changed entirely, you can still see the difference between pre-1931 and post. Beforehand, it was mostly just E this or W that. An example is E 38th Ave here (also often Ave changed to St).
This corner of 38th was set just a few years before the name changes, as you can see by the company tag a few feet away.
Unlike the erstwhile Marguerite Ave, sometimes the new sidewalks were able to incorporate the old panels, we'll call them, when they weren't directly on the corner. Here's a nice example from 2003.
One last note, there are still a few of the old horse rings around here, too. Particularly on SE 37th. Rare to see remnants of the tiny horse project from about a dozen years ago, though there are some (likely replacements).
Anyway this is super long but just a reminder that looking up is always a good idea if you want to see your local architecture. But looking down is a good idea too, at least in Portland.
How could I forget to mention this‽ Thanks, Rich, both for the reminder and the pertinent entry! https://twitter.com/richweber/status/1335430646500495367
Also this entry is amazing for noting the hilarity of the Boulevard nomenclature for a not very big or long street. It’s an extremely small version of Reed College Pl or Ainsworth. I assume it connected before the Cleveland field. Anyone know for sure?
