Mappy Monday - Portland Oregon: The Age of A City

Another cool tool I've been using in my research on the buildings designed by my architect first-cousin-twice-removed, Ewald Theodore Pape (1894-1976), is this cool one at http://labratrevenge.com/pdx/

Justin Palmer created the map using a dataset provided by the City of Portland that included information on the year most structures in the city were built.  Each color in the map indicates a different decade (while gray indicates that no year of construction was available), ranging from pre-1900 to 2010 and later.

You can zoom in on different areas on the map - here are some examples:

Above:  Zooming in on SE Madison St., between SE 20th Ave. and SE 26th Ave.

Below:  Zooming in on SE Caruthers St., between SE 20th Ave. and SE 26th Ave.  This area is due south of SE Madison St.

This map can help me in cases where I know, from an old newspaper article, the rough location of a building Ewald designed, but not the exact address or site.  For example, on the map below, centered on NE U.S. Grant Place, I know that Ewald designed four homes on this street in 1931, according to an article on page 26 of the June 7, 1931 Portland Oregonian.  The lighter-blue houses on that street are too old (built in the 1920s), while those that are purple or pink are too young.  I use it in conjunction with the City's PortlandMaps.com site, to quickly rule out properties so I only have to check the images of historic building permits there for the true possibilities, trying to match up the dates of the permits and the listed owners with the information in the newspaper article.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.