Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
THE GOLDEN WEST HOTEL EXHIBIT TELLS A RACIST HISTORY
“The original location of the Black community in Portland was in close proximity to Union Station where much of the Black economic life and employment life was centered.”- Darrell Millner“[My grandfather] saw there was this Black community that mainly worked for the railroad and there was no place for the Blacks to stay….In 1905 he purchased a building and in 1906 opened up the Golden West which was the largest Black-owned hotel west of the Mississippi.”
- Anthony Allen
The online version of the historical exhibit installed on Central City Concern’s Golden West Building. This permanent exterior exhibit, installed in 2009, tells a social and ethnic story of the vibrant African-American community in Portland in the early 1900s and the successes and challenges of its residents. The exhibit – featuring six panels and a soundtrack– can be seen and heard by the public on both sides of the Golden West Building, 707 NW Everett at Broadway.
““Theater Draws Color Line”
W.D. Allen and his son Robert, (latter a Senior at Grant High School), attended a performance at the Orpheum Theater on Tuesday evening. On entering the usher told them to go upstairs. Mr. Allen then inquired if there were not seats downstairs. The usher said there were, but that Colored people were prohibited from occupying them. Mr. Allen and his son ignored the usher and took seats downstairs. Later, they were approached by the manager who is quoted as having said: “Gentlemen, I would like to see you out in the lobby.” Mr. Allen: “I don’t care to go out there, and I don’t care to be molested. I came to see the show.””
- Portland Advocate, October 5, 1929
“Had The Biggest Gambling Estabishement On The West…”
The exhibit celebrates the rich history of the Golden West, the former center of Portland’s African-American social and business life in the first decades of the twentieth century. Primary funding for this project was from a Vision into Action grant by the City of Portland. Additional support provided by the Oregon Council for the Humanities.Other funders include
Central City Concern and SERA Architects (in-kind).Cuarator: Dr. Jacqueline Peterson-LoomisSound Designer and Producer: Michael Gandsey, T2 Audio, Inc.Graphic Design: Ildiko Toth, SERA Architects, Inc.Historical Consultants: Cathy Galbraith, Architectural Heritage Center, Inc.Dr. Darrell Millner, Portland State University.Advisory Committee Members: Nicole Allen, Billy Anfield, Will Bennett, Michael Chappie Grice, Bill Hart1906-1931
When Black entrepreneur W.D. Allen launched the Golden West Hotel in 1906, Portland was booming. The completion of the transcontinental railroad, the opening of Union Station and the Lewis and Clark Centennial Fair triggered a flood of visitors and workers to the city’s bustling North End. The Golden West was designed to serve the Black railway porters, cooks, barbers and waiters recruited by the major railroads. It provided “all the conveniences of home” for Black workers denied accommodation in Portland’s white owned hotels, and was a center of African American social life until the hotel’s closure in 1931.
Patrons could get a haircut and a shave at Waldo Bogle’s Barbershop, sweets at A.G. Green’s ice cream parlor and candy shop, and relax in George Moore’s Golden West Athletic Club featuring a Turkish bath and gymnasium. In its heyday, the Golden West provided an overnight home for prominent black entertainers, athletes, and civic leaders such as Illinois Congressman Oscar DePriest and labor organizer A. Philip Randolph. Some even “retired” there, including Portland Advocate newspaper founder and famous Portland Hotel “hat check man,” E.D. Cannady.
The Golden West Hotel closed in 1931, a victim of the national economic Depression. The “New Golden West Hotel” opened in 1933 but closed in 1935. Other closures plagued the hotel until 1943, when it reopened as the Broadmoor Hotel, surviving until 1984 as low cost housing. Through the efforts of the building’s present owner, Central City Concern, and with the assistance of the Portland Development Commission, the building has been rehabilitated and the name restored to recognize the Golden West Hotel’s significant role in the history of Portland.
Map Showing Black Businesses
THE GOLDEN WEST HOTEL EXHIBIT TELLS A RACIST HISTORY
“The original location of the Black community in Portland was in close proximity to Union Station where much of the Black economic life and employment life was centered.”
- Darrell Millner
“[My grandfather] saw there was this Black community that mainly worked for the railroad and there was no place for the Blacks to stay….In 1905 he purchased a building and in 1906 opened up the Golden West which was the largest Black-owned hotel west of the Mississippi.”
- Anthony Allen
The online version of the historical exhibit installed on Central City Concern’s Golden West Building. This permanent exterior exhibit, installed in 2009, tells a social and ethnic story of the vibrant African-American community in Portland in the early 1900s and the successes and challenges of its residents. The exhibit – featuring six panels and a soundtrack– can be seen and heard by the public on both sides of the Golden West Building, 707 NW Everett at Broadway.
““Theater Draws Color Line”
W.D. Allen and his son Robert, (latter a Senior at Grant High School), attended a performance at the Orpheum Theater on Tuesday evening. On entering the usher told them to go upstairs. Mr. Allen then inquired if there were not seats downstairs. The usher said there were, but that Colored people were prohibited from occupying them. Mr. Allen and his son ignored the usher and took seats downstairs. Later, they were approached by the manager who is quoted as having said: “Gentlemen, I would like to see you out in the lobby.” Mr. Allen: “I don’t care to go out there, and I don’t care to be molested. I came to see the show.””
- Portland Advocate, October 5, 1929“Had The Biggest Gambling Estabishement On The West…”
The exhibit celebrates the rich history of the Golden West, the former center of Portland’s African-American social and business life in the first decades of the twentieth century. Primary funding for this project was from a Vision into Action grant by the City of Portland. Additional support provided by the Oregon Council for the Humanities.Other funders include
Central City Concern and SERA Architects (in-kind).
Cuarator: Dr. Jacqueline Peterson-Loomis
Sound Designer and Producer: Michael Gandsey, T2 Audio, Inc.
Graphic Design: Ildiko Toth, SERA Architects, Inc.
Historical Consultants: Cathy Galbraith, Architectural Heritage Center, Inc.
Dr. Darrell Millner, Portland State University.
Advisory Committee Members: Nicole Allen, Billy Anfield, Will Bennett, Michael Chappie Grice, Bill Hart
1906-1931
When Black entrepreneur W.D. Allen launched the Golden West Hotel in 1906, Portland was booming. The completion of the transcontinental railroad, the opening of Union Station and the Lewis and Clark Centennial Fair triggered a flood of visitors and workers to the city’s bustling North End. The Golden West was designed to serve the Black railway porters, cooks, barbers and waiters recruited by the major railroads. It provided “all the conveniences of home” for Black workers denied accommodation in Portland’s white owned hotels, and was a center of African American social life until the hotel’s closure in 1931.
Patrons could get a haircut and a shave at Waldo Bogle’s Barbershop, sweets at A.G. Green’s ice cream parlor and candy shop, and relax in George Moore’s Golden West Athletic Club featuring a Turkish bath and gymnasium. In its heyday, the Golden West provided an overnight home for prominent black entertainers, athletes, and civic leaders such as Illinois Congressman Oscar DePriest and labor organizer A. Philip Randolph. Some even “retired” there, including Portland Advocate newspaper founder and famous Portland Hotel “hat check man,” E.D. Cannady.
The Golden West Hotel closed in 1931, a victim of the national economic Depression. The “New Golden West Hotel” opened in 1933 but closed in 1935. Other closures plagued the hotel until 1943, when it reopened as the Broadmoor Hotel, surviving until 1984 as low cost housing. Through the efforts of the building’s present owner, Central City Concern, and with the assistance of the Portland Development Commission, the building has been rehabilitated and the name restored to recognize the Golden West Hotel’s significant role in the history of Portland.
Map Showing Black Businesses
Monday, March 9, 2009
*☆♪*«"JUMPTOWN"»*☆♪*
Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942-1957
*☆♪*«"JUMPTOWN"»*☆♪*
"Action central was Williams Avenue, an entertainment strip lined with hot spots where you could find jazz twenty-four hours a day. . . . You could stand in the middle of the Avenue (where the Blazers play basketball today) and look up Williams past the chili parlors, past the barbecue joints, the beauty salons, all the way to Broadway, and see hundreds of people dressed up as if they were going to a fashion show. It could be four in the morning. It didn’t matter; this was one of those ‘streets that never slept.’
-fromJumptown
Leftbank Project
Graceful arched windows in the western face of the Hazelwood building have captivated Portlanders for nearly a century.
Moving through the gateway to North Portland from Downtown, it takes an act of will to focus on the road, resisting daydreams about all that might have transpired inside. The iconic Hazelwood building was built by Portland architect A.E. Doyle in 1923, the triangular building just touching the new garage that sat at the southern edge of the lot.
The Hazelwood first housed a fashionable restaurant with a bakery, creamery and confectionary above. Ten years into the life of the building, a beer parlor emerged where the restaurant had been. There were scattered years of vacancy though this early history, interspersed with occupancy by the Home Owners Improvement Co., Century Metalcraft Corporation, and St. John's Welder Supplies. In 1945, Portland's premier jazz club, the Dude Ranch defined a neighborhood and an era from its home at 240 N Broadway. In his book Jumptown, Robert Dietsche writes,
"There never was and there never will be anything quite like the Dude Ranch. It was the Cotton Club, the Apollo Theater, Las Vegas, and the Wild West rolled into one. It was the shooting star in the history of Portland jazz, a meteor bursting with an array of the best Black and Tan entertainment this town has ever seen."
Soon after the Dude Ranch closed, Mutual Wholesale Drug Co. bought the two existing buildings. In 1949 they built a 3rd structure in the 'L' made by the other 2, and opened connections between them. This unified the building, creating the footprint we know today. After their tenure of about 25 years, Mutual Drug left and MultiCraft Plastics moved in.
MultiCraft's occupancy brings the building's story into the memory of most Portlanders. Following a few years of vacancy when MultiCraft moved, a young developer was drawn to the building. While years of deferred maintenance and a neighborhood sliced up by freeway ramps presented obvious challenges, the building's rich history as a center of industry and culture, and its location at this energetic hub were calling. With the promise of healing a once vibrant place he drew in a handful of visionaries, and together they conceived of the Leftbank Project.
Today, the gathering Leftbank community writes the next chapter.
Live Music Preview: King Louie and Sweet Baby JamesThe Dude Ranch at 240 N. Weidler St., is the only one left after the freeway, Coliseum and an Emanuel Hospital urban renewal project obliterated Albina's business district starting in the late 1950s. The building is being remodeled for multiple uses, including a craft brewery.Portland was racially segregated during the Williams Avenue glory years. Black patrons were not welcome at downtown venues, with the exception of McElroy's Ballroom - on the block now occupied by the Portland Building - where Cole McElroy promoted mixed dances complete with chaperones.
Moving through the gateway to North Portland from Downtown, it takes an act of will to focus on the road, resisting daydreams about all that might have transpired inside. The iconic Hazelwood building was built by Portland architect A.E. Doyle in 1923, the triangular building just touching the new garage that sat at the southern edge of the lot.
The Hazelwood first housed a fashionable restaurant with a bakery, creamery and confectionary above. Ten years into the life of the building, a beer parlor emerged where the restaurant had been. There were scattered years of vacancy though this early history, interspersed with occupancy by the Home Owners Improvement Co., Century Metalcraft Corporation, and St. John's Welder Supplies. In 1945, Portland's premier jazz club, the Dude Ranch defined a neighborhood and an era from its home at 240 N Broadway. In his book Jumptown, Robert Dietsche writes,
"There never was and there never will be anything quite like the Dude Ranch. It was the Cotton Club, the Apollo Theater, Las Vegas, and the Wild West rolled into one. It was the shooting star in the history of Portland jazz, a meteor bursting with an array of the best Black and Tan entertainment this town has ever seen."
MultiCraft's occupancy brings the building's story into the memory of most Portlanders. Following a few years of vacancy when MultiCraft moved, a young developer was drawn to the building. While years of deferred maintenance and a neighborhood sliced up by freeway ramps presented obvious challenges, the building's rich history as a center of industry and culture, and its location at this energetic hub were calling. With the promise of healing a once vibrant place he drew in a handful of visionaries, and together they conceived of the Leftbank Project.
Today, the gathering Leftbank community writes the next chapter.
Live Music Preview: King Louie and Sweet Baby JamesThe Dude Ranch at 240 N. Weidler St., is the only one left after the freeway, Coliseum and an Emanuel Hospital urban renewal project obliterated Albina's business district starting in the late 1950s. The building is being remodeled for multiple uses, including a craft brewery.Portland was racially segregated during the Williams Avenue glory years. Black patrons were not welcome at downtown venues, with the exception of McElroy's Ballroom - on the block now occupied by the Portland Building - where Cole McElroy promoted mixed dances complete with chaperones.
-- Fred Leeson; portland@news.oregonian.com
Blues / Jazz / SoulKing Louie & Baby James
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
On behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee
On behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee
On behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee
(PDF Document, 31kb)
See the full calendar of events for Black History Month 2009
On behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee
January 29, 2009
Mr. Will Bennett 17935 NE Oregon St. #A Portland OR 97230-6566
Re: Award Presentation, Thursday February 5, 2009 at the
Fourth Annual Black Heritage City Hall Art Show
Will,
I apologize for getting this formal invitation out to you so late. However, on behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee, I would like to invite you to come to the above event to accept an award for your contributions to the preservation of local African American History. There will be a brief program and ceremony beginning at approximately 5:15 PM at City Hall in the above date.
I know you were planning to attend, but I want to be sure that you knew of our plans to celebrate your work. Pleas confirm that you will attend by calling me at (503) 823-4169 or co-chair Karyn Hanson at (503) 823-6339.
Congratulations and I hope you will be able to attend.
Sincerely
Donny R. Adair
On behalf of the City of Portland Black History Month Committee.
Celebrate Black History Month in February!
Black history is American history. Visit the monthly cultural celebration page for event details.
:
______________________________________________
From: Hanson, Karyn
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 9:02 AM
To: Citywide All Employees Distribution List
Subject: Black History is American History!
Please join us in celebrating our Black History.
Calendar of Events(PDF Document, 31kb)
See the full calendar of events for Black History Month 2009
The City of Portland Black History Month Committee invites you to attend
:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
"Local Color"
Project #01, Screening of "Local Color" :
"Local Color" Reported my Jon Tuttle & Produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting,1990,58 min
This documentary explores Oregon's and especially Portland's as it's racist and attitudes have fluctuated the past eighty years....
It documents the black businesses that thrived in Portland before WWII....And how the Vanport Flood changed Portland for ever
Portland gradually became one of the worst places to be black outside the South, to be black in the United States.
WILL BENNETT, GOLDEN WEST PROJECT
This documentary explores Oregon's and especially Portland's as it's racist and attitudes have fluctuated the past eighty years....
It documents the black businesses that thrived in Portland before WWII....And how the Vanport Flood changed Portland for ever
Portland gradually became one of the worst places to be black outside the South, to be black in the United States.
WILL BENNETT, GOLDEN WEST PROJECT
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GOLDEN WEST PROJECT
- willbe1960
- Portland, Oregon, a.k.a. The Whitest City in America, United States
- WILL BENNETT, Community Practitioner, Futurist/Historian At Large Creative Director @ Golden West Project GOLDEN WEST PROJECT http://goldenwest.wordpress.com BUILDING A NETWORK FOR PRESERVATION OF PORTLAND’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AND MORE!!!... PRESERVES, PERPETUATES, PROMOTES AND INTEGRATES AFRICAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE AND CULTURE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: http://www.african-american-historical-district.com/ SUPPORT GOLDEN WEST PROJECT LOCAL COLOR NOW ONLINE! http://www.african-american-historical-district.com/LOCAL_COLOR_IS_ONLINE.html Ugly fried history http://www.blackinformant.com/remember/ugly-fried-history the-golden-west-hotel/ "Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, And only 30 involving anything else...." As historian roger wilkins has pointed out (wilkins, 1995) – But Such Is The Irresistible Nature Of Truth, That All It Asks, And All It Wants, Is The Liberty Of Appearing –
