Fitness with JJ
Tips for getting
your routine
back on track
See column, page 4
‘City
of
Roses’
Group reconvening
to affirm power
and strength
See Metro, page 9
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Volume XLVI • Number 42
Empowering
Sisterhood
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • October 18, 2017
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Healing and Making Good
Vicki Guinn, a public
relations manager at
Legacy Health, oversees
the community outreach
into plans to develop a
vacant lot next to Legacy
Emanuel Hospital for
community use while
acknowledging the
black community that
was displaced from the
site decades ago. The
exhibit behind her in the
hospital’s atrium tells the
story of urban renewal
in the 1960s and 1970s
and its impact on a
black community that
continues to this day.
photo by
D anny p eterson /
t he p ortlanD o bserver
Past and future
Intertwined in Hill
Block development
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
Plans to finally develop an empty lot
that has long represented a sore spot in the
heart of Portland’s historic African Ameri-
can community is taking some root, but the
details are far from formalized as commu-
nity conversations and public input is still
being gathered.
The 1.7 acre block at North Russell
Street and Williams Avenue was demol-
ished in 1969 by the city’s Portland Devel-
opment Commission, now called Portland
Prosper, as part of an urban renewal project
that included the construction of Interstate
5, the Oregon Convention Center, and Leg-
acy Emanuel Hospital.
Lost in its wake, was a predominately
black community and many black busi-
nesses, including apartments, a drug store
and dry cleaners. It was a familiar trend
that was going on at the time around the
nation in so called “blighted” neighbor-
C ontinueD on p age 5
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Vacant for decades, the Hill Block was once the center of African American life in Portland at North Russell Street and
Williams Avenue. Plans call for developing the site with benefits to the black community that was displaced.