Troubled Times in Albina
Page 14, THE OREGONIAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1969
Signs Point To Urban Wasteland As Troubled Area Loses Stores
By ROBERT LANDAUER, Financial Editor, The Oregonian
It's only one block in the middle of a large city, but in a few days or a few weeks it may, be an urban wasteland.
It's the 3900 block of NE Union Avenue between Failing and Shaver.
Since last Friday night more than $4,000 worth of windows have been broken in the 10 or so businesses on the block, and Tuesday night Weimer's Furniture Store, 47 years In the same location, ways gutted by fire. The firebomb that started the blaze destroyed at least $250,000 worth of building and inventory, Lawrence (Bud) Weimer, second-generation manager of the store, said Wednesday.
The accounts receivable were saved, “but that's worth only two bits on the dollar now,” he said.
Help Offered
Officials said the loss was about $200,000.
Weimer is bailing out; there is no possibility that he will reopen, he asserted.
“There's no assurance this won't happen again; they've told us once they don't want us. We don't have to be told a second time.”
Bystanders watched Weimer shovel charred debris from his 50‑x‑100‑foot building into the gutter, and neighborhood residents ‑ blacks and whites ‑ asked if there was anything they could do to help.
Weimer thanked them and replied that all that is left to be done is clean up the mess, talk to his insurance company and see if the building can be restored to the point that it can be leased as a warehouse.
Police Praised
He praised the police:
“I mailed a letter of praise about the police to the mayor and the Police Department yesterday, before the fire. Up to last night police protection was very adequate; we felt they did 'all they could do, but the truce broke down . . .”
Down the street at Repp Bros. Groceries & Market, three generations of family management on Union Avenue, the man behind the counter said: “Get out if you're going to use my name; we're afraid to let you use our names.”
This is a big grocery store with a walk‑in cold room behind the butchers department not a mamma-pappa operation.
We're Afraid
The man behind the counter was silent until a Negro customer left and then:
“This truce is a big joke; 24 hours and see what happens? It's got to be met with force.”
“If someone walks in here, picks something off the counter and walks out, we're afraid to stop him anymore. We don't want trouble; we don't want them ganging us.”
Repp Bros. are selling out their inventory; the store will go out of business.
Across the street at 3933 NE Union Ave., Robert Geist of Geist's Clothing stayed in his store until dawn Wednesday morning to protect his property. His store was not damaged.
“There are lots of decent, honest, wonderful people, in this neighborhood, but then there are also the hoodlums. The truce didn't work last night, but the police are doing a wonderful job.”
Pressed, Geist admitted:
“We'll probably close as soon as feasible; if this keeps on we'll go, but we could change our mind.”
Geist's Clothing has been in business 50‑odd years; Bob Geist says he has lost the precise count.
At the corner of Union and Shaver, Salzmann Motors is barricaded like the Bastille. Werner Salzmann and his partner Franz Wirkner take a break from repairing Volkswagens. The garage is crowded with cars. The owners are uneasy about leaving vehicles in the adjacent parking area.
Shop Opened
Salzmann and Wirkner are immigrants from Germany. After working for a car dealer in Vancouver, Wash., for several years, they opened this shop of their own 10 years ago.
They sell BMWs in the front of the 100x100‑foot building and repair VWs in back.
“Since the trouble started, we haven't had any floor traffic out front,” said Salzmann. “We can't sell cars if our windows are broken and boarded up.”
Repair business has been cut in half: “A girl called up this morning to find out if it was safe to bring in her car. What can I say?”
Salzmann feels locked in at his location. "If I didn't own this building, I would move night away."
As it is, the partners are considering moving their new car show room to another location, and if they can find someone to lease the whole building, they would be willing to move on.
Across the street from Salzmann Motors, Maurice Grigsby is cutting hair in his come barber shop.
“I have no views and no comments about anything,” he says.
“I couldn't say if the police are doing a good job or a bad job.”
Grigsby has been operating Maurice's Barber Shop for seven years. He hopes to stay in business right where he is. It won't affect his business much if other businesses move off the block, he said. People still need haircuts.
Adam Bihn boards up a window at his meat market broken by vandals
Stores Locked Up
Wilson Dairy Products was locked up tight, and so are two or three other businesses on the block. They look like they have been out of business for some time. No one seems to know for certain.
At the Burger Barn ‑a few booths, a small fountain and 20 cents rung up on the cash register ‑ a tall, middle‑aged woman says:
“Go back and tell your boss I think what he thinks ‑ nothing.”
But after some small talk, she said:
“I know this much. There will be a mess if they (the police) start beating up on people.”
The Burger Barn needs traffic to survive. If other stores and foot traffic leave the 3900 block of Union, this luncheonette will probably follow.
Across the street, Oreville Wasteny, in his 39th year of retailing doughnuts on the avenue, says he is trying to sell. “But it's the emphysema; it's got nothing to do with this trouble.”
About “this trouble,” Wasteny said: “It's just the kids out 'of school with nothing to do and some older people egging them on. What we need most is jobs. If they were working days, they wouldn't be on the streets till 1 or 2 at night.”
At the corner of Failing and Union, 4‑x‑8‑foot plywood sheets block out any view into Homeyer's Cleaning & Dye Works, a local cleaner. Wands Robson, an attractive 22 year-old blonde who handles the counter and the books, said some customers have said they are afraid to leave their clothing “because of the trouble.” Wands, who lives in the middle of the block, watered down a burning car with a hose hooked to her bathtub Tuesday night, so the gas tank would not explode and extend the fire to her house.
Deliveries Refused
Business is slow, she said, and the police “act like they're scared to do anything; they just get in patrol cars and follow one another around.”
Across the street in the 3300 block of Union, there are 15 rocks and bricks‑up to 10 pounds‑on the soda fountain counter at Rose City‑Piedmont Pharmacy. They came through the window.
The owner is refusing to take deliveries; he says he is going out of business.
You use his phone to call a cab and watch the carpenters nail a double thickness of steel‑reinforced five‑eighths inch plywood to the window frames.
The cab takes 45 minutes to arrive.
“None of us drivers was in the area and none of us wants to be in it,” the driver explains.