June 29, 2003
A Historical Anecdote About Vice
Continuing to make my way through the historical "portrait" in Portland: An Informal History & Guide, I feel I must share this tidbit, from a short discussion about vice in turn-of-the-century Portland:
The result of the famous 1912 vice report was the equally famous "tin-plate law." This city ordinance required owners to buildings to inscribe their name and address on a tin plate and affix it to their building. This was meant to shame the patricians of the city, the principle owners of these "immoral places," into evicting their tenants. Some well-bred squirming did take place but in the end a loophole was found. The ordinance neglected to specify that the owner's name must be in the English language. As a result some plates went up in Urdu, Arabic, Chinese and Hebrew.
Comments (2)
Elaine on 03 Jul 2003
Not a bad way to put the spotlight on slumlords, too.
Rogers on 25 Jul 2003
Look closely at the map. You'll find a large number of landlords who were targeted in this way were members of ethnic and religious minorities. Their holdings were very tempting to the "well-bred" (a.k.a. WASPs) who made it to Portland too late to snap up the desirable riverside and dockside land. By the way, many of the most lucrative dockside businesses (opium, for example) were actually run by the "well-bred"; they had to rent from the minorities and didn't like it.