Asa Lovejoy

The Sunday Oregonian had a really good story about NW Lovejoy St. The gist of the article is that Lovejoy is a downtown street that provides a bridge between the past, present, and the future. What I found interesting in the article were several bits of information that were "a ha" moments for me.

First, the street is named after Asa Lovejoy, one of our city's founders. There is a new apartment building right across the street from our office on Lovejoy Street named Asa Flats and Lofts. I had been wondering how they came up with that name. Clever of the building owners to apply the first name of this city founder to a building located on a street bearing his last name.

The second bit of interesting info is the story of how Portland received it's name. I had forgotten this tale. Seems that in 1845, Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove each wanted to name the new town after their home towns: Boston, Mass. and Portland, Maine respectively. They settled the argument with a coin toss. Pettygrove won two out of three coin tosses.

Third, the article talked a little about the historic Marshall Wells building, now lofts. It referenced one of our listings in that building. It's one of the best priced lofts in the Pearl; a 722-square-foot, one-bedroom, one-bath unit for $259,900.