This week, a 583-acre section of the Irvington neighborhood in Northeast Portland (north of NE Broadway and south of NE Fremont Street, between 7th and 27th Avenues) is being considered for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. The district under consideration includes around 2,800 buildings, largely comprised of historic houses built in Portland’s heyday of the early twentieth century. The organization overseeing the district’s proposal, the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission, recently changed the boundaries of the Irvington section up for consideration to eliminate several modern tracts of houses along NE Broadway. The modified proposal could be approved by the National Register by the end of the year.

Irvington was originally established as a suburb of Portland with easy access to streetcar routes, and is said to have the largest percentage and variety of historic early-twentieth century homes of any Portland district. The layout of the neighborhood was proposed by Elizabeth Irvington, the wife of a pioneer boat captain, in the 1880′s. Glimpses of this early history can still be seen on a stroll around the neighborhood, as many sidewalks are imprinted with the original craftsman’s name and date (”E. Wiles 1908”) and you’ll come across many metal rings still attached to the curbs, charming reminders of a time when more Portlanders owned horses than automobiles.

If approved, the Historic Places certification would mean the neighborhood would join fourteen other registered historic districts across Portland. District officials and some homeowners would potentially have access to a limited amount of federal restoration grants and some state tax abatements for renovations and protection of historical buildings. Similar registered districts in Southern California also have access to low-interest deferred loans, which if held for a certain period of time are forgiven or are repayable when the houses are sold. While such funding is not guaranteed for Portland homes, nationally recognized historic homes are cherished as tangible links to the past worthy of preservation and appreciation.