Division Street Gentrification Seen Through Google Street View

Seven Years of Development as Seen Through Google's Lens

Note the sunflower mural next to Salt & Straw, which has not changed since 2007.
By Lizzy Acker

Oh, Division Street.

Once you were just a street on the edge of town that no one ever traveled unless they had immediate need of car maintenance! Languishing in Southeast, you were a place without even a Little Big Burger!

But times certainly have changed and changed quickly. Division is now the new cool girl in town. She hit puberty over a two-week summer vacation in California, and totally has a boyfriend and a tan and acts like she doesn't even know the rest of the kids she used to hang out with in Auto Mechanics Club.

Thanks to Google Street View though, we can see the amazing before-and-after pictures. 

In 2007, when Google first drove its Street View car down Division, Portland was a sad, slightly blurry, cloudy place. You will notice that she's figured out how to light herself better and purchased a new phone with a better camera.

Here are the before and after pictures using Street View's handy historical view function.

Is it good or bad? Well, it is.

First stop, Tidbit Food Farm Garden. Once a squat building called Huddleston's Auto Parts, it's now a Portland farm-to-table dreamscape. 


While Clay's Smokehouse Grill still remains basically the same, the color update is pretty great.


The corner where Bollywood Theater now sits used to be dark and sad.

 

Urban Waxx used to be a place that dealt with a different kind of parts.

 

Pok Pok is, was, and will always be Pok Pok.

 

3330 SE Division was once a parking lot where you could have conceivably parked. Now it is a building you will never be able to afford. 


Salt & Straw is one unfortunate downgrade.


The end of the street was once a furniture store. Now it's a whimsical block of wonder.


Finally, Little Big Burger was once a giant tree. 

Want more? Check out our previous look at Street View then and now. 

WWeek 2015

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