Neighborhood Notes

Thursday, June 30, 2005
By Tim Sullivan

Not quite downtown, not quite Nob Hill and barely out of the clutches of the Pearl District, the blocks under the shadow of Interstate 405 and the Fremont Bridge still bathe in the industry grit that once filled the area. The two biggest cab companies call it home.

Radio Cab runs out of 1613 N.W. Kearney St., a former horse stable now outfitted with a mechanic shop, indoor gas pumps and a car wash. Its checkered cabs pack the company-owned lots. On the surrounding streets, drivers who bought older cabs from the company wedge in their vehicles.

The area seems to bleed checkers -- until you hit Broadway's turf a few blocks north at 1734 N.W. 15th Ave. Bright yellow cabs shine through the chain-link fence in lots under the Fremont Bridge. The garage on the far side -- where 15th hits the train tracks -- is an old maintenance shed equipped with offices and proudly painted in swaths of black and yellow.

It's here, on acres of long-unwanted ground with rapid access to downtown and the freeways that taxis head out 24 hours a day, as they have for years. But this may not be cabbieland much longer. As the Pearl, downtown and Nob Hill grow together, the land -- even under the freeway -- becomes more valuable.

"It's possible," says Raye Miles, Broadway's general manager, "that this will become too expensive for a humble cab company."

E.L. "Curly" Brower, one of Radio Cab's first drivers and former general manager, remembers when the company bought the garage and lots around it. "We wanted to find a place that was large enough to handle our growing fleet," Brower says. "And we knew the freeways would be expanding, that 405 would be coming in. There was easy access to the Broadway, the Steel (bridges)."

When Raye Woolbright started driving for Broadway in 1966, the company was based at Northwest First and Davis. With revitalization in the 1980s, the land became too valuable for a cab garage and lot. The Portland Development Commission bought the land, and Broadway looked elsewhere. They wanted to stay in the central city's sweet spot with its quick access. Searching the shrinking cheap industrial land in central Portland, they found an old steel warehouse yard and fixed up a maintenance shed as their office building. In part to announce their presence in the area, they painted the building screaming yellow.

"We thought that'd be kind of eye-catching," says Woolbright, now a dispatcher for Broadway. He's watched mixed-use developments with tenants like REI slowly line either side of the strip of lots. With land prices rising sharply, Miles says development might crawl under the freeway, even with the concrete bridge supports. She's watched restaurants and retail creep closer.

"Who else wants this property? We're a great fit," Miles says. "I don't know how much longer that's going to be true. But I want to stay here."

Radio Cab sees the same pressures. General manger Steve Entler says his company receives offers to buy its building several times a year. The rising value is nice, he says, but gentrification has its costs: When the city extended the streetcar line in front of their garage, it assessed the company for the "benefit." Of course, Entler points out, TriMet is their competition. 1932 Broadway Cab forms 1946 Radio Cab forms when a group of World War II veterans needed work. 1958 Radio buys the Kearney Street garage from a trucking company and a few parking lots. 1959 Radio and Broadway buy out Yellow Cab. Like two hunters devouring a fresh kill, they split the 83 cab permits. For the odd permit, they flip a coin, and Broadway wins. During the next few years, Broadway picks up 30 permits from Brownie; Radio matches it with a buyout of Union. Broadway eventually paints its cars the traditional yellow, and Radio adopts black and white checkers. 1993 Broadway moves under the bridge. They originally bought the land, then sold it to the Oregon Department of Transportation, from whom they now lease. 2005 Total city taxi permits: 382 . Both Radio Cab and Broadway have licenses to run 136 taxis each.