Shining a light on the Myler Building

Lately I've been taken by the quality of the light shining on this block, the SE corner of SW 9th and Oak, as I walk from work to the bus mall in the late afternoon (thus this photo). There's something about the light at transitional times of day in the PNW, especially at this time of year--it's at the same time more translucent and more substantial than in any other place I've ever lived.

 So, of course, when I determined to write a blog post here, I though of this photo and did a little sleuthing on the internet. I figured there's a lot of attention given to The Benson Hotel, looming nearby to the east, the former Federal Reserve building to the south with its gun turret, and maybe even the AT&T building to the north. Maybe there will even be future blog posts about these. But the homely little building in the middle of the shot here is mostly overshadowed, literally and figuratively, by those structures, and being the sympathizer of the underdog that I am, my attention was drawn to the slightly odd two story building stuck right in the middle of these other drama kings and queens.

 Interestingly, the original aspirations for the building far exceeded today's presentation. According to the city's 2004 Midtown Blocks Historic Assessment, the proposal was for a five story office building, to be constructed in stages. In fact, even though the majority of the building was left unfinished, the extant structure contains the foundations and engineering necessary by 1921 standards to support those final three stories. Sweetly, the "Myler" in Myler Building (the historically correct name)seems to be the maiden name of the mother of the cannery magnate for whom it was built. Here is a photo which appears to have been taken while the building was still quite young.


You can't quite make out the name in the newer photo, but the building is currently occupied by New Directions for Youth, a non-profit program for supporting homeless youth in Portland. As best as I can gather, its chosen location is at least in part due to the structure's proximity to O'Bryant Square, which has in recent history been linked to homeless culture in the area. I might be revealing my PDX vintage here with my relative ignorance of the park's tenure as Paranoid Park, but thus sayeth the internet, and as we all know, if it's on Wikipedia it MUST be true. Besides, there are plenty of you out there (among the seven generous faithful readers I apparently have!)who can say yay or nay to this assessment.

Years before that, however, the building apparently housed another socailly progressive organization, the Federal Writers' Project, part of the WPA in the Great Depression (oh, would the Great Recession also choose to have a Writers' Project, but I digress...). Amongst other things, the Oregon chapter of the FWP produced educational pamphlets such as this (on Oregon place names and their origins) and this (on "freak laws," but which contains an especially revealing survey of the changing laws regarding women's rights).