This New Collins View Blog article focuses on the northeast corner of the Terwilliger & Taylors Ferry Intersection. The main building at this corner has changed several times over the decades. Address: 8502 SW Terwilliger Blvd, Portland, Oregon.
There is also a New Collins View Blog article titled "Terwilliger Center and (SE) Corner History". See References for the link.
As far as we know, very little is documented. Photos may be hidden away in family albums. We found nothing in the Oregon Historical Society or the Multnomah Historical Association files. This article is an attempt to organize what is known about the site in the hopes that we can share the story with the present generation.
Corrections and historical facts are Welcome!!
Burlingame Grocery Corner - Open Street Map
We can only imagine what this site was like when Taylors Ferry and Boones Ferry were being blazed in the mid 1800's.
An Electric Trolley ran through it!
1891-1899 Fulton Park Electric Trolley line passed through this corner on its way to the cemeteries! We don't know how Taylor's Ferry Road was crossed here, perhaps by a trestle from the high ground on the north side of TFR, over to the "Hebrew Cemetery" on the south side. The trolley ran on an easement just behind where the Terwilliger Center is now. See the Terwilliger Center history page and the Trolley Project, in References.
A Feed Store!
In 1946, the Burlingame community was farming territory, and the corner of Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard and Taylors Ferry Road was a meadow. That year, Vito Chimienti and Vito Patella, his stepson, fresh back from World War II, opened a feed store at the corner.
Imagine a Burlingame Feed Store back in the day! We have no photos or any documentation about it (original size, orientation, etc).
A Fountain / Lunch Counter
Vito turned the feed store into a grocery, soda fountain, and variety store as the neighborhood grew up around it. There was a lunch counter spanning the north wall of the store.
The 1960 photo below shows the building with one layer of parking wrapped around two sides of the building.
Burlingame Corner in 1960. Photo via Portland Maps.
Mixed Use medical-office building (built in 1955)
For reference, occupants are currently Burlingame Family Dentistry and Burlingame Acupuncture.
There may be one private/vacant office (or maybe Acupuncture is taking two units?)
There appear to be some living quarters / apartments on the lower level.
The building continues to learn and evolve
The 1975 photo below shows the store further to the east! The parking lot in front of the building is larger, as it is now.
Burlingame Corner in 1975. Photo via Portland Maps.
By remodeling, the slope of the land was used to gain a basement level while extending the main floor to fit the shape of the property. This change may have been made in 1967.
Burlingame Grocery in this configuration became a Portland destination for bottled beer.
There was also a large selection of wines, but the Beer was most expansive.
The owner had beaucoup gourmet food items (jars, etc) in the inventory.
This current (undated) Google Maps satellite photo below shows the white-roofed two-story add-on on the north end, toward SW Carson. This must have been done after 1975 as it is not shown in the above air photo. "All State Insurance" seems to use both floors of the two story add-on.
Burlingame Corner as shown in Google Maps Satellite View
Under 'All State Insurance', on the east side, we see two garage doors. Are they used by the lower level apartments?
We have no photos of any early store! Can anyone help?
Some Memories, some other histories
Helene J, of South Burlingame, recalls:
My family lived in the neighborhood when I was a young child, from 1947-1955. I remember shopping there for our groceries, with my mother. They had a freezer locker where we could store our frozen food and pick it up as we needed it. I think it was called Burlingame Market, but I'm not sure about that. I do remember the wooden floors. — I remember it as "Market" too. jm
The Lunch Counter may have been phased out to make an in-store Butcher shop.
The space for Chez Jose was perhaps taken out of the Burlingame Grocery after it closed up a butcher shop in that space. Or, the space could have been created when the store changed its footprint in 1967. Who knows?
Do you remember going downstairs (or using elevator) to the bottle return at Burlingame Grocery? What was it like down there? :^)
A VIDEO rental shop took up a slice of the market along its southern wall -- the side bordering on Taylors Ferry. Customers could enter from the front outside, or through an open archway inside the store.
When the VIDEO shop moved elsewhere or closed, the grocery owner's wife open a GIFT SHOP in the space.
A fire ravaged the building on 9/18/2001, exactly one week after 9/11. We could hear things blowing up and see the sky glowing, but didn't know what it was at first. (Author stayed home!) The fire is described in a Willamette Week article in References. Turned out to be arson, by the business owner!
There was an auto-detailing shop downstairs, with a garage door opening onto Taylors Ferry Rd. (The shop was destroyed by the 2001 fire.)
The burned-out building sat vacant for a while in the Post 9/11 world. People shopped elsewhere. The building was soon restored to a hollow shell.
Eugene-based 'Market of Choice' chose this site as its foray into the Portland market, opening in August 28, 2003. MoC set up a bakery downstairs to supply the bakery counter upstairs. Some Deli prep may have been done downstairs, or that may have all been done upstairs. Anyone know?
The space was too small for them.
Parking was limited. Limited street patterns and heavy traffic made access difficult.
They had a good run, closing April 14, 2019.
After MoC left us, the building sat empty again for ~two years, right?
People wished upon various alternatives:
Trader Joe's, New Seasons, Green Zebra, Natural Grocers.
Post Pandemic.
Anytime Fitness cleared the space of remaining business fixtures (including the Pizza Oven) and opened in December 2022 (24 hour).
Could the building become a Food Hall some day?
Chez Jose
Jose's was a little undersized, so after the fire of 2001, they negotiated expanding their space into some of the market space. Jose's reopened in that larger space. Some time later, the Market of Choice opened their first Portland location in the now smaller market space.
Some artifacts
Burlingame Grocery paper sack branding. Photo: J Miller
We also show a Burlingame Grocery paper sack, with blue ink.
Burlingame Grocery 'Since 1932' Photo taken from a Facebook group.
How could it have been "Since 1932"?? The land was said to be vacant in 1946 when the Feed Store was built. (There's no building in the 1940 Air Photo, just cleared land.)
Trolley Project - All about the FultonPark Electric Trolley Line that passed through the hood from 1891-1899!
[LINK]
A Future Burlingame Food Hall? / Coffee House?
[LINK]
Editor's Note
From WWEEK June 4, 2002.
In the early 1980s, developer Homer Williams bought the grocery, renting the building from the Chimienti family, which still owns the building. In 1986, he sold the store to Calkins, who at the time worked for a local beer distributor. See Willamette Week link above.
Photo credits, editor: J. Miller
Questions for Our Readers
Can you construct a more concise and accurate timeline for all these changes?
What's with the "Since 1932" on the blue Burlingame Grocery sack??
At some point, was Burlingame Grocery known as "Burlingame Market"?
Do you have any photos of the grocery store, or know someone who might?
Do you have a photo of Vito Chimienti or Vito Patella?
How about a photo of the Lunch Counter?
Can you help us find any photo of the old Burlingame Feed Store? (Or Grocery?)
What was 8502 SW Terwilliger like before 1967? I.e. how did the building change over time?
What is currently in the basement of 8502 / 8502B?
Do you have a memory to share? Show me the Blueprints!
?
Comments submitted on this article
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To be curated from Nextdoor, then posted a week or so after article is published.
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How this Blog Post should be (was) described on Social Media
Here is what we'd say on Nextdoor: The building that is Anytime Fitness at Terwilliger and Taylors Ferry has under gone many changes over the years. This blog article traces its transformation from a humble Feed Store to a grocery / variety store, and rising from its ashes to be a supermarket and now a workout gym. We also note the sprouting of an medical office building next on its north side.
Read about Burlingame Grocery Corner History
https://newcollinsview.blog/ history/ BurlingameGroceryCornerHistory.html
