Joel Davis, The Oregonian

By Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

HBO recently wrapped up the first season of "The Deuce," a drama about the pimps, prostitutes and the rise of the porn industry in 1970s New York City. For people who only know the cleaned-up Times Square of today, it's hard to believe that the heart of the Big Apple was ever this gritty.

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Donald Wilson, The Oregonian

Portland might not have had the level of crime and corruption depicted on the show, but the Rose City had its share of hookers, johns, adult theaters and porn shops in the early ‘70s. And the city continued to grapple with growing vice into the ‘90s, with efforts to zone where adult businesses could locate, and the creation of no-prostitution corridors.

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Joel Davis, The Oregonian

Today, sex trafficking continues to be a serious problem in Portland and its surrounding suburbs, and there’s no shortage of strip clubs in the metro area. But the adult theaters that used to be all over town – there were as many as 18 at their peak – have almost completely vanished. And the internet has taken the oldest profession from the street corner to online websites, creating the illusion that there’s less prostitution now, though the police blotters tell a different story.

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Portland has always had a gritty underbelly

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Jim Hallas, The Oregonian

Before the 1970s, Portland had plenty of vice, thanks to organized crime, bordellos, and corrupt politicians who looked the other way. It goes all the way back to the city’s earliest days, when dancehalls, saloons, gambling parlors and brothels catered to young men who were early settlers.

In the 1950s, payoffs and kickbacks from organized labor and racketeers were so widespread across all levels of city government that it attracted national attention.

By the 1960s, an area of downtown along Southwest Third Avenue that's now (ironically) home to the Justice Center and the new federal courthouse had so many run-down hotels and taverns that the Portland Police Bureau’s vice squad referred to it as “The Circus.”

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Jim Hallas, The Oregonian

“It’s a mobilized meeting ground for lonely men and Portland’s prostitute patrols,” The Oregonian wrote in an article with the headline “Sundown changes drab area into sleazy vice playground.

“After 9 p.m., the cars and their solitary masculine drivers endlessly circle the block in the quest for questionable commercial companionship.

“The girls – and in most cases that’s a euphemism – inhabit the taverns and station themselves along the sidewalk. The ‘tricks’ take their pick and it’s a short drive or a quick walk to a $2 sleazy hotel.”

Prostitution wasn’t limited to downtown. In North Portland’s Albina district, vice squads patrolled around the clock, but had little success curtailing activity. “We’re dealing with street-smart cookies,” one vice officer told The Oregonian.

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Oregonian file photo

By the 1970s, hookers were a common sight along numerous Portland streets, including Southeast 82nd Avenue, Northeast Sandy Boulevard, and Northeast Union Avenue (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard).

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The Oregonian/1972

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Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian

In the 1980s, North Interstate Avenue, with its cheap motels and easy access to Interstate 5, became another corridor where prostitution was common.

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Mary Tapogna, The Oregonian

Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Portland Police arrested prostitutes many times, but those efforts often weren't effective. The Oregonian reported numerous cases of women who had been arrested more than 50 times for prostitution, and continued to work the streets.

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Taking on the johns

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Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian

Over the years, there were a number of grassroots campaigns by citizens to fight prostitution. In 1982, Rev. Mathew Allen Watley led a group of 250 marchers along Northeast Union Avenue. Among the marchers were Portland's police chief and Multnomah County's district attorney.

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Tom Treick, The Oregonian

In 1986, the King-Elliott Crime Prevention Committee put up billboards along Northeast Union Avenue telling prostitutes and their customers that they were not welcome. The message: "The neighbors are watching. Don't trick yourself. You can get arrested for prostitution."

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C. Johns, The Oregonian

In 1989, demonstrators on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard held up signs to show passers-by their opposition to prostitution in their neighborhoods.

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Steve Nehl, The Oregonian

Similar protests followed that same year, when demonstrators marched against prostitution on Southeast 82nd Avenue as part of the National Night Out campaign against crime. Later, both Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Southeast 82nd Avenue would be declared prostitution-free zones.

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Michael Wilhelm, The Oregonian

One of the ways that Portland Police addressed prostitution was targeting customers. In this 1992 photo, an officer posing as a prostitute talks to a potential customer who stopped along the 1400 block of Northeast Sandy. The man was later charged.

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Prostitution moves indoors

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Joel Davis, The Oregonian

By the 1990s, prostitutes were leaving street corners to work as nude dancers, lingerie models and escort service employees. And police were baffled about how to combat it.

“I'm not sure we have the kinds of tools on the books to deal with those issues,” Police Chief Charles Moose told the City Council in 1994. “Not everyone has been astute enough to see what's going on.”

Sex-related businesses such as some lingerie modeling shops, tanning shops and bookstores offering live models put customers “one-on-one” with the performing woman, and some businesses allowed both parties to be nude.

Moose said Portland residents might be glad to have fewer streetwalkers in their neighborhoods, but he asked if the city should turn its head simply because more prostitution is out of sight.

"Do we idly stand by, since it's not on the street, and say we don't care what you're doing?" he asked. "What is our city willing to accept?"

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The 1970s boom in adult theaters

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Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian

Downtown’s Southwest Fourth Avenue was home to the Blue Mouse movie house, which was known for its inexpensive tickets, racy B movies, and illicit activity. It was frequently raided by the police vice squad, and was later torn down in the late-‘70s to make way for a multi-story parking garage.

While the Blue Mouse was semi-legit, other downtown theaters would become full pornographic theaters in the 1970s.

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David Falconer, The Oregonian

In 1971, the Oregon Legislature passed a new criminal code that removed almost all restrictions on what adults could read and hear. That ushered in the 1970s boom in pornographic theaters. As competition grew, many theaters added dancers and performers doing simulated sex acts on stage between films.

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Dana Olsen, The Oregonian

Or at least they were supposed to be simulated. The Oregonian sent reporters to numerous theaters in 1972, and witnessed actual sex acts at several. That same year, Portland Police raided Northeast Portland's Walnut Park Theater, which boasted live sex shows featuring audience participation.

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James W. Ficus, The Oregonian

In Old Town, there was a cluster of theaters that showed X-rated films. The old burlesque house the Star Theater showed erotic movies and featured strippers throughout the 1960s and ‘70s. In the late-‘70s, one of those strippers was a teenage Courtney Love, who would later go on to rock fame and tabloid notoriety.

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James W. Ficus, The Oregonian

At Northwest Fifth Avenue and Glisan Street was the Old Chelsea Tri Cinemas, which featured two screens showing straight pornography, and a third screen, called the “Tom Kat,” which screened gay pornographic films.

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Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland’s pornographic theaters advertised in The Oregonian, drawing complaints from readers. The newspaper adopted a policy that prohibited the use of offensive pictures in the ads, but theaters started using suggestive wording, so in 1972 the paper stopped accepting the ads.

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Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian

Only one of the 18 adult theaters from that era is still in operation, the Oregon Theater at Southeast 35th Avenue and Division Street.

In this 1974 photo, the three men entering the theater were defense attorney Howard Lonergan, First Assistant United States Attorney Jack Collins, and United States District judge James Burns. The trio viewed the infamous film "The Devil in Miss Jones," which was the focus of a federal court case.

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Video changes the porn landscape

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Bob Ellis, The Oregonian

Those adult theaters were killed off by the arrival of home video. Instead of having to go to a sketchy theater, people could watch pornography in their living rooms from VHS or Betamax tapes. The sale and rental of these tapes created businesses for adult bookstores, which started carrying movies in addition to racy magazines.

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Bill Murphy, The Oregonian

In the late 1970s, the expansion of Cindy’s Adult Books on West Burnside Street and Northwest Fourth Avenue caused a flurry of complaints and protests from citizens. It took over the space that had been Hawkins Trading Post, a second-hand store that offered clothing and shoes to residents of the neighborhood.

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Benjamin Brink, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Cindy’s would continue to be a lightning rod, with many citizens complaining about how its large sign right next to the Chinatown gate ruined what should have been a picturesque corner. Those complaints continued until the store was demolished in 2008.

The vacant lot left by Cindy's would become a new source of neighborhood anger when it became a homeless camp that many considered as much of an eyesore as the old adult bookstore. That camp remained until it was relocated to the Rose Quarter last year.

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The "Not in my backyard" movement

While adult bookstores downtown were just-barely tolerated, the Portland City Council didn’t want them popping up all over the city. In 1981, it approved an ordinance prohibiting adult bookstores from locating within 500 feet of residential zones and schools, in neighborhood commercial zones or within the downtown multifamily residential zone. That ordinance required four of 12 bookstores in the city to relocate. Additional ordinances were later approved to limit the locations of other adult businesses, such as massage parlors.

But in 1984, a Multnomah County judge ruled that these ordinances violated the free speech provision of the Oregon Constitution. And those ordinances were struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1988.

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Joel Davis, The Oregonian

The ruling opened the door for Fantasy For Adults Only Video, which was a sort of Blockbuster Video of pornography, and opened stores in locations that seemed designed to provoke controversy. In Northeast Portland’s Kerns neighborhood, a Fantasy opened in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

“I didn't buy my house and fix it up to have this garbage going on,” one resident fumed in 1992 after the store opened.

Fantasy also opened locations in a one-time Wendy’s restaurant, a former Denny’s near Tigard, a business park in Beaverton, and on West Burnside Street just a couple of blocks away from a Catholic cathedral and school. Three of those locations are still in operation.

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Bob Ellis, The Oregonian

Portland wasn’t alone in trying to regulate where adult bookstores could open. In 1984, Daniel Cossette opened All-Adult Video in Oak Grove, and it was the first adult video store to open in Clackamas County. That prompted the formation of Clackamas County's new Citizen's Advisory Committee on Pornography, which wanted to regulate where adult businesses could operate.

Cossette defended his business: “This isn’t a sleazy porn shop and it’s not going to be. I’m not going to cater to that kind of crowd.”

Despite the protests, All-Adult remains in business today.

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Topless bars and strip clubs

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Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian

Portland’s oldest topless bar is the downtown institution Mary’s Club. It originally opened as a piano bar during the 1930s, and was a popular nightspot into the 1950s, when Southwest Broadway was home to numerous movie theaters, restaurants and bars. In the mid-‘50s, the club started featuring topless dancers wearing pasties.

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Joel Davis, The Oregonian

Mary’s Club owner Roy Keller told The Oregonian in 1965 that the club used to have the reputation for attracting the rough merchant seaman crowd, but the “clean, lovely personalities” of the dancers were attracting a more-refined crowd.

Mary’s introduced all-nude dancing in 1985 after a judge overturned city ordinances banning it at venues serving alcohol. In the late-‘80s, one of the dancers at Mary’s was – you guessed it – Courtney Love.

Mary’s Club continues to operate today, and is a popular spot with U.S. Navy sailors when the Rose Festival fleet arrives every June.

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Allan J. de Lay, The Oregonian

By the mid-1960s, Mary’s was joined on Broadway with the Broadway Inn, where Higgins restaurant is located now. The restaurant featured topless dancers who would do the then-provocative Mashed Potato, the Monkey and the Shotgun.

“It’s just fantastic,” said Broadway co-owner Sam Usher. “It’s the new beat. I guess – the younger generation. But Saturday night about 50 percent of our crowd was over 30.”

Given the Broadway Inn’s close proximity to the old Oregonian building, which was across the street, it’s a good bet that a fair chunk of that Saturday night crowd was off-the-clock reporters and press operators.

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Oregonian file photo

Perhaps the most-notorious topless business in the Portland area was Jiggles Tavern, which opened in Tualatin in 1984 right off of Interstate 5. The OLCC canceled Jiggles’ liquor license in 1987, when a judge concluded that the club had been secretly owned by a Washington man with connections to a convicted Seattle racketeer.

Despite the ruling, Jiggles remained open, serving soft drinks and continuing to feature topless dancers. Jiggles would continue operating until 2014, when the club lost its lease to make way for a new commercial development that’s now home to a big-box sporting goods store and an upscale grocery chain.

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Joel Davis, The Oregonian

Another notoriously sketchy strip club in the 1980s was Old Town’s Club Macombo. In 1989, police raided the club, arresting two workers, an ex-manager and six dancers on accusations of racketeering and prostitution. The owners of the club were associated with the same Seattle organized crime family that had been linked to Jiggles Tavern. The club, which featured a neon sign that boasted “20 gorgeous girls and 3 ugly ones,” was shut down and the door chained shut. The building itself was not seized because the Dougals leased the space.

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More Portland nightlife history

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Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

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-- Grant Butler

gbutler@oregonian.com

503-221-8566; @grantbutler