NW 5th between Burnside and Couch.

Years: unknown but possibly ended with 1912

Cited in JD Chandler’s book Hidden History of Portland on page 167 which cites On the Main Stem, some of the Punks who arrived in town remained as sex workers. Places like the Monte Carlo Poolroom and the Fairmont Hotel on Northwest Sixth between Burnside and Couch became notorious for male prostitutes; some of them even dressed as women, becoming the first visible transgender community in Portland.  Per his book, he cites The Main Stem was the street in a city where the migratory community gathered. In the northwest, where most of the jobs were in logging, this street was often the Skid Road, where logs were skidded to the lumber mill…In Portland, the Skid Road was Burnside Street, but it hadn’t seen a lot of logging since the Stumptown days of the 1850s. On page 170, and 171 he continued his story, A few months after the Vice Clique Scandal (1912), another arrest exposed the working-class homosexual community…Acting police chief Enouch Slover saw an opportunity when he received a tip that “Greeks” were engaging in illicit sex at the Monte Carlo Poolroom in the North End. Detectives Craddock and Goltz staked out the poolroom and hauled in five young men who confessed to prostitution and implicated several men as their clients. This was considered the “Greek Scandal”.

· Cited in Matthew Baker’s March 1, 2005, paper, “Closeted Nightclubs: Why Doesn’t Portland’s ‘Gay Community’ Recognize the Gay Bar Culture?’ ‘which was ‘a cleaning house for immoral boys who pander to the passion of vicious Greeks’ (and a sort of precursor to the modern gay bar.’

· Not cited in The Vice Clique: Portland Great Sex Scandal by George Painter

Per Matthew Baker’s paper for Historigoraphy, March 1, 2005, entitled, Closeted Nightclubs: Why Doesn’t Portland’s ‘Gay Community’ Recognize the Gay Bar Culture? On page 3 he writes, One place where men, and boys, could find each other was The Monte Carlo Pool Hall, located on North Fifth Avenue between Burnside and Couch, which was ‘a clearing house for immoral boys who pander to the passions of vicious Greeks’ (and a sort of precursor to the modern gay bar) (Boag Same 45 – Same Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest).