Portland Today

     So where is Portland today?  A great deal has changed since Portland's peak back in the late 19th and early 20th century.  The most significant change was the movement of commercial activity away from the waterfront.  New modes of transportation, mainly the automobile, gradually replaced rail and water transportation.  Businesses no longer needed to be on the waterfront or near the rail yards to be successful.  This new mobility allowed them to move farther inland, and most businesses did.  By the 1920s roads like Congress Street and Forest Avenue became the center of the city, making roads along the waterfront back streets.

     Both World War I and World War II brought increased economic activity to Portland, but it was only a brief.  For example, J. H. Hamlen (mentioned before in the History of Portland page) had, among other things, a shipbuilding enterprise.  During WWI he employed over 1,700 men building ships.  Then again during WWII another entrepreneur stepped up to the plate to take advantage of the situation.  In 1940 the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corporation singed a $50 million deal to build three big ships.  The yards eventually employed over 31,000 people and turned out 266 ships.  As William Barry explains, the shipbuilding activity "brought an extraordinary shot of adrenalin to the slumped economy" (Barry 1982: 20).  Although the yards used to build these ships in both cases were located across the harbor in South Portland, the activity brought the much needed stimulation that the economy needed.  

     With the end of the war came another time of economic hardship for the town of Portland.  The cities passenger rail service was cut out and the commercial district was experiencing a decline in activity.  To make matters worse, Portland followed the national trend and homeowners began to move out of the city and into the suburbs--along with them went many businesses.  In addition, the 1970s marked the opening of the Maine Mall in South Portland.  For many this was closer to home and parking was much easier, making it a popular place to do shopping.  Stores that previously were located in downtown Portland such as Sears and Woolworth pulled out and moved to the mall.  Other businesses followed this same trend--Shaws, for example, moved out of the downtown area and out into the suburbs where there was a greater need (Barry 1982).

     All the businesses pulling out of the downtown area left a large amount of vacant space behind.  This opened up opportunities for small businessmen and craftsmen who otherwise would not have been able to afford or find space in the downtown area.  Barry writes, "galleries and specialty shops were soon joined by restaurants, movie houses and young professionals" (Barry 1982: 21).  By 1987, only a mere fifty percent of the space along Portland's waterfront was being used for harbor activity (Bergstein 1987).  Today most of the harbor activity revolves around oil tankers (Barry 1982).  Portland has made a shift from a city that relied almost solely on waterfront activity for it's survival to a city that has a strong service and retail industry.  Feeding now on the growing tourist industry, Portland has shown yet once again that it is capable of adapting with the changing times.