Rose City Vice

The City of Roses, as natives of Portland, Oregon like to call it, has a long and honorable history of crime and corruption, starting as far back as the post-Civil War frontier days, leading into the mobster-infused decades of the twentieth century when prohibition, prostitution, gambling, and hard drugs besieged the town. The so-called Great Portland Vice Scandal of 1956-57 spilled into national politics, with hearings before the Senate Rackets Committee. When the '70s rolled around, members of the police narcotics squad were caught red-handed perpetrating nefarious deeds. This Northwest city, known best today for its punk rock and hipster comedies like Portlandia, was once overrun with corruption and foul play. Rose City Vice reveals a city where the cops are putting drugs back on the street, maybe even committing murder. The city council is high on coke, and the mayor is carrying on a clandestine sexual relationship with 13-year- old schoolgirl while under surveillance by the vice squad. It's 1970's Portland and blackmail is in the air.

Dark Rose reveals the fascinating and sordid details of an important period in the history of what by the end of the century had become a great American city.

A Lambda Literary Award Finalist Winner of The Ferro-Grumley Award for Gay Fiction Award-winning short stories from the author of The Danish Girl and Pasadena “Passion for us all will remain a troublesome thing.” The Rose City combines a collection of unforgettable characters with Ebershoff’s trademark emotional insight and intelligent prose in seven stories about young men and boys as they discover and rediscover themselves in a world that never really works out as planned. Often tragic but lacking in despair, The Rose City delves into the tribulations of youth, identity, sexuality – and longing for something just out of reach. Written with compassion and truth, these stories present characters who live at the margins of the world at the moment they take their first steps toward acceptance and love.

Tucked away in the northwestern frontier, Portland offered all the best vices: opium dreams, gambling, cheap prostitutes, and drunken brawling. In its early days, Portland was a "combination rough-and-ready logging camp and gritty, hard-punching deep-water port town," and as a young city (established in the late 1840s) it developed an international reputation for lawlessness and violence. In the early 1900s, the British and French governments filed formal complaints about Portland to the US state department, and Congressional testimony from the time cites Portland as the worst place in the world for crimping. Today, tours of the alleged Shanghai Tunnels offer Portland visitors a taste of that seedy past.

When vice and scandal are all fun and games. Portland, Oregon began as a town of itinerant young men who had no shortage of diversions at the end of the workday. This city grew up with lots of revelry and little regulation. After the last tree fell in logging season and after the workday ended on the docks, those young men broke out the cards. Saloon culture quickly took hold in Portland, offering alcohol, sex, gambling, and other diversions. This book traces the storied and scandalous history of Portland, from the underground and elite saloons and gambling rings to the vice, scandal, and fun they brought. Readers will meet the impresarios, gangsters, and racketeers who colored Portland’s history.

As Portland has grown and changed, so has its architectural landscape. Once prominent landmarks have disappeared--the Marquam Building collapsed during 1912 renovations, the massive chamber of commerce building became a parking lot and the Corbett Building became a shopping mall. The city skyline was shaped by architects like Justus F. Krumbein and David L. Williams, only to drastically change in the face of urban renewal and the desire for modernization. Discover the stories behind some of Portland's most iconic buildings, including the Beth Israel Synagogue and the first East Side High School, both lost to fire. Join historian Val C. Ballestrem as he explores the city's architectural heritage from the 1890s to the present, as well as the creative forces behind it.

Twenty years ago, Marcus "Crush" Casey was the leader of the Vicetown Kings, the most powerful crime syndicate in New York City. Then he was betrayed by his second-in-command and sent to prison. Now he's back on the streets and he has a lot more on his mind than just getting even. He needs to take back everything he lost: Find the friend who betrayed him and killed his only son, keep the cops at bay, and resist the one woman he knows he can't have. His time on the inside gave him a conscience and he also wants to help clean up the crime-infested neighborhoods that used to be his home. Crush will take back the Vicetown Kings and guide them to protect the city and its citizens...or die trying. Ice-T's experience with crime and gangs in Los Angeles and his years on Law & Order: SVU make him the perfect person to tell this thrilling story of revenge and redemption. Kings of Vice marks a new entry into the type of urban fiction immortalized by writers like K'wan, Elmore Leonard, and Donald Goines. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A shocking true chronicle of some of Portland, Oregon’s most infamous criminal cases—from its wild roots as a frontier town to post-war 20th century. Here are some of the most horrifying crimes that made headlines and shook Portland, Oregon. The brutal Ardenwald axe murders. The retribution killings by Chinatown tongs. The fiendish acts of the Dark Strangler. In this compelling account, author JD Chandler chronicles the coverups, false confessions, miscarriages of justice, and the investigative twists of Portland’s sordid past. From the untimely end of the Black Mackintosh Bandit to the convoluted hunt for the Milwaukie Monster, Murder & Mayhem in Portland, Oregon is a true crime account that acknowledges the officers who sought justice and remembers the victims whose lives were claimed by violence—all while providing important historical context.