Thinking about Captain Travaillot's ship, parked beneath the Willamette for at least half our city's history, brought to mind Import Plaza, the store that the Naito family operated on NW First Avenue until a few years ago, a few hundred feet from the resting place of the Duc d'Lorges. In turn that called to mind the family's three largest real estate projects (so far): the Galleria renovation of the mid-1970s, the McCormick Pier apartments, and the Montgomery Park office center. The Montgomery Park center is on Northwest Vaughn Street and has big neon letters spelling out "Montgomery Park," visible from miles away.
Whence the name "Montgomery Park" for a project that's nowhere near Montgomery Street or anything else named Montgomery? The building was for years the regional distribution center for the Montgomery Ward stores. (An adjacent street, NW Wardway, connecting Vaughn to St. Helens Road, is named after the store chain.) On the roof was a sign spelling out, in big neon letters, "Montgomery Ward." When the Naitos bought the building, they couldn't continue to call it "Montgomery Ward." It occurred to Bill Naito that he could change the "W" and "d" to be "P" and "k" to spell "Montgomery Park," a name with no trademark implications, and the cost of buying two letters was a lot less than removing or replacing the entire sign.