Memorial to honor Portland’s Armenians

PORTLAND – The Armenian Cultural Association has erected a monument in Bayside.

The two granite benches and a 4-foot granite pillar are meant to remember those Armenians who survived Turkey’s oppressive Ottoman regime by immigrating to Portland, starting in 1896.

Many more came as survivors of the genocide that started in 1915, when a racist political group known as the Young Turks oversaw the killing of 1.5 million Armenians. They had names like Yeghoian, Shapazian, Mamigonian and Papazian. A few were butchers, barbers, bakers and storekeepers.

Most worked long, hard hours at the Portland Stove Foundry Co. on Kennebec Street or the Winslow & Co. brickyard on Forest Avenue. Both were just steps from their modest, wood frame homes. The brickyard was so dependent on its 80 Armenian workers that it closed each Jan. 6, when Armenians celebrated Christmas. At its peak in the early 1900s, Portland’s Armenian community numbered more than 250 families.

It is the first outward, permanent sign that Maine has an Armenian community, and the first memorial in Maine recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

The Legislature commemorated the genocide in April 2000.

The monument is located at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Franklin Arterial, overlooking the neighborhood where most Armenian immigrants lived.

“It’s so future generations will remember there were Armenians who came here to get away from the Armenian Genocide,” said John Malconian, 73, a retired salesman who lives in Portland and sits on the Portland Housing Authority Commission. His father operated three neighborhood markets, on Forest Avenue, Spring Street and Danforth Street.

The Armenian Cultural Association paid for the monument and the city prepared the site and installed it.