Fort Worthology goes to Portland, Part Four: Parks, Plazas, and Squares

Taking another look at Portland from an urbanism perspective, and following up from last week’s post on the Ira Keller Fountain, today we’ll be examining some of the other parks and plazas in urban Portland.

Urban public space is another thing that Portland seems to take pretty seriously. As you wander through the city, it sometimes seems like every turn brings you into a park or plaza of some sort. Within the Downtown/Pearl District portion of the central city alone there are no fewer than sixteen parks. Some are multiple blocks, some are a single block – there’s even Mill End Park, the smallest park in the world: a circle two feet across, created by journalist Dick Fagan in the late ’40s.

Far from being mindless “open space” or “green space,” Portland’s urban parks, plazas, and squares show deliberate planning, programming, and design that makes them memorable places to be and gives people a reason to visit them. We’ll be taking a look at several of these places here.

Jamison Square is located in the heart of the Pearl District, nestled between streetcar lines on two sides and surrounded by a flock of mixed-use buildings. It consists of a central space made up of a water feature with terraced waterfalls spilling into a shallow depression, a grassy tree-lined space on the west edge facing one of the streetcar lines, a fine-textured gravelly space on the other streetcar line beside a wide wooden sidewalk, and a hard plaza space with benches and tables adjoining the mixed-use buildings fronting it to the north.

Jamison Square seems to be the Pearl’s “living room.” It is always active, attracting a wide variety of users – singles, couples, and families (lots of kids – they love playing in and around the waterfalls). It is designed to be interactive – you can climb atop the falls and sit right in the middle, dry but just inches above the flowing water. You can walk around, or take a seat on a bench or on the grass. You can even kick off your shoes and wade in – there’s nothing preventing anybody from getting right in the water or sitting in the falls.

As is appropriate to its status as the district’s central gathering place, Jamison Square isn’t just a patch of green – it’s fully activated by its surrounding buildings. Ground-floor retail rings the square, giving constant activity. Buildings on the north side actually front the square directly, with no roadway between them. As a result, restaurants and coffee shops in these buildings have created spacious outdoor dining areas opening out directly into the square.

That’s why design and programming are important – in an urban setting such as the Pearl (or Downtown Fort Worth, or the Cultural District, or the Near Southside), a simple “open space” or “green space” isn’t enough. The space must be activated by mixed uses like retail, restaurant, and residential facing it directly, and it must be designed in such a way as to reenforce its definition of space and create an attraction for visitors beyond simply being a place where there aren’t any buildings.

Jamison Square was a favorite of ours, because it just felt “right.” It was comfortable, inviting, and felt like the center of the surrounding neighborhood’s activities. It had the feel of a great urban square – that of a comfy outdoor room.

For the public art fans, Jamison Square featured several pieces. On the east side was this sculpture.

Along the west side, this series of totems passes by Jamison Square.

A couple of blocks from Jamison Square is the Pearl’s other major public space, Tanner Springs Park. Besides being another piece of public space for the surrounding developments, Tanner Springs Park serves another function – the recreation of the sort of environment that existed here before the city was built.

Tanner Springs Park features a recreation of a tide pool, to give a glimpse into the natural environment of the Pearl long before the land was settled. As the city’s Parks and Recreation Department puts it:

What is now known as the Pearl District was once a wetland and lake fed by streams that flowed down from the nearby hills in southwest Portland. These wooded hillsides provided a natural filter for the streams, cleansing the water as it made its way to the Willamette River. The springs from Tanner Creek, named for the tannery built by pioneer Daniel Lownsdale in the 1860s, flowed into the shallow basin of Couch Lake, now the area surrounding Tanner Springs Park. As the population of Portland grew in the late 19th century, Tanner Creek was rerouted through an underground system of pipes to the Willamette River. The lake and the surrounding wetland were eventually filled to make way for warehouses and rail yards which in turn were replaced by residences, shops, and public spaces.

You never know exactly what you might see – one evening, we spotted this duck taking a swim through the tide pool.

Tanner Springs Park features a couple of major sections. It starts with this gently sloping area, where a more manicured section slowly gives way to a naturalistic area as water works its way down the slope to the tide pool.

The slope leads down to the tide pool at the eastern end of the park.

In the tide pool, this blocky walkway weaves back and forth through the water around various plants. Separating the lower-level tide pool from the sidewalk is an undulating fence of what looks like old railroad steel, inset with blue glass art of insects.

Tanner Springs Park is, like Jamison Square, also surrounded by active uses and the streetcar lines. In contrast to Jamison Square, Tanner Springs is a calmer, more meditative space. The two parks, located so close together but so different in character, create an interesting interplay of life and activity.

One often finds parks in Portland form a system over a larger area, and the Pearl’s parks are no different. Jamison Square and Tanner Springs Park will be joined by another park shortly.

To the north of Tanner Springs Park will be The Fields, a new park that is another contrast to the two existing parks. The Fields will be larger at 3 acres, and be more of an open, spacious park than the smaller squares of Jamison and Tanner Springs. Each serves a purpose, and each compliments the others.

In addition, some streets in the Pearl have been closed to cars and converted to these beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian streets, lined with buildings.

To the east of the Pearl, in the Old Town/Chinatown district, one can find the beautiful Portland Classical Chinese Garden.

To the south, Downtown Portland has more great examples of urban public spaces. There’s the South Park Blocks, for example, featuring a long series of skinny blocks that form a continuous strip of park in the center of Downtown.

There are the series of ’70s fountain parks like the Ira Keller Fountain we looked at last week, as well as Pettygrove Park (above) and Lovejoy Park.

There are spaces adjacent to civil buildings, such as this square across from Portland City Hall.

The Downtown space that Portland is perhaps best known for, though, is undoubtedly Pioneer Courthouse Square, named one of the finest public spaces in the country by the Project for Public Spaces.

Pioneer Courthouse Square has been called “Portland’s Living Room,” and it’s easy to see why. The square is a hotbed of activity, and attracts people into its brick terraces and plazas to sit, talk, read, and have a bite to eat.

Pioneer Courthouse Square is activated with retail around the perimeter – the square is surrounded by stores such as Nordstrom and Macy’s and is right down the street a block from Pioneer Place, a major urban mall (we’ll talk about Pioneer Place in a later post – it’s successful in all the ways the Tandy Center wasn’t: it enhances rather than deadens street life, it maintains rather than destroys the street grid, etc.).

The square is also a stop on the MAX light rail line.

Pioneer Courthouse Square is one of the locations in Downtown Portland that one can find inexpensive food carts like these. We’ll talk about Portland’s food carts in another post, but for now Pioneer Courthouse Square attracts many diners to its food cars, especially the famed Shelly’s Honkin’ Huge Burritos.

The square is not just one, but several outdoor rooms, each well-defined and attractive to different sorts of activity, such as the dining areas on the upper level near the food carts, looking out over terraced steps and the central plaza.

There’s even now a TV studio in the square.

Naturally, there is public art – this sculpture of a businessman with an umbrella is a fixture in the square.

It’s exactly this sort of multi-use, attractive, lively public space which Downtown Fort Worth has lacked for a very long time. This is the sort of place we hope the long-awaited Sundance Square Plaza, which will replace the two parking lots currently blighting the heart of our most active Downtown environment, will be: a great outdoor “living room” public space for the city to gather and interact.

In addition to squares and plazas, Downtown Portland also has a waterfront park. This is Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, running along Downtown/Old Town/Chinatown’s waterfront on the west bank of the Willamette River.

Waterfront Park serves as an important lesson in urban planning: it was created on the former site of a freeway. As Wikipedia puts it:

In 1968, Governor Tom McCall initiated a task force to study the feasibility of replacing Harbor Drive with open park space. Removal of Harbor Drive began in 1974, and work progressed until the dedication of the park in 1978. The park gained instant popularity, and in 1984 it was renamed Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

So, Portland got rid of a freeway, and created a beloved public space for everybody to enjoy.

Waterfront Park is a beautiful stretch of waterfront public space, and forms an integral link in bicycle traffic in the city as well. In addition, it serves as the home of a segment of the Portland Saturday Market, a festival held each weekend with local artisans & crafters, music, and food. Think Main Street Arts Festival, except with a greater emphasis on local talent and held each week rather than once a year. We’ll write more about the Saturday Market in another post.

This fountain plaza occupies a site in Waterfront Park.

Waterfront Park served as the only major public space along the river for years, but recently has been joined by additions on the same side of the river, such as South Waterfront Park, and by a complimentary feature on the east bank.

That complimentary feature is the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade. Completed in 2001, the Eastbank Esplanade forms a loop with Waterfront Park to full activate the waterfront through Old Town/Chinatown/Downtown and the South Waterfront on the west bank, and the Southeast neighborhoods on the east bank.

The Eastbank Esplanade really helps tie the waterfront together, and has also become another link in the city’s bicycle transportation network.

Naturally, it also has lovely views.

1,200 feet of the Eastbank Esplanade actually floats. It’s the longest floating walkway of its kind in the United States.

Designed to give the sensation of walking on water, the floating walkway also features a floating public boat dock.

Back on the west side of the river, we also took the MAX light rail to the Goose Hollow neighborhood adjacent to Downtown, and walked up the hill to Washington Park.

In contrast to the tightly designed urban squares like Jamison Square and Pioneer Courthouse Square, Washington Park serves a different purpose – it’s one of Portland’s huge preserved forest spaces. Once you’re inside Washington Park, it’s easy to forget you’re anywhere near a city.

Wandering through Washington Park, it’s a gorgeous collection of trees and hills with fountains and activity areas sprinkled throughout.

There’s really not much to add – it’s a gorgeous park, and a good example of the way a city needs multiple *kinds* of specifically-defined public spaces – beyond the simple calls for “open” or “green” space.

The entrance of Washington Park, high atop a hill (“hill” in the steeper Oregon sense, of course), also gives spectacular views out over the Goose Hollow neighborhood to Downtown Portland and Mount Hood.

Head far enough into Washington Park, and you’ll come across the International Rose Test Garden.

The International Rose Test Garden is, literally, a testing site for new hybrids of roses. Says the city’s Parks and Recreation Department:

In 1940 the International Rose Test Garden became an official testing site for the All-America Rose Selection (AARS), a Chicago-based non-profit association of rose growers dedicated to the introduction and promotion of exceptional roses. Since 1938 the AARS seal of approval has graced new rose varieties that have performed the best in the test gardens located throughout the country and representing all climate zones. Four plants of each entry are evaluated for two years on 14 different characteristics consumers desire in a garden plant including plant habit, vigor, disease resistance, color, flower production, form, foliage, and fragrance.

One could go on and on about Portland’s Parks – we haven’t even scratched the surface here – but the example is clear. It shows the sort of attractive and inviting place that is created when a city takes public space seriously.

Fort Worth is justifiably proud of several of its parks – the Botanic Gardens, Trinity Park, Tandy Hills Park, etc. What we’re missing are the sort of more intimate, expressly urban public spaces like Pioneer Courthouse Square, Jamison Square, etc. Too often in and around Downtown Fort Worth, what space we don’t use for development is instead given over to storing cars. Urban Fort Worth needs the kind of activated, attractive, and lively public spaces seen in cities like Portland if we are to truly create a livable and desirable urban city.

And now, here are some random photos from the various parks, plazas, and squares we saw in Portland.

The Lovejoy Columns in a plaza in the Pearl.

The fountain in Jamison Square.

Pedestrian street, Pearl District.

Sunset light at Tanner Springs Park.

Reading in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Exploring the Classical Chinese Garden.

Detail of fence in Tanner Springs Park.

Strolling through Waterfront Park.

Fence in Tanner Springs Park.

Activity in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Sunset in Tanner Springs Park.