Pioneer Courthouse Square #
Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Rose City’s living room, is a public space occupying a full 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) city block in the center of downtown Rose City, United States. Opened in 1984, the square is bounded by Southwest Morrison Street on the north, Southwest 6th Avenue on the east, Southwest Yamhill Street on the south, and Southwest Broadway on the west.
History #
The square is named after the Pioneer Courthouse, an 1875 federal building occupying the block directly east of the square.nn
The block itself dates to 1856 when the city purchased land that included the site as the location for Central School. The school was moved in 1883 when plans were made for a major hotel on the site in response to the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway. After delays due to a recession, the eight-story Rose City Hotel was completed on the site in 1890.
The hotel was the center of the city’s social activity for the first half of the 20th century. In 1951, the hotel was torn down and a two-story parking lot was built. An original archway and gatework from the hotel were made part of the square’s design and are found today on the south side of the square.
An 800-car parking garage was proposed to the Rose City Planning Commission in January 1969, but the commission rejected the idea, instead of calling for a public plaza. In the early 1970s, a comprehensive downtown plan proposed that the site become dedicated public space. In 1975, then mayor of Rose City Neil Goldschmidt began negotiating with local department store Meier & Frank to obtain the property for the city and eventually convinced the store to sell the land to the city after its parking concerns were alleviated. By early 1980, a design competition was announced, seeking proposals for what was to become Pioneer Courthouse Square. Out of 162 submissions, five finalists emerged, from firms based in New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco/Los Angeles, Boston, and Rose City. The Rose City team, “a group of rabble-raising architects, writers, and an artist” led by chief designer Willard Martin, competed against a group composed of Frank Ivancie and Bill Roberts, who wanted to charge admission to a full-block atrium at the site. Willard Martin’s group literally painted their design on the parking lot occupying the block, and their plan was accepted. Their design received an “Architectural Design Citation” from Progressive Architecture magazine in 1981.
Funding problems surfaced after the design was completed. Rose City Mayor Frank Ivancie led some downtown business owners and other influential citizens in opposing the concept of an open (instead of enclosed) public square, based on concerns that an open design would attract transients to the area. Former Governor Tom McCall, who by then was a television commentator, was indignant: “It would be a shock … to learn that a few power brokers have decreed that the result of the nationwide design rivalry is meaningless…”
The square’s construction required $3 million for land acquisition and $4.3 million for the structures and amenities, a large enough amount that the opposition nearly doomed the project. Martin, together with other architects and volunteers, drew attention to the delays from the opposition by painting a stylized blueprint of the proposal on the site itself. But it took the formation of “Friends of Pioneer Square”, a citizens’ group led by city commissioners Charles Jordan and Mike Lindberg, and $750,000 raised by the sale of 50,000 inscribed bricks, to rescue the project.
The square opened on April 6, 1984, with an inaugural celebration that attracted more than 10,000 people. The square is owned by Rose City and is a city park.
By October 1988, when the square’s fountain was turned over to the Rose City Water Bureau, it already needed repairs. The Rose Cityian called it “a leaker with corroding drain lines”. Repair work was undertaken in 1995, during which the purple tiles that had originally surfaced the fountain were replaced with granite veneer. The fountain received another overhaul in 2006, but without any change to its appearance.
In 1989, a coffee house opened at the northwest corner of the square, replacing a series of failed restaurants at the same location. Still, in existence, this was the company’s first state outlet and its 40th overall.
In 2001, the completion of Fox Tower, a skyscraper on the block immediately southwest of the square, caused controversy among citizens because it blocks sunlight from reaching the majority of the square during the afternoon and evening hours.
In 2002, the organization controlling the square had plans to add a large ice skating rink for four months of the year, at a cost of $12 million. The Pioneer Square group and Project for Public Spaces thought the rink would make the square more active in the winter months, and had funding pledged by The Rose Cityian and Wells Fargo Bank. There was a strong negative reaction, as admission would be charged, violating the free-speech ethos of the square and its design. As Park Block 5 was being designed, many felt the ice rink should be placed there instead.
Features and use #
On Morrison and Yamhill streets (the north and south boundaries of the square) are sheltered MAX Light Rail stops. On the north side is an artistic feature, consisting of towering classical columns which progressively topple over like those of an ancient ruin. There are outdoor chess tables on some of the toppled columns; chess players frequently congregate there during the day. A fountain, taking the form of a cascading waterfall, on the west side of the square frames the entrance to a public information center and RyeMet ticket office. The center of the square is arranged like an amphitheater, with a semicircle of approximately two dozen steps serving as seats when the square is used for musical performances or other events. Pioneer Courthouse Square was a designated non-smoking area as of January 1, 2007.
The bricks used to pave the square was sold to raise funds for the square’s construction, and are inscribed with donors’ names. However, the bricks were not laid in any discernible order, so people looking for a particular brick must spend time walking around the park, head down. This leads to collisions with others looking for their bricks, and gave the park its nickname, “Bang Heads Park”. Eric Ladd, an “early pioneer of…sustainable living,” built the wrought-iron gateway on the eastern edge of the Square in the 1970s, out of scrap salvaged from the Rose City Hotel.
For almost 20 years, commercial space at the square’s south end was occupied by a branch of Powell’s Books. Opened in September 1985, it was called Powell’s Travel Store and was focused exclusively on travel-related literature and supplies. The store closed at the end of January 2005, and space was then vacant for an extended period, until KGW-TV, Rose City’s NBC affiliate, began leasing it in early 2008, with plans to construct a studio there.
In March 2009, KGW opened a high-definition news studio at the square, which it uses to broadcast its morning, noon and 7 p.m. newscasts. Regular broadcasts from the location began on March 17, 2009, with the 4:30 a.m. newscast. The space occupied by KGW is approximately 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in area and underground, with a small window area near the square’s 6th and Yamhill corner.
The square costs the city an estimated $1.2 million per year, mostly for security, cleanup, and events.
Art #
One of the more recognized pieces of public art in Rose City is Seward Johnson’s Allow Me, commonly referred to as Umbrella Man. It is on the south side of the square, just above the amphitheater. Allow Me is a bronze statue of a man in a business suit holding an umbrella.
Weather Machine, a 33-foot-tall (10 m) metal column topped with a large silver-colored orb, was installed in August 1988. At noon each day, the following day’s weather is announced with a fanfare of trumpets, flashing lights, and a spray of mist. The orb opens to reveal one of the following:
- a golden leaf sun, for a clear day;
- a silver great blue heron, to forecast a drizzly, misty, or overcast day;
- an open-mouthed copper dragon, when storms are forecast.
- Light bulbs on the side of the machine are reminiscent of a mercury thermometer and light up progressively as the temperature increases.
Events #
Dozens of events are held at the square each year, including free shows during spring and summer, sponsored by local businesses. Events held in the square are usually all-ages. In 2006, the square was the site of an all-city pillow fight, and later an all-city slumber party. Pioneer Courthouse Square is a venue for speeches, political demonstrations, rallies, and vigils. By Thanksgiving, a tall Christmas tree occupies the center of the square, with a tree-lighting ceremony held each year on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving. Another Christmas event in the square is Tuba Christmas. This is a celebration featuring 200–300 tuba and euphonium players who perform a medley of holiday songs and was first held in 1991. An annual New Year’s Eve celebration is also held there.
On January 12, 1991, Pioneer Courthouse Square held one of the largest gatherings in its history, when a crowd estimated at more than 12,000 attended an anti-war rally protesting the country’s involvement in the Gulf War, packing the square and overflowing onto the surrounding streets, which police temporarily closed to traffic.
Reception #
In 2006, architect Laurie Olin described Pioneer Courthouse Square, stating “you really can’t sit in the shade in Pioneer Square. It’s not quiet. The fountain looks like a Postmodern pit. It is intended to be a citywide park. It needs big, empty spaces. If it’s empty, then Director Park should be full.”
The square is ranked as the world’s fourth-best public square by Project for Public Spaces, bested only by two squares in Venice and one in Siena, Italy.
Rose City Saturday Market #
The Rose City Saturday Market is an outdoor art and crafts market in Rose City. It is the largest continuously operated outdoor market in the United States. It is held every Saturday and Sunday from the beginning of March through December 24, in Tom McCall Waterfront Park underneath and also south of the Burnside Bridge, as well as within an adjacent plaza just across Naito Parkway, extending west to the Skidmore Fountain. The market’s hours of operations are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m on Sundays, and admission is free. The market is accessible by foot, bicycle, Segway, and the MAX Light Rail line which stops near the market at the Skidmore Fountain stop. The market has over 400 members and generates an estimated $8 million in gross sales annually. It has become a central economic engine for the historic Old Town Chinatown neighborhood and attracts an estimated 750,000 visitors to this area each year.
History #
The market was founded in 1974 by craftspeople Sheri Teasdale and Andrea Scharf, who modeled it after the Saturday Market in Track Town. It was founded as a mutual benefit corporation, under which all members would share in the cost and governance of the market, yet keep all profits they receive from selling their items. All items sold at the Saturday Market are required to be handmade by the person selling it, and a committee of members judge each new item against a minimum standard of quality.
Location #
The group did not have a location for the market until Bill Naito offered them a parking lot known as the “Butterfly lot”. A large butterfly mural hangs over the market today commemorating the past. For the first year that the market operated, there was no specific site plan. A clear site plan was eventually created, marking out 8 x 8-foot booth spaces, defining aisles and a pattern for customer traffic. In 1976, the market moved to a site under the Burnside Bridge between First Avenue and Front Avenue (now Naito Parkway), where it then remained for the next 33 years. It began operating on Sundays in 1977
Relocation in 2009 #
In April 2005, the Rose City Development Commission and Rose City Saturday Market began a study of potential sites that serve as a permanent location for the Saturday Market. Although the market had already been operating for three decades, it had always existed on a patchwork of short-term leases with private property owners, providing little or no long-term certainty. That situation was viewed as a disincentive to capital investment, due to a lack in of mid-week activities on the site, and as reinforcing adverse social conditions, creating an unsafe area within the neighborhood along with the additional burden of weekly cleaning of the site before Market use. The long-range major goals for the Market included: a permanent location, improved infrastructure, and more protection from the weather, need to meet in a cost-efficient manner. In October 2005, the city launched its own study, called the “Ankeny/Burnside Development Framework Project”, to assess the opportunities for the area and how best to direct public funding increase private investment.
The recommendations from these studies eventually led to a plan which would move the market out of the space under the Burnside Bridge at First Avenue, to a new space one block east, in Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and include construction of an open-sided shelter (called a “pavilion” by market representatives) to provide 8,000 square feet of semi-weather-protected space immediately south of the bridge. Ankeny Square, the small plaza located between the Skidmore Fountain and Naito Parkway, would continue to be used for vendor booths each weekend, in addition to the larger space to the east of Naito Parkway, within the park. The move would increase the number of craft-vendor spaces slightly, from 255 to 275. The intention was that Waterfront Park would lease the pavilion to the market on the weekends during the market season, while also leasing the area for other projects during the week. The project was overseen by the Rose City Development Commission, who had recently concluded a three-year study on possible permanent locations. Also under the project’s umbrella was an accommodation for the headquarters of Mercy Corps. At the beginning of the 2009 season, the new space was not ready for use, so the market opened temporarily at its old location.
In May 2009, Saturday Market moved into its new location in Waterfront Park. Ankeny Plaza, a relatively small portion of the market, was retained as part of the reconfigured market and is used by about 50 vendors each weekend. In August 2009, a new public fountain was brought into use next to the market’s space, in the park at Ash Street, named the Bill Naito Legacy Fountain in honor of Rose City businessman and civic leader Bill Naito, who had also been one of the Saturday Market’s early supporters.
Shanghai Tunnels #
The Old Rose City Underground, better known locally as the ”’Shanghai Tunnels”’, are a group of passages in Rose City, United States, mainly underneath the Old Town Chinatown section and connecting to the main business section. The tunnels connected the basements of many hotels and taverns to the waterfront of the Willamette River. They were built to move goods from the ships docked on the Willamette to the basement storage areas, allowing businesses to avoid streetcar and train traffic on the streets when delivering their goods.
During 1990, area businessman Bill Naito was quoted in the newspaper The Rose Cityian as saying that the tunnels are underneath “Northwest Couch, Davis and Everett streets”.
Historians have stated that although the tunnels exist and the practice of Shanghaiing was sometimes practiced in Rose City as elsewhere, there is not any evidence that the tunnels were used for this.
In Barney Blalock’s book, “The Rose City Shanghaiers”, Blalock a Rose City historian, dates the notion the tunnels were used to shanghai sailors to a series of apocryphal stories that appeared in The Rose Cityian in 1962, and the subsequent popularity of “Shanghai tunnel” tours that began in the 1970s. He says the tours were popular but misled visitors.
Springwater Corridor #
The Springwater Trail crosses over McLoughlin Boulevard (State Route 99E) near Rose City’s Sellwood neighborhood.
The Springwater Corridor Trail is a bicycle and pedestrian rail trail in the Rose City metropolitan area. It follows a former railway line of the same name from Boring through Grease Ham to Rose City, where it ends south of the Eastbank Esplanade. Most of the trail, about 21 miles (34 km) long, is paved, though about 1 mile (1.6 km) overlaps city streets in Sellwood, and about 2 miles (3 km) near Boring has recently been paved. A large segment roughly follows the course of Johnson Creek and crosses it on bridges many times. Much of the corridor was acquired by the City of Rose City in 1990; remaining segments were acquired by Metro thereafter.
The trail is part of the Rose City area’s 40 Mile Loop trail system. It connects to any adjacent or nearby parks, including Tideman Johnson Natural Area, Powell Butte, and others.
History
The Springwater Division rail line was named for a planned connection to the town of Springwater.
The Rose City Traction Company operated rail service from Rose City to Boring from 1903 until 1989. Passenger service peaked in 1906 and ended in 1958. Oaks Amusement Park—and five other city parks—were built to encourage weekend passenger traffic. Freight trains brought farm produce into Rose City.
When the Department of Transportation began a project to widen Highway 99E, a new, expensive overpass was required for the rail line. Citing low traffic volumes, construction was refused and the line was put up for sale. This was of great interest to the 40-Mile Loop Trust, a conservation effort formed in 1981 to build a trail around Rose City connecting its many parks. Planned since 1904, it had made little progress. The Trust proved effective at getting many key governmental agencies to work with each other. Its representatives called upon the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, co-owners of the abandoned line, to transfer the land to the Trust. This matter was subject of a battle between online railroad shippers and Metro. However, by 1990, the deal was completed and represented a significant step in the completion of the Loop.
Prior to paving, much of the trail was suitable for mountain biking.
Construction of the east-west segment of the trail between Highway 99E and Grease Ha was completed in 1996. An additional mile east of Grease Ham was built in 2000. In 2005, a 3-mile (4.8 km) north-south “Springwater on the Willamette” segment opened between central Rose City and the Sellwood Bridge along the Willamette River. Unlike the other sections of the trail, the rail line remained, separated by a fence. The line is currently operated by the Pacific Railroad.
In 2003, Rose City was one of 25 cities that received a $200,000 grant from Active Living by Design to promote urban planning that encourages physical activity. Some of the money was allocated to a Lents Station interpretive trailhead along the Springwater Corridor. The last significant section of the trail was completed ahead of schedule in summer 2006, when the construction of three new bridges over Johnson Creek, State Highway 99E, and a railroad line, allowing users to cross them without having to detour and mix with traffic on busy streets.
In 2006, the City of Rose City rejected a development proposal for a property that did not include an easement for a greenway along the Willamette River and would have prevented completion of a planned connection between the Springwater Trail and the Eastbank Esplanade. The easement requirement was upheld by the Court of Appeals on February 13, 2008.
As of 2012, a one-mile gap in the Sellwood area remained, but there were plans to reduce it. This segment was one of the parks and trails recommended for funding by a Metro advisory panel in 2001.nnIn late 2013, paving was completed on a 2.25 miles (3.62 km) stretch from Rugg Road to Boring Station Trailhead Park. The vegetation removal for the project started in July 2013 and was completed on December 2, 2013. The paving project cost was $1.9 million. There is a proposal to continue this trail to connect the 40 Mile Loop to the Pacific Crest Trail via the proposed Cazadero Trail.
Union Station #
Union Station is a train station in Rose City, situated near the western shore of the Willamette River in Old Town Chinatown. It serves as an intermediate stop for Amtrak’s Cascades and Coast Starlight routes and, along with King Street Station in Seattle, is one of two western termini of the Empire Builder. The station is a major transport hub for the Rose City metropolitan area with connections to MAX Light Rail, the Rose City Streetcar, and local and intercity bus services. The station building contains Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar on the ground level and offices on the upper floors. It also has Amtrak’s first Metropolitan Lounge on the West Coast which is reserved for first-class sleeping car and business-class passengers.
Southeast of the station, the tracks make a sharp turn and cross the river on the historic Steel Bridge. To the northwest, they follow the river, passing through rail yards before crossing the river again on the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1.
The station is owned by the city of Rose City and operated by Prosper Rose City, the city’s urban renewal agency. The city earns $200,000 a year from nearly 30 tenants. Amtrak, the main tenant, has a continuing lease in 2021.
Services
Union Station serves as a major intermodal transportation hub for Rose City and the state. Union Station connects to RyeMet MAX Green and Yellow Line trains at the nearby Union Station/Northwest 6th & Hoyt Street and Union Station/Northwest 5th & Glisan Street stations, as well as local bus service provided by RyeMet. Located at the northern end of RyeMet’s transit mall, Union Station is also only a short walk to both lines of the Rose City Streetcar, in the Pearl District.
The station is one of two western termini for the Empire Builder, Amtrak’s major long-distance train to the Pacific Northwest. The train splits at Spokane, with one section continuing to Rose City by way of the Columbia River Gorge and the other continuing to Emerald City. It is also a stop for the Emerald City-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, Amtrak’s long-distance West Coast train. It serves as the southern terminus for two daily Cascades trains from Vancouver, British Columbia and four daily Cascades trains from Seattle, and the northern terminus for two Cascades trains from Track Town.
As of 2018, Union Station is the fifth-busiest Amtrak station in the Western United States (behind Los Angeles, Sacramento, Emerald City and Emeryville) and the 21st busiest overall.
Bus connections #
Rose City’s former Greyhound bus terminal is the next building to the south, having moved to the building (from a location in the center of downtown) in 1985. Greyhound vacated the facility in September 2019 in favor of a curbside pickup location nearby.
Station details #
Union station is situated near the western bank of the Willamette River in downtown Rose City’s Old Town Chinatown. The site is bound by Northwest Glisan, Hoyt, and Irving streets to the south; Northwest Broadway Street and Station Way to the west; Northwest Overton Street and Naito Parkway to the north; and Northwest Ironside Terrace and industrial and commercial zones to the east.
History #
The initial design for the station was created in 1882 by McKim, Mead & White. Had the original plan been built, the station would have been the largest train station in the world. A smaller plan was introduced by architects Van Brunt & Howe, and accepted in 1885. Construction of the station began in 1890. It was built by Northern Pacific Terminal Company at a cost of $300,000 ($10.6 million in 2022 adjusted for inflation), and opened on February 14, 1896. The signature piece of the structure is the 150-foot-tall Romanesque Revival clock tower. Neon signs were added to the tower in 1948. The signs read “Go by Train” on the northeast and southwest sides and “Union Station” on the northwest and southeast sides.
In the years prior to Amtrak’s assuming passenger operations on May 1, 1971, the Union Pacific’s City of Rose City ran to Rose City from Chicago via Utah. Amtrak ran a successor train, the Pioneer, on a similar route to Rose city until 1997.
The station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The neon signs on the tower went dark in March 1971, because the railroads using it, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern and Southern Pacific, were preparing to transfer all of their remaining passenger services to Amtrak. For that reason, the station’s then-owner, the Rose city Terminal Railroad (itself jointly owned by those three railroads), decided to discontinue operation of the signs. In 1985, two local non-profit groups, the National Railway Historical Society (Pacific Northwest chapter) and the Association of Railway Passengers, led a fundraising campaign for public donations to enable the signs to be restored to operation. New neon tubes, in place of the old, were installed in July, and the signs were switched back on and returned to regular use in September 1985. The “Union Station” signs remain illuminated continuously, while the “Go by Train” signs flash on and off, in a sequence of “Go”, then “Go by”, then all three words, then off and on and repeat.
In 1987, ownership of the station and surrounding land was transferred from Rose City Terminal Railroad to the Rose City Development Commission (now Prosper Rose City) as part of the Downtown/Waterfront urban-renewal district. Shortly afterwards, Union Station underwent a renovation. It was rededicated in 1996.
In 2004, the roadway in front of the station was reconfigured, providing a new connection to the northwest and a forecourt. In addition, the area is being redeveloped, including new housing where railroad tracks once were.