SeeingGreen ™

I remember being disappointed when Maya Lin, my favorite architect/artist/environmentalist retreated from designing Portland’s newest park due to a conflict with some folks at the “City that Works.” Now that I’ve recovered from that setback, I can go to Tanner Springs to enjoy this engaging park set right in the middle of a growing concrete jungle. The name of the park references Tanner Creek, a wetland that was covered by industrial buildings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the Creek still runs in large pipes beneath the area now “revitalized” into high-end lofts and condos, the Creek reminded us only a few years ago that no matter what you do, you cannot tame mother nature. After quietly gurgling under buildings and infrastructure for over 100 years, Tanner Creek buckled the foundation of a four-story brick building, causing the structure with posts and beams the size of trees you now find only in protected forests to be deemed unsafe for occupancy and then quickly demolished to make way for more high-end condos.

In homage to the Creek, Tanner Springs Park boasts a water feature that first emerges in a trickle and then collects in a sometimes merky pool near the east-side entrance. Separating this pool from the street is a visual barrier fashioned from the rail road tracks of yesteryear set on end in a pattern that recalls a heavy duty version of a wind-blown prairie fence. A terraced grassway provides a comfortable spot to sit when the weather permits, otherwise the few purposefully scattered benches are the only invitations to take your time when using this facility. Since I work in a building close by, I often visit this park during my lunchtime stolls. Except for the gaggle of smokers who sit on the bus bench at the Park’s perimeter, I am usually the only one in the park. Perhaps it is the relentless banging of the pile driver working its way through geology in the adjacent lot that keeps people at bay. Or maybe it is that, unlike Jamison Square, the park two blocks away that teems with people and children enjoying its own unique water feature, Tanner Springs doesn’t offer much in the terms of recreational outlets. However, I find Tanner Springs to be an exceptional place to contemplate our interaction with nature, to experience the concept of park as art, and to imagine what this section of town was like when the creek roamed free. That is, only if I am in the park when the pile driver is on lunch break as well.

Tanner Springs Park
NW 10th Ave. and Marshall St.
Portland Parks and Recreation
(Use the website’s cool “Find a Park” feature to locate a park near you.)