Will the Lair Hill Historic District be the new home for the Morris Marks house?

There is an exciting possibility for our neighborhood! A group of historic preservationists are trying to move the historic “Morris Marks” house (pictured right) to our neighborhood. The location proposed is the “Broadway Triangle" which is just south of I-405. Many feel this would be an important addition to our historic neighborhood and the SPNA board unanimously approved the concept in October 2009.

Below is an article written about the historic significance of the site by noted Portland historian: Dan Haneckow

Lost Park to Return???

The “Broadway Triangle,” the grass covered piece of land bounded by SW Broadway, SW Grant and I-405, has a long history as public space.  The surviving remnant of Portland’s Block #32 that was cut through by the Stadium Freeway in 1963, it is now proposed as a site of a small park to host the threatened Morris Marks House (1880).   The block was once home to one of Portland’s first reservoirs, built in 1865, to serve the growing city.  The arrival of Bull Run water in the 1890s made the reservoir obsolete, which spurred J. C. Olmsted to incorporate it into his Report of the Park Board, Portland, Oregon (1903) as a component of the “Little Reservoir Park” he proposed to link the Park Blocks to Governor’s Park via the Caruthers Creek canyon.

Olmsted's proposal was not acted upon.  For years the old reservoir sat drained, weed grown and semi-abandoned, an attractive nuisance for the area’s children.  His idea however did not die out entirely.  A 1930s road project to extend Broadway lead to a new use for the site that might strike a familiar note to long time neighborhood residents.  From 1932 to 1963, Block #32 was home to a park: Coolidge Square.

Small as it was, the park’s landscaping made Coolidge Square stand out.  Bisected by the extension of Broadway, it was not so much a square but two triangles that faced each other.  On both sides were planted rare rhododendrons, varietals brought over as seeds from a botanical expedition to China in 1905 and grown to maturity in the ensuing years at various locations of Portland’s city nursery. 

Coolidge Square remained a “beautiful corner of the city” in the words of an Oregonian reporter, until 1963 when it was torn out to create the trench that would hold the Stadium Freeway (I-405).  Some of the best of its rhododendrons were saved and placed in the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, where they remain to this day.  A portion of the south west corner of Block #32 has survived as a grass covered median triangle for the last forty seven years.   

 If successfully restored as a park to showcase the Morris Mark’s house, rhododendrons, grown perhaps from the originals still at Crystal Springs, would be a most appropriate landscaping choice.                  -Dan Haneckow

Haneckow writes an online column on Portland History:  Café Unknown which will feature an article on the history of Coolidge Square and the incredible odyssey of its rhododendrons.

Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge

The Portland Plan is an important process where all aspects of city development wll be reviewed and updated.  This could have a big impact on our neighborhood so we are hoping to get as many people from South Portland involved as possible.  Here is a link to the Portland Bureau of Planning web page on the plan: www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/