Portland Then/Now: South Park Blocks between SW Main & Salmon St.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Byron Beck, GoLocalPDX Features Editor

Joseph Shemanski Fountain – South Park Blocks

Joseph Shemanski Fountain – South Park Blocks between SW Main Street and SW Salmon Street, 1967: City of Portland Archives. A2001-066.219

Joseph Shemanski Fountain – South Park Blocks

Joseph Shemanski Fountain – South Park Blocks between SW Main Street and SW Salmon Street, 2015. Photo by Byron Beck.

THEN: According to portland.gov the area we know as the South Park Blocks, during the 1870s, became a fashionable residential neighborhood with large Italianate mansions, schools, and churches. In 1877 the first landscaping of these blocks occurred when the City Council authorized florist and landscape designer Louis G. Pfunder to plant 104 Lombardy poplars and elms between Salmon and Hall. The Ladd School opened on the present Portland Art Museum site in 1879. Over the years, much has been added to the park blocks, but there seems to be consensus that the blocks should remain "a cathedral of trees with a simple floor of grass."

Located between Main and Salmon is the Shemanski Fountain, given to the city by Joseph Shemanski in 1926 to "express in small measure gratitude for what the city has done for me,” says portland.gov. Shemanski (1869-1951) was a Polish immigrant who started out as a traveling clock salesman before he founded the Eastern Outfitting Co. and became an extremely successful businessman. The triangular structure of cast Oregon sandstone was designed by Carl L. Linde, a local architect whose work included homes, hotels, and apartments. The fountain includes three small, low drinking basins for dogs.

The original design included a large central planter, but after the fountain was erected, Shemanski felt that a sculpture would better complete the graceful cupola. He commissioned Oliver Laurence Barrett, an art professor at the University of Oregon, to create a bronze statue of Rebecca at the Well. “It is not clear why Rebecca was chosen, but as the wife of Isaac in the Old Testament known for her hospitality to strangers and kindness to animals,” according to portland.gov “she was a fitting choice.”

The photo at right is from November of 1967.

The Dolphin restaurant is in the far upper left hand corner and both the Roosevelt Building and the Irvington Club still stands today.

NOW:Portland.gov notes that today there are twelve South Park Blocks stretching through the heart of downtown Portland. Each park block features artwork, such as Shemanski Fountain. On the block between Hall and Harrison is the most recent addition. Installed in 2004, this work made of white Indiana limestone by Oregon sculptor Donald Wilson is entitled Holon. The word comes from the Greek holos which means whole, entire, complete in all its parts - something that has integrity and identity at the same time as it is a part of a larger system. A block north at Montgomery is the 1973 bronze statue and fountain Farewell to Orpheus by Frederic Littman (1907-79).

In between both the Roosevelt Building and the Irvington Club you'll find popular restaurants including SouthPark and Shigezo.

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