Parks and Consequences—Hidden Histories of Olmsted Parks Tradition, from New York to Portland

Monday, March 14, 6PM on Zoom
and in-person at Steeplejack Brewing Company, 2400 NE Broadway

Portland Parks Foundation is hosting our first live event since 2019 inside the beautiful architecture of a former 1906 Unitarian Universalist Church-turned-brewery as two of Portland's most accomplished historians probe Frederick Law Olmsted's design and creation of Central Park in New York and John Charles Olmsted's 1903 parks plan for Portland.

The brilliance, beauty, and ecological influence of the two Olmsted's visionary work continue to be enjoyed, but they've come with other impacts: displacement of previously settled populations, exclusionary zoning, practices in design, and sanctioned parks activities. We'll look at the successes, the myths, and the influences, intended and not, in both cities and the larger American parks tradition.

Catherine McNeur, is professor of history, PSU, and author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City. Carl Abbott, emeritus professor of urban studies and planning, PSU, is author of Portland in Three Centuries and many other books about Portland.

Thank you for joining us in our programming experiment: Parks and Consequences—Hidden Histories of Olmsted Parks Tradition, from New York to Portland!

• Our first live event since 2019

• A new venue

• Our first hybrid live/Zoom event

We are truly grateful to our speakers Catherine McNeur professor of history, PSU, and author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, and Carl Abbot, emeritus professor of urban studies and planning, PSU, and author of Portland in Three Centuries and many other books about Portland.

And special thanks to our presenting sponsor U.S. Bank and all the attendees who donated at registration!

Lastly, a correction:
As moderator, I mistakenly stated that Portland's first Parks Board members were "developers." They were, in fact, Mayor George Williams (Chairman, and variously, a lawyer and judge), Ion Lewis (architect), J.D. Meyer (a "Common City Councilor"), T.L. Eliot (Minister, Unitarian Church), and L.L. Hawkins (banker). My larger point was that Olmsted hoped that his proposed parks would be kept out of public eye so as to not spark land speculation. But in Portland, as in many cities, that wish was not fulfilled. The Oregonian published the plan soon after it was completed as the city was about to expand several-fold in private development. Meantime, Olmsted went on to work for a number of private clients, several of whom were developers. Apologies for the mistake! -- Randy Gragg, Executive Director

If you enjoyed this talk, check out our upcoming Green Dreams Lecture:

• March 28 on Zoom or live at Steeplejack Brewing Co. Beyond Recreation: Climate, Social Justice, and the Urban Landscape Ahead. Get tickets here

Presented by,

Greening Democracy: Frederick Law Olmsted, Slavery, & American Park Design with Sara Zwede

Monday, March 7 at 6pm, Zoom.
Please note: this event is live only and will not be recorded.

Frederick Law Olmsted is best known as America’s most influential public park designer. He and his firm developed parks for countless cities across the continent, from NYC's Central Park to Portland's earliest park system. But to landscape designer Sara Zewde, Olmsted helped shape democracy through his parks, and that began with his travels through, and writing on, the southern Cotton Kingdom. His widely read journalism and books helped galvanize the northern states against slavery before the Civil War.

Historians typically portray Olmsted’s journalism and landscape design as distinct chapters of his career. But to Zewde, landscape architect and professor of landscape design at Harvard University, Olmsted was simply working at “different scales” in a larger project of American social reform. His thinking, she says, encompassed everything from the “national state of democracy to what that means for a path in the park.” In the summer of 2019, Zewde retraced Olmsted’s steps to understand how his travels and observations led to the formation of landscape architecture as we know it today. She will share her research and how she applies Olmsted’s principles in her own award-winning park designs.

During the Q&A Sara Zewde recommended these three books.

• The Park and the People: A History of Central Park by Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig

• River of Dark Dreams by Walter Johnson

• Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy Transforming Nature in Early New England by Strother E. Roberts

And special thanks to our presenting sponsor U.S. Bank, to GreenWorks, and all the attendees who donated at registration!

Presented by,

Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice

Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice

Lectures and Ongoing Programs

In the last year, Portland’s downtown and other urban districts have faced growing challenges. The pandemic has hurt and shuttered businesses leaving the city’s normally bustling street life muted or gone. The humanitarian crisis of houselessness has left many of our most vulnerable Portlanders on the streets. Many public buildings, institutions, arts organizations, and private businesses have been damaged or vandalized.  

At the same time, the city has become an epicenter for protests against Portland’s, Oregon’s, and America’s deeply rooted racism. Monuments have been toppled or officially removed for reconsideration. Marches, street theater, and murals have transformed our parks and public spaces into stages and canvases filled with urgent and creative calls for meaningful change.[1] 

Portland’s once-nationally celebrated 50-year legacy of downtown and neighborhood revitalization has come to a pause, a disruption, and a collective opportunity to ask fundamental questions:

• How can we heal a history of exclusion?

• Who and what are our public spaces for?

• Who and what should we commemorate? 

• Can we foster more inclusive forms of commerce and creativity?

The Portland Parks Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Portland Art Museum, and Converge 45 would like to bring Portland’s most creative minds together to begin to debate and discover possibilities.

Our organizations, along with many other community partners, will start this exploration with talks by two of the nation’s leading voices on spatial justice and public memory. We will follow these with convenings, collaborations, and actions to foster new thinking and outcomes in public space, memory, commerce, and creativity.

Liz Ogbu, Studio O, designer, urbanist, racial and spatial justice activist

In conversation with Manuel Padilla, Oregon Solutions

Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 5 pm on Zoom

Admission is free, but donations are accepted

A designer, urbanist, and spatial justice activist, Liz is an expert on engaging and transforming unjust urban environments, "looking at what it means to examine the spatial and emotional wounds of the places we inhabit and how we might move towards repair." Her multidisciplinary design and innovation practice, Studio O, works on a wide array of initiatives from designing shelters for immigrant day laborers to developing a Social Impact Protocol for housing initiatives in 44 states.

“I design the space that helps support people to live their best stories,” Liz said in a recent talk, Design in the Apocalypse. “Justice has a geography. The equitable distribution of access, services, and opportunities is a basic human right.”

Liz Ogbu’s lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Institute.

Read more about Liz Ogbu here:

She served in the inaugural class of Innovators-in-Residence at IDEO.org, IDEO’s nonprofit dedicated to fostering global poverty reduction and as Design Director at Public Architecture, a national nonprofit mobilizing designers to improve communities through design. Her 2013 TED Talk and 2017 TED Talk have been viewed over a million times. She is an alum of Wellesley College and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Manuel Padilla has worked in peace building, conflict reconciliation, restorative justice, and conducting public dialogue toward culture change. He is a project manager with Oregon Solutions, which brings business, government, and nonprofits to the table to address community needs.

Cleanse: A Dialogue on Art and Public Space with Paul Farber and Michelle Angela Ortiz

Facilitated by Jaleesa Johnston, Portland Art Museum

Photo provided by Mural Arts Philadelphia.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 12 pm on Zoom

Admission is free, but donations are accepted

Paul Farber is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab, a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia that cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments. The Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory and to make generational change in the ways art and history live in public. Farber is author of A Wall of Our Own: An American History of the Berlin Wall and co-editor of Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia. He also currently serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Read more about Paul Farber here.

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art to represent individuals and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. For 20 years, she had created community engagement methods that take into account the issues of responsibility, accountability, and ethics within the field of social practice and community arts. From murals to temporary large-scale installations, her public artworks share stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community. Read more about Michelle here.

Jaleesa Johnston is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and arts administrator. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has been the recipient of the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency. In addition to her role at the Portland Art Museum as Programs Lead in the Learning and Community Partnerships Department, Johnston also teaches in Foundation, Photography and Video + Sound at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Green Dreams: Radical Love: How nature can shape a more equitable city

A happy hour conversation with Vivek Shandas, PSU Professor, Chair of Portland’s Urban Forestry Commission

Vivek Shandas knows how cities shape the environment; and, in turn, how that environment shapes cities and the people who live there. Historically in America-and specifically in Portland-where the trees are tells you a lot: wealthy neighborhoods have many big, old leafy trees; economically disinvested neighborhoods, not so much.

In the latest of Portland Parks Foundation’s “Green Dreams” conversations, Shandas will offer his bold thinking of how “radical love” between the city and nature can change this dichotomy. 

5:30-6:30 pm, Monday, December 7, on Zoom. 

Registration: sliding scale, free-$20. Proceeds benefit the Portland Parks Foundation

Hosted by Randy Gragg, Executive Director, Portland Parks Foundation

Watch an early replay here.

Growing up in Bangalore, Shandas learned the benefits trees can foster up close, beginning with how the mango tree outside his window offered not just a respite from the bustling city surrounding him, but a whole world to explore. After moving to the US as a child, and finishing a couple of decades of environmental research, his more recent ground-breaking insights proved that historic redlining of neighborhoods have not just systematically denied people of color similar childhood experiences with trees, but continue to threaten their health and survival today. 

Shandas argues that developing a more equitable future for historically disinvested communities requires bold acts of “radical love,” exploring the contours of the challenges we face and finding promising ways forward.

In a Green Dreams happy-hour conversation, Shandas will share how Bangalore, Vandana Shiva, Frances Moore Lappe, and Oregon's Outdoor School shaped his career and research, and his belief that Portland can lead the nation with environmental and climate justice. 

Dr. Shandas serves as the research director for PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions, where he supports cross-disciplinary efforts to address pressing challenges facing communities around the world. As the Founder and Director of the Sustaining Urban Places Research (SUPR), he evaluates environmental stresses on human health, developing indicators and tools to improve decision making, and constructs frameworks to guide the growth of urban regions. Over the past several years, research from the SUPR Lab has appeared in the Smithsonian Magazine, National Public Radio, Washington Post, Minnesota Public Broadcasting, NY Times, Qatar Times, and several other national and international media.

The Portland Parks Foundation’s “Green Dreams” series offers a virtual stage for thought leaders to share insights, provocations, and ideas about the past, present, and future of Portland’s parks and public spaces. 

Watch our September 29th Candidate Forum with Mingus Mapps and Chloe Eudaly

PPF hosted our third and final City Council candidates forum on parks and recreation issues. Watch our conversation with Mingus Mapps and Chloe Eudaly here.

What do city council candidates have to say about our parks?

We shape our city council, and afterwards our city council shapes us.

In May Portlanders will cast their first votes to reshape City Hall. With three open spots on
City Council, there’s a lot at stake. The Portland Parks Foundation wanted to provide a forum for Portlanders to learn our candidates’ views on parks, open space and urban design. With so many candidates, we needed a way to narrow the field, so we asked each candidate to submit responses to a series of questions. A jury of Parks Foundation and Portland Parks Board members scored the answers—with the candidate names hidden.

We invited the top eight scorers to participate in our e-forum on April 20, 2020. Watch a recording of the forum below. Thank you to the candidates for participating in both the Q&A and the e-forum.

Although we couldn’t include all of the candidates in the e-forum on April 20, we are able to provide their full responses to the series of questions we asked each of them.