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The South Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=South Park Blocks )〕 ''The Oregonian'' has called it Portland's "extended family room", as Pioneer Courthouse Square is known as Portland's "living room". Twelve blocks in length, it is intersected by the Portland Streetcar and forms the Portland Cultural District and the greenspace at the center of Portland State University.〔 ''The New York Times'' stated the blocks are "literally at the heart of the city's cultural life." Every block contains public art, such as ''Shemanski Fountain'' (1926), designed by Carl L. Linde, with drinking wells, including special drinking wells for dogs. Other art includes Paul Sutinen's ''In the Shadow of the Elm'' (built into the pavement), and three large blocks of granite titled ''Peace Chant'' (1984).〔 Two large statues are in the block: a $40,000, bronze equestrian statue called ''Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider'', designed by Alexander Phimister Proctor, commissioned by Roosevelt's personal friend and Portlander Henry Waldo Coe and added in 1922, and one of ''Abraham Lincoln'', "facing north, slump-shouldered and pensive", added in 1928, commissioned by Coe in 1926, sculpted by George Fife Waters.〔〔 The park also contains approximately 337 elm, oak, and maple trees valued at $3.4 million, as well as roses. A plaque from the Lang Syne Society was placed in the South Park Blocks at Jefferson Street in 1991, commemorating the Great Plank Road. ==History== ===Continuous Park Blocks=== Portland was platted in 1845, then Daniel H. Lownsdale purchased land south and west of the original platting. He drew up a plat in 1848 that included 11 narrow blocks, 100 × 200 feet, instead of the standard 200 × 200 feet.〔 He then brought on Stephen Coffin and William W. Chapman as partners, and dedicated the South Park Blocks and midtown park blocks in 1852.〔 This made them the first official greenspace in Portland. While they were dedicated to the city, they weren't owned by the city until September 22, 1870, when Mayor Bernard Goldsmith and Chapman agreed on selling the South Park Blocks and the two Plaza Blocks (Chapman and Lownsdale Squares) to the city for $6,250.〔 Most of the purchase price was for the Plaza Blocks, since the park blocks were at the edge of the developed city.〔 Ownership of the continuous park blocks was not without dispute, however.〔 After Lownsdale died without a will, and then his wife Nancy died, his estate challenged that his plat didn't require the central section to be dedicated to public use since Nancy had not signed over legal title to the land.〔 The courts agreed in 1865.〔 Benjamin Stark reneged on the donation of two north central park blocks to the city, instead offering to sell them for $138,000.〔〔 Captain John H. Couch deeded his section, which became the North Park Blocks to the city on January 25, 1865, only ten days after receiving the federal patent for the land.〔〔 Six of the South Park Blocks were lost to private parties in the 1870s, and elected city officials were unwilling to spend the asking price of $6,000 per block to purchase them so soon after the city had bought the land for Washington Park.〔〔 Only a year later, a proposal to acquire the six blocks for $92,000 was brought by the city council, showing the increase in prices in that year.〔 A 1907 tax bond issue was brought to the voters.〔 It would have been a $2 million bond, likely including money to buy back the blocks.〔 The measure failed, and some time later, the street name changed from "West Park" to Southwest 9th".〔 Two missing blocks have been recaptured since then: O'Bryant Square was purchased in 1973,〔 and Director Park opened in 2009. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「South Park Blocks」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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