Tom McCall Waterfront Park cherry blossoms
— — a row of pink against the river, for two weeks only.
Not only on a wall.
“A long ribbon of park on the west bank of the Willamette, downtown Portland, where the seawall was once a freeway. Inside the park, the Japanese American Historical Plaza holds about a hundred Akebono cherry trees in a single row along the river. They bloom for roughly two weeks in late March and early April, pink against the dark water and the steel of the Steel Bridge. The plaza is a memorial to Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War. The park is named for Tom McCall, the Oregon governor who pushed to tear the freeway down.
Tom McCall Waterfront Park cherry blossoms, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Tom McCall Waterfront Park runs about a mile and a half along the west bank of the Willamette River in downtown Portland, covering roughly 36 acres between the Hawthorne Bridge and the Steel Bridge. The park opened in 1978 on the footprint of Harbor Drive, a downtown freeway demolished after Oregon Governor Tom McCall championed its removal. The Japanese American Historical Plaza sits at the north end near the Steel Bridge, dedicated in 1990 as a memorial to Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War. Around the plaza, about a hundred Akebono cherry trees line the seawall, planted as part of the memorial design by landscape architect Robert Murase.
Bloom usually arrives in the last week of March and runs into the first or second week of April, depending on the year. The Akebono cultivar opens pale pink and fades to white over about a week, then drops in a few days of wind. Portland's average last frost is in mid-March, so an unusually cold spring can delay the bloom by a week to ten days. Weekday mornings before nine are the quiet window; the seawall fills up on weekends with photographers, joggers, and families. The trees stand in a single line on the river side, so the cleanest views are looking south toward the Burnside Bridge.
The park is open year round and free to enter. The Japanese American Historical Plaza is at the foot of the Steel Bridge at NW Naito Parkway and Couch Street, easiest to reach by the MAX light rail to Old Town / Chinatown station, a short walk east. Bike racks and the Eastbank Esplanade across the river make it a regular walking and cycling loop. The plaza itself includes thirteen basalt columns engraved with poems by Lawson Inada, Hisako Hibi, and other Japanese American writers, set facing the river beneath the cherry trees.