The North Park Blocks Conservancy is working to keep North Park Blocks green and livable for all. The North Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Couch deeded the five blocks to the city in 1865, and they were officially platted for a municipal park in 1869. An ordinance was passed in 1904, setting aside one park block for women and children. The playgrou
nd was divided into a boy's playground and a small child and girl's playground. Use of the North Park Blocks declined, especially as the 1924 zoning code did not preserve residential uses near them. By the 1940s, the North Park Blocks area was decidedly neglected. A problem with the homeless and aggressive panhandlers led to Daisy Kingdom and the U.S. Customs House to hire security guards, and park sprinklers were set to intermittently spray sleepers. In 1989, the problem was worse; that year the local Montessori School found drug users and discarded needles in the city playground. In 2002, Chinese foundry owner Huo Baozhu donated Da Tung and Xi'an Bao Bao, full-size bronze reproductions of Shang dynasty elephant statues, to Portland. The city placed them on the North Park Blocks where children could interact with them. In recent years, the North Park Blocks have experienced a renaissance. Upscale condominiums and creative commercial buildings have replaced vacant or underutilized buildings. The crown jewel is the new campus for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Oregon’s flagship school of art and design since 1909.
