"TriMet" (sculpture)

Today's stop on our ongoing tour of Portland's transit mall art is a piece called simply "TriMet", by the sculptor Robert Maki. As you can probably tell from the angular Cor-Ten steel and so forth, it's yet another mid-1970s holdover from when the bus mall first went in, but this one is not in its original form. Prior to MAX construction, it was the centerpiece of the large so-called "Bathtub Fountain", one of several fountains along 5th & 6th Avenues that were permanently removed when MAX went in. Now the sculpture sits by itself in front of the Standard Plaza building. (Ring of Time is in front of the building's 6th Avenue entrance, if that rings a bell at all.)

Or I should say "sat" rather than "sits". I'm not sure when it left, but "TriMet" is gone right now. I don't know whether this is permanent or temporary, but either way it's not there, and it hasn't simply moved to another spot on the bus mall as far as I know. I mention this by way of an apology for the fair-to-middling Blackberry camera phone photos. I went back later with a Real Camera, but the thing was already gone by then.