Naito Fountain

So here are a few photos of Portland's shiny new Bill Naito Legacy Fountain, in Waterfront Park next to the Burnside Bridge. The city officially opened the taps last August 20th so it's the second-newest public fountain in town for the moment, second only to the one in Director Park.



This fountain has two parts: There's a semicircular pool with a few jets, plus some steps inscribed with praise for immigrants (which is the Bill Naito connection), and nearby are a few more jets directly under the new Saturday Market canopy. The city hasn't come out and said this explicitly, but my take on this is that the pool part is for kids, and the jets under the canopy are to prevent homeless people from sleeping there. I seem to recall earlier draft designs for the canopy had it fold up when not in use, again so it would only be be dry during Saturday Market. This being Portland, I assume we went with the water jets instead because they're both cheaper and more passive-aggressive this way. And I'm not even going to investigate what sort of homeless facilities we could have bought with the money we spent on the canopy & fountain, because it wouldn't do any good and would just depress me further.



If you didn't know what the fountain was for, and just looked at the photos and took it in the abstract, it would be fine, if not very exciting. It's basically a retread of the Salmon St. Springs / Jamison Square / Keller Fountain / Stark St. Island / Holladay Park / Essential Forces / Director Park formula. Not very imaginative, but at least it's a popular formula that works. And the water jets make for the occasional decent photo, which is what I really care about.

In short, I kind of like the fountain itself, but I don't like the idea behind the fountain. Does that make any sense?