SW 5th & Caruthers

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A few photos from the tiny triangle of land at SW Caruthers St., 5th Avenue, & Broadway, next to Interstate 405. This place is mentioned briefly in an obscure city document that's resulted in quite a few of the more dubious and pointless-seeming posts in the ongoing parks series in recent years. Like a number of places on the list (and unlike its equally obscure neighbor at Broadway, Broadway & Grant) it seems this is not precisely an official city park; the parks bureau doesn't own it, but has, or once had, a role in landscaping or maintaining it.

TriMet stop 7591 is named "5th & Caruthers", but it's a bit south on 5th and not right at our sorta-park here. Which is the one and only even remotely related item I have to share this time around.

Updated 8/2/2026: The city now has a "Traffic Islands and Circles" ArcGIS layer, which tells us a few more Important Facts about this little place. The database table for these doesn't have a name field, but it does have an "assetId", which for the 5th & Caruthers property is "3300-0000076", and it has an area of 2082.11 square feet, which is about 0.048 acres. Owner is the city bureau of transportation, unsurprisingly, and the separate column for "Maintenance Responsibility" is set to "UNKNOWN", which I think explains a lot about this place.

So instead, to make this post somewhat less useless, I thought I'd take the list from the aforementoned obscure city document, format it up for readability, and add links to the places I've done posts about. The posts can't all be blamed on this list, mind you; several places are only mildly obscure and even appear on maps of the city. Now that I've got this list put together, I'm surprised, a little embarrassed even, at how many of these I've been to.

• Adams 1977
• Ainsworth Blocks 1980
• Alameda & 38th 1980
• Ankeny & 32nd
• Barbur Boulevard
• Beach & Borthwick
• Beech
• Brooklyn & 13th
• Bundy 1973-84
• Burnside Median
• Bybee Bike Path
• Campbell Fountain 1975
• Carl Place
• Caruthers & 5th
• City Hall Grounds
• Clark-Wilson Park
• Clatsop
• Coe Circle
• Concord & Going ( = Stanich Park and/or Pittman Addition Hydropark)
• Collins Circle 1974-80
• Columbia Buffer
• Coolidge Square 1979 (aka the park at Broadway, Broadway, & Grant)
• Division & Powell 1988 (aka Kelly Butte)
• Dosch & Bertha/Beaverton
• Emmanual Circle 1980-84
• Fairmount & Sherwood
• Firland Parkway 1984-85
• Foster/Woodstock Couplets
• Franklin & 33rd
• Governors 1972-82
• Greenleaf
• Hall & 14th
• Harborview
• Harbor Drive East & West
• Henderson & 45th
• Highland Interchange
• Himes 1978-81
• Holman & 13th
• Jackson & 6th
• John Garden 1977-80
• Kerr 1980-85
• Kingsley
• Klickitat Mall
• Knight 1979-80
• Lombard & 33rd
• Lombard & 42nd
• Luray Circle (aka 'Luray Circus')
• Madrona 1980-90
• Mason & 19th (now the Sabin Community Orchard)
• Mason & Gaintenbein
• McLaughlin Boulevard
• Mocks Crest
• Montgomery Street Circle 1989
• Multnomah Center 1983
• Merger 1976
• Municipal Dock 1973-80
• 9th Street Extension 1989
• NYC Building
• North Going
• Oaks Pioneer Locomotives 1974-78
• Omaha Parkway
• Overlook Triangle
• Portland Center 1975
• Powell Boulevard 50th - 90th
• Prescott & Albina (aka "Albina Triangle" or "4500 Albina")
• Prescott & 15th (aka "Sabin Triangle")
• Reed College (assuming Reed College Parkway & not the campus itself.)
• Regents & Alameda
• Rosemont Bluff 1995
• Roseway Parkway 1925-84
• St Johns Business District 1980
• Vernon Ross Veterans Memorial 1985
• 2nd Avenue Park 1972-74
• Skidmore Fountain 1983
• Talbot
• 3rd Avenue Mall 1981
• Terwilliger & Taylors Ferry
• Thomas & 53rd
• Thompson & 17th
• Thompson & 24th
• Tillamook & 16th
• Transit Mall
• Tyrol Circle
• Union Avenue 1985
• Vermont 45th - 50th
• Vista & Spring 1974 (aka Jewett Park)
• Walker Stadium 1982
• Natural Resource Area West Portland 1995 (aka Loll Wildwood)
• Wisteria & 41st
• Wisteria & 49th