Pioneer Courthouse Square
Known as Portland’s “living room,” this brick-lined park is bustling with activity and events.
Located in the heart of downtown Portland, Pioneer Courthouse Square is affectionately known as the city’s “living room.” Once a grim parking structure, the square is now a thriving urban park and one of the most-visited sites in Oregon, attracting more than 11 million visitors annually. The square’s on-site resources include the TriMet public transit ticket office.
Named after the Pioneer Courthouse (the Pacific Northwest’s oldest federal building) located on the public space’s eastern side, the square began as the Portland Hotel in 1890. In 1950 the hotel became a two-story parking garage, and in 1984 it was reborn as a bustling city park where light rail and buses converge. These days, the square is where workers, visitors and families gather to enjoy the city, catch a ride elsewhere and even enjoy a meal at the food carts parked on the bricks.
Visiting Pioneer Courthouse Square
What is near Pioneer Courthouse Square?
Is there parking nearby?
The square is also one of Portland’s leading outdoor venues, hosting 300 events each year, from large-scale concerts to cultural festivals. In the summer, the Noon Tunes concert series fills the lunch-hour air with free live music on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Fridays, Flicks on the Bricks transforms the “living room” into Portland’s biggest movie theater with no-cost, family-friendly fare.
But the square hosts more than summertime excitement; every year, the city celebrates the day after Thanksgiving with the lighting of the region’s largest decorated holiday tree and an array of festive events, like the Tuba Christmas Concert and the Holiday Ale Festival, keep the space merry and bright.
Explore Downtown
Things to see a few steps away from Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Portland Art Museum
The largest art museum in Oregon and one of the oldest in the country, the Portland Art Museum is central to the city's cultural district, housing a large and wide-ranging collection of artworks.
Pioneer Place
Downtown Portland's home for big-brand shopping houses the major brands that fashionistas crave, along with an expansive food court and a movie theater.
Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park
Hugging the Willamette River in downtown Portland, this once bustling highway now offers a strollable, bikeable and dog-walkable public park with historical and cultural monuments, and kid-friendly fun.
At the Square
Chinese Festival
Join the Oregon Chinese Coalition for the Chinese Festival in the Square. Celebrate Chinese American culture and enjoy nonstop entertainment, delicious Chinese food, authentic arts and crafts, and much more. For more information visit pdxchinese.org.
PDX Live Concert Series
Pioneer Courthouse Square (The Square) and True West, one of the leading independent concert promoters and event producers in the Pacific Northwest, bring back the PDX LIVE concert series. Show schedule: August 7 – Sleater-Kinney / Amyl and the Sniffers August 8-9 – Ween August 10 – Descendents August 11 – The Japanese House August 12 – Sierra…
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