Carved into an extinct cinder cone volcano–Rocky Butte–in Portland, the Grotto at the Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother is pretty metal as far as Catholic shrines go.

Protestors toppled Portland’s Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider during the Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage in 2020. That it was toppled might be the most interesting thing about what was otherwise a pretty dull equestrian statue, sculpted by Alexander Phimister Proctor and installed in 1922.

From 1938 until 1985, this handsome Streamline Moderne bus terminal kept waiting passengers out of the Portland rain. Now, it’s the coldest city in the US without an intercity bus terminal–travelers today must wait outside after this station’s successor closed in 2019.

An unusual adaptive reuse journey in Portland–from car dealership to bank offices to local government–was nearly capped off with an impressively bonkers bit of public art, a "green roof sculpture” with a 50-foot windmill, earthen mounds, and a tree atop a rotating platform.

The Portland Public Market lasted less than a decade as a market and within 40 years the whole thing was torn down–this building was a boondoggle. An illuminating boondoggle, though.