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Plaza Blocks

Parks in Portland, OregonPlaza Blocks
Chapman Square Portland, Oregon
Chapman Square Portland, Oregon

The Plaza Blocks, two courthouse squares known as Chapman Square and Lownsdale Square, are located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The blocks are north of Terry Schrunk Plaza and east of City Hall. The northmost square is named after Daniel H. Lownsdale (1803—1862), a native Kentuckian who settled in Portland in 1845. The south square is named after legislator William W. Chapman (1808–1892), a Virginian settled in Portland in 1850.By 1900 Lownsdale Square, traditionally a male-only space, was a gay cruising destination, allowing a degree of deniability. It was simply called "the park". The activity also took place in Chapman Square by the 1950s.Southwest Main Street separates the two blocks; Thompson Elk Fountain, which was donated to the city by former Portland mayor David P. Thompson, has stood in the middle of the street. The sculptor was Roland Hinton Perry. The first electric power transmission line in North America terminated at Chapman Square. It went online at 10:00 pm on June 3, 1889, operating at 4,000 volts of direct current, with the lines between the electric generating station at Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon, and downtown Portland stretching about 13 miles. A bronze tablet in the park commemorates this achievement.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Plaza Blocks (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Plaza Blocks
Southwest Main Street, Portland Downtown

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Latitude Longitude
N 45.5157 ° E -122.6775 °
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Southwest Main Street

Southwest Main Street
97258 Portland, Downtown
Oregon, United States
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Chapman Square Portland, Oregon
Chapman Square Portland, Oregon
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Occupy Portland
Occupy Portland

Occupy Portland was a collaboration that began on October 6, 2011 in downtown Portland, Oregon as a protest and demonstration against economic inequality worldwide. It is inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York City on September 17, 2011. The movement's initial October 6 March drew an estimated 10,000 to Pioneer Courthouse Square. The protesters later set up an encampment in the Plaza Blocks Park near Portland City Hall. The Plaza Blocks include Lownsdale Square on the north side and Chapman Square to the south, which were the focus of the encampment. On November 10, Portland mayor Sam Adams gave the protesters a deadline to clear out of the park by 12:01 AM on November 13. The order was given in response to rising crime rates and police overtime costs. It was reported in February 2012 that police overtime pay for policing Occupy Portland activities has amounted to approximately US$2 million. The tent city that was the physical base of Occupy Portland was dismantled by the Portland Police on November 13. However, the eponymous organization behind Occupy Portland has continued to plan acts of civil disobedience. On December 12, Occupy Portland led a picket that successfully shut the Port of Portland for the day. As of July 2012, Occupy Portland had continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions. As of July 2015, Occupy Portland had continued to organize events and support efforts against war and supporting student debt strikers.

1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot
1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot

In 1985, a group of high-ranking Rajneeshees, followers of the Indian mystic Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho), conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Rajneesh's personal secretary and second-in-command, Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman), assembled the group after Turner was appointed to investigate illegal activity at the followers' community, Rajneeshpuram. Turner investigated charges of immigration fraud and sham marriages, and later headed the federal prosecution of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in The Dalles, Oregon. The conspirators included Sheela; Sally-Anne Croft, chief financial officer of Rajneeshpuram; Susan Hagan, head of security at Rajneeshpuram; Catherine Jane Stork, who bought weapons and suppressors and volunteered to be the actual murderer; Ann Phyllis McCarthy, fourth-in-command of Rajneeshpuram; and co-conspirators Alma Potter, Carol Matthews, Phyllis Caldwell, and Richard Kevin Langford. Two of the conspirators obtained false identification to purchase handguns out-of-state, stalked Turner, and planned to murder him near his workplace in Portland, Oregon. The assassination plot was never carried out and was only discovered later, as a result of the investigation by federal law enforcement into the bioterror attack in The Dalles and other illegal acts by the Rajneeshpuram leadership. Prosecution of the conspirators began in 1990, when a federal grand jury brought indictments against several of the key players. Some had fled the country, and extradition proceedings against the perpetrators and subsequent prosecution and conviction was not completed for sixteen years. The final conspirator was convicted in 2006, when Catherine Jane Stork agreed to return to the United States from Germany in order to be allowed to visit her terminally ill son in Australia. Eight perpetrators received sentences ranging from five years' probation to five years in federal prison and an additional member of the Rajneesh commune pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy. Rajneesh was never prosecuted in relation to the conspiracy, and left the United States after pleading guilty to immigration fraud and agreeing not to reenter the country without permission from the U.S. Attorney General.