O’Bryant Square

What a dump. It seems like this public square is used by two groups: 1) the occasional patron from a nearby food cart, who needs a place to sit and doesn’t have any better options, and 2) homeless peeps with varying degrees of their mental capacities. Nothing like sitting down to enjoy a bowl of noodles, only to experience a psychotic monologue or a bum fight. And while these are generally the exception and not the rule, while at this location, I’ve been witness to both.
It’s dirty and doesn’t really seem to serve a function beyond acting as a congregation-​spot for street-​folk. I vote you find another place to enjoy your lunch.

There’s a juice cart with a bicycle petal powered blender.

great place if you are trying to score some… friends. still, nice place to picnic during summer after spending a morning in the MoMA. My parents moved to midtown and it was a nice getaway for an afternoon. bonus is that it has wifi!

This park puts the parking in park, It is nicknamed «Parinoid Park» for the drug users that at least used to hang out there. The park feels like a half effort to cover the parking below, There is a fountain that never seems to have water, some murals and a whole lot of bricks and a lot of homeless people, especially on Sundays when a local church gives away free meals.
Other then that it is close to the carts, It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to hang out here.
It really feels like it could us a deep cleaning and a remodel. Maybe they could get the fountain running and some tables for the people from the food carts. Then we could call it Portland’s Dinning Room (lame play on Pioneer Courthouse Squares «Portland’s Living Room». Until then I feel three stars may be a bit generous.

O’Bryant Square struggles with it’s identity. It is part of Portland’s drive to have lots of parks, no matter how much sense that the individual park makes, we love our parks.
There is a plaque of dedication and some murals. Clearly a lot was going for it.
There are some trees and lots of wood-​chips. The square is defined by small steps and places to sit down, such as in getting food from food trucks. Here, O’Bryant Square isn’t about nature, but where you can eat.
This park isn’t that serious. The steps are low and on a windy day, you’re napkins from the cart will be blown around.
But if the cart doesn’t have seating and you don’t want to walk to Pioneer Square or Director Park, this is where you can sit.
They might as well fix it up to have a bunch of tables under a roof. But then more homeless people will treat the tables like a bed, as they already do with this park.
O’Bryant Square is an amusing park that needs to find it’s place in a way that doesn’t involve yelling homeless individuals.

O’Bryant Square is the park that is across the street from the food carts on Alder. It can be challenging trying to find a place to eat after grabbing something from one of the food carts there. While you might be able to scrounge up a space to eat at one of the closed food carts, your best bet is to head over to O’Bryant.
O’Bryant is basically a public place for people to eat and loiter. The park gets crowded with people eating (particularly during workday lunch hours). At other times, it tends to be filled with questionable folks. Some of whom panhandle the food cart customers for spare change.
I would say this park is a good place to eat if you are grabbing a meal at the food carts nearby. But otherwise, I would not visit this park for any reason than this. Like others have said, it is a bit sketchy. So sit, eat and go.

Perfect place to eat food from food trucks and enjoy the street performers.
Only 4 stars because it’s more of a rectangle than a square.

I get and at the same time don’t get the low stars for this little park. Yeah there are homeless people, annoying people, somewhat scary people here. There are also tourists, office workers, and others. I am just happy to have a spot to pigeon watch (seriously it is an exciting time in pigeon life right now) and stuff my own face from the nearby food cart pod.
As far as parks in urban areas go, this small little one has proven very useful for me and my belly.

you can sit and eat your Lunch truck food extravaganza from across the street

It’s someplace close to the food carts you can sit and eat, unless you feel like walking up to Director Park with your food.
You will see homeless and/​or skateboarders here during the day sometimes; haven’t had anyone bother me tho.
Agree on staying away at night; really is no reason to hang around here at night.

Not much going on here, but a good place to find a place to sit after you buy food from the carts. Other than that, I would listen to the other Unilocalers… don’t come here at night.

«Angelic by day, Druggie by night.»
Just don’t go here at night and you’ll be fine and actually enjoy the park.
I like eating lunch here because of the diversity that exists here. For example, when I was eating my burrito today there were three executives enjoying their sandwiches on my left while few homeless individuals were enjoying whatever they were doing on my right.
Sublime.
But for those who have a gentle and caring heart beware: you may end up giving few more of your dollars supporting the homeless if you eat here.
I’m just saying.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I did.

We call it needle park because of the pretty pine needles that fall to the brick floor. Not. We call it that because this is where junkies hang out after hours and leave needles behind. Not a bad palce to eat lunch because of all the places to sit but you always feel like you have to watch your back. Even with a police «station» right across the street that was opened just to keep the peace in this death trap.

I think that this park gets a bad rap for what it used to be. This is one of my favorite spots to sit at lunch and read a book. It’s in a great location for me and is hardly ever packed. There is great shade as well as sunny spots to bask in. It’s not manicured or pristine but I can sit on concrete and not be bothered by anyone for a full 60 minutes. And that, I like

Sketchy! Sketchy!
We’ve been by this park a few times at night and have kept driving.
It made a nice place to sit and have lunch during the day. It’s located just across the street from a bunch of food carts. Lots of places to sit eat, and for that, it gets a few stars.
At night it attracts a few too many scary characters and is poorly lit, so I would head over to Pioneer Square instead.

It’s pretty bare park with wood chips in areas which I assume used to have bushes/​flowers. I brought my dog here since it was within walking distance from the hotel. She did her business. The park was usually empty during the potty walks until Sunday morning. I was a bit freaked out by the large number of homeless people hanging around the park. I wasn’t sure if we would be welcome or not so we kept walking to another park. I did find in another Unilocal review that there is a free meal for homeless people in the area on Sundays which explains the large crowd.

If you love crack pipes, hoes, and watching gutterpups urinate on the side walk — then I have just the place for you. Come on down to Paranoia Park! Its the bee’s knees!

I always feel a bit bad for O’Bryant Park. It was heralded as one of the best parks when it was built, but it has since turned out to be a haven for drug dealers and homeless people. It is an interesting study of what makes a park work. There has been discussion floating around for a while about how to improve it. Bushes have been cut back and today it is pretty bare, but not much better.
Overall: If you are a planner or just interested in how people use cities, this is an interesting place to check out. But be careful!