Beverly Cleary character sculptures badly need maintenance, Grant Park neighbors say

For generations of Portland-area children, a visit to the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden at Northeast Portland’s Grant Park has been a rite of passage.

They pose for pictures holding hands with a rainbooted Ramona Quimby, take turns sitting astride Ribsy, that most faithful of pooches, and say hello to Henry Huggins.

In the summer, when the weather turns hot, they romp in the fountains that are a part of the installation honoring some of the most beloved characters in Cleary’s books for young readers, most of them set in the surrounding neighborhood. (The fictional Quimby family famously lived on nearby Klickitat Street and Cleary herself attended Grant High and the former Fernwood school, which is now renamed in her honor.)

But now, Cleary’s son, the statues’ sculptor and a host of Grant Park neighbors who helped raise the money to erect them nearly 30 years ago say that the sculpture garden is falling into disrepair. Pinpointing which city entity is responsible for fixing it has been an exercise in exasperation, they said.

“It is pretty frustrating trying to get an answer from someone,” said Doris Kimmel, a Grant Park resident who co-chaired the original committee that was the driving force behind the sculpture garden. “No one wants to say, ‘The parks department is not going to help and we need to find someone else to maintain it.’”

Lee Hunt, the sculptor whom Cleary handpicked to create the likenesses of Ramona, Ribsy and Henry, said for a time she tried to visit the sculptures regularly to clean them herself.

“When we see things that for a long period of time have been really important to families go into disrepair, it makes you feel that the city is not working very well,” Hunt said.

Raising $150,000 for the installation and navigating the overlapping maze of permits took five long years, said Kimmel. Libraries around Portland put out contribution jars for the project and the children of the city filled them with pennies by the piggy-bankful.

Her husband, Eric Kimmel, is a noted children’s book author who taught in the education department at Portland State University. She said it was one of his graduate students who first had the bright idea that the neighborhood needed a spot to honor Cleary.

The 1995 opening was a joyous affair. Under a cloudless sky in front of children clutching copies of Cleary’s books and a house party afterwards on Alameda Ridge, Cleary — described as peppery and gruff by the young assistants from her publishing house in New York City who flew in for the occasion — held court.

In a 2000 interview with The Oregonian, Cleary said she could do without the hoopla that accompanied her infrequent public appearances. “It’s the book that’s important, not the personality or the private life of the author,” she said then. “It bothers me that authors are expected to go on tours. I never have.”

In the years since, the statues have been the occasional targets of graffiti and other defacements, gotten glowing shout-outs from The New York Times in a literary travel piece, been colorfully yarn-bombed and, when Cleary died in 2021, were showered with flowers and dog-eared paperback copies of her books.

After three decades, many of the stone plaques that line the area and list all of Cleary’s book titles are worn down by weather and footfalls, largely illegible now. A giant flat stone bearing an inscription from one of the books about Henry Huggins is cracked in two, and missing a huge chunk of its lower half.

Maintenance of the site is split between the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Portland Parks & Recreation. RACC is responsible for the statutes themselves, said Keith Lachowicz, a public arts collections manager at the organization. The agency has about $1,200 left of an original $6,000 endowment for maintenance of the bronze sculptures, he said. That money has paid for periodic conservation treatments, including cleanings, and wax applications to preserve the patina.

“There are also significant drainage issues with how water comes off the shallow hill to the east,” Lachowicz said. “It fills up with mud as the fountain runs, and that becomes a problem for the plumbing.”

The Parks Bureau has responsibility for the stone surfacing that surrounds the statues — including the faded and unreadable plaques — and for the plumbing and fountain features, said Mark Ross, a spokesperson for the Parks Bureau.

“There is no line item for this work,” he wrote in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive. “It is done holistically as we maintain park assets.”

Darion Jones, a senior policy director for arts, culture and equity in Parks Commissioner Dan Ryan’s office, said maintenance issues like this are part of an ongoing city conversation about public art, including this week’s passage by City Council members of revisions to the city’s public art code to create a complaint process for public monuments.

“Parks has indicated that these repairs are under their purview,” Jones said. “They are looking at what maintenance options could be available.”

The Cleary statues are one of a handful of public art pieces around the city’s parks that are at children’s eye level and meant for interactive play, Lachowicz said. Others include the bronze tortoise that watches over Arbor Lodge in North Portland and a giant Alice in Wonderland-esque rabbit at Pendleton Park in Southwest Portland.

But only Ramona, Ribsy and Henry are part of the city’s literacy legacy, he noted, akin to the famed Make Way for Ducklings statues in Boston Common.

Cleary’s son, Malcolm, said via email to The Oregonian/OregonLive that during a 2022 visit to Grant Park he was disheartened by the condition of the sculpture garden.

“The many children that were there did not seem to mind, still playing and enjoying the beautiful bronze statues,” he noted. “I can remember when it was first installed. It would be nice if it could be returned to that condition. I have made inquiries to the city, the parks department and some other agencies in Portland. It just does not seem to be a priority.”

— Julia Silverman covers schools and education policy for The Oregonian. She can be reached via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com or by phone at 503-221-4305. Follow her on X.com at @jrlsilverman.