TriMet Taking Down Gresham's Living Room

Read about how teenagers spent their nights in the furniture

URBAN DESIGN: Teenagers hang out at a sculpture called Living Room at the Gresham Transit Center.
By AARON MESH

TriMet is removing its 12-year-old Living Room sculpture from the Gresham Transit Center—because too many loitering teenagers are sitting in the concrete furniture.

The sculpture will be dismantled at the end of October and returned to its creator, artist Tamsie Ringler.

"Completed in 2001, the artwork has raised safety and security concerns since 2008," writes TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch. "The work became physically degraded and was fully restored in 2010. Three years later the artwork is again in disrepair and the plaza area remains a safety concern."

This is a guarded way of saying that the stone Living Room—which includes a pink couch and a high-backed yellow chair carved out of concrete, with a coffee table and a hypnotically glowing television set—has long attracted young (and often intoxicated) people to use it as an actual living room.

WW spent a night at the sculpture in May 2012, while riding public transit for three straight days. Here's a portion of what we saw:

here

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