Ladd's Addition (Portland, Oregon)

 neighborhood  Add category

 Upload a photo

Ladd's Addition is one of the oldest residential districts in Portland, Oregon. It is in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, located in the near southeast part of the city. Ladd's Addition is known in Portland for its peculiar diagonal street pattern relative to the rest of the area. It is roughly eight blocks (east-west) by ten blocks (north-south) in size (by reference to the external grid) and is bordered by SE Hawthorne, Division, 12th, and 20th.

Ladd's Addition is named after William Sargent Ladd, a nineteenth-century Portland mayor. He originally owned a 126 acre (500,000 m²) farm on this land, and in 1891 decided to subdivide the land for residential use. Rather than follow the grid that the majority of Portland was based on, Ladd was inspired by Pierre L'Enfant's plan for Washington, D.C. Ladd designed the plat based on a diagonal street system surrounding a central park.

In addition to the off-kilter layout that has confounded many Portlanders, the narrow streets in Ladd's Addition are lined with old elm trees and many lead to a large traffic circle in the center. Other streets lead to four smaller, diamond-shaped "circles" located to the east, west, north, and south. Each of these "circles" contain a neighborhood rose garden, with the northern garden's rose bushes being in a slightly different layout than the other three.