Bret Ancowitz
The Pearl Street Cafe, which recently closed, was an old wooden structure that had an isolated location in back of RI Hospital and Women and Infant’s Hospital. Despite the location, it always seemed quite busy with lunch customers.
The excellent lunch stand there always felt to me like an oasis in the center of an absolute asphalt ocean of depressing surface parking for the hospitals. I always fantasized that the building’s existence had to be due to a little old woman who lived there in the 1920’s shaking her cane at the bulldozers yelling, “Ya’ canna’ make me leave m’ house!” Who knows the real reason…
After being empty for a time, there’s now a sign outside stating that Jac’s Wraps, of Pawtucket-renovated-gas-station across from the Modern Diner fame, is opening up there. It looks like renovation is just beginning.
That’s great news, as I’m a fan of both Jac’s and that site at 78 Pearl St (I wasn’t kidding about that site being in the middle of acres of parking: Use the “mouse-look” feature of the map below to look around).
View Larger Map. Logo from Jac’s Wraps website, map from Google
Update by Jef: I didn’t want to start a new thread for this, so I’ll just tack it onto Bret’s post.
Renovation work has been going on at the former Coin-o-matic on Atwells Ave. for some time. Someone finally put a sign in the window to let us all know what they are doing:
Photo by Jef Nickerson
Seeing as it is right up the block from my house, I’m hoping Mr. Pocket’s grilled sandwiches will be yummy.
Jef Nickerson
Unrelated topic but I can’t resist pointing out how that “asphalt ocean” is the biggest TOD opportunity in the region. Dreams of streetcar lines tend to forget about the hospitals. They are not fun but they are huge traffic generators.
Can I get an AMEN! for Andrew?
What I’ve heard from people in the city is that the desire for a starter streetcar line would connect the hospitals to Brown and the train station. While that would likely generate a good amount of use, I can’t help but think Broad/Elmwood or North Main, somewhere we already have lots of transit riders, would be the best place to start laying rails.
For anyone who doesn’t know, TOD = Transit Oriented Development