Archives For Preservation

The Providence Athenaeum SALON – May 3, 2013

gcpvd —  April 30, 2013 — Leave a comment

anthenaem

Photo from The Providence Athenaeum

Friday 5/3, 5-7pm: The Providence Athenaeum presents this week’s SALON: “Curating the City: Temporary Installations, Permanent Impressions,” Part 3: Artist/Researcher Adj Marshall in conversation with Marc Levitt, host of AS220′s Action Speaks, on Marshall’s “Wasteland National Park” project, a museo-memorial for the interstitial space between the Providence East Side Railroad Tunnel and the Providence Drawbridge.

Interstices, the empty spaces or gaps between spaces full of structures or matter, are easily overlooked and forgotten. Wasteland National Park, a project of Wasteland Twinning (wasteland-twinning.net) an international network of artists who are developing creative research practices to explore the role of wasteland spaces in contemporary cityscapes, seeks to explore and understand this interstitial Providence space by means of creative research and collaborative interpretation with the community. Marshall will discuss cultural, economic, historical, and ecological interpretations of space, industrial ruins, “place making,” and heterotopias.

Series curated by James Brayton Hall. Sponsor: Knoll Environmental Inc., knollenvironmental.com. At the Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street (corner of College Street) in Providence. Free and open to the public! ProvidenceAthenaeum.org

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So, the Mayor said this…

gcpvd —  March 20, 2013 — 19 Comments

On Channel 10 News Conference as reported by RINPR regarding the Superman Building…

The use that I really don’t want to see happen, but we have to put everything on the table is, is it more efficient to take it down and put something else up? I think that would be a tragedy in the sense it’s part of our history.

Discuss…

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ProJo: Longtime East Sider buying Clarke Flower

A longtime East Side resident and developer is a signature away from buying the former Clarke Flower Shops, a property closed since 2011 and dear to many of its neighbors.

Peter M. Scotti, 61, even worked at 398 Hope St. as a child when it was McCarron’s Flowers.

“It looks like a good property to redevelop,” he said Friday. “We’ve got to find a good use for the properties.”

See more posts about Clarke Flower Shop.

Posted by gcpvd on January 12, 2013 In Buildings , , , ,
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PPS: Most Endangered Property and Historic Preservation Award Nominations!

The Providence Preservation Society seeks nominations for their Most Endangered Property listing and their Historic Preservation Awards. Visit the link to submit your nominations.

Posted by gcpvd on January 11, 2013 In Buildings , , , ,
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Providence Preservation Society Fall Symposium, October 11-13

Jef Nickerson —  August 27, 2012 — Leave a comment

pps

Registration open now at ProvidenceSymposium.com

2012 Providence Symposium: Not Always Pretty: Behind the Façade of Historic Preservation

October 11-13, 2012

Registration to Open in Early September

Building on the success of last year’s Providence Symposium, Make no Little Plans, The Providence Preservation Society will convene a diverse group of speakers to examine the Historic Preservation movement’s past and future in Providence with the 2012 Symposium, Not Always Pretty: Behind the Façade of Historic Preservation.

The unparalleled beauty of Providence’s restored streetscapes masks a movement that has often relied upon unusual politics, uncomfortable compromises, and unpredictable alliances. As the idea of preservation in Providence has matured, so have our practices. We have often celebrated the “who” of Preservation, but the “why” and the “how” tell a much more nuanced, complicated, and sometimes less “pretty” story.

Our morning sessions on Friday, October 12, will look at early successes (even pre-PPS) and the learning curve that arced from the rescuing of Benefit Street to the American Screw Works fire to the first adaptive re-use projects. In the afternoon, developers, planners, and historians will speculate and spar, and examine their crystal balls to predict where we could and should be going for our next 50 years, and what our strategies should be to get us there! Does Brutalism have a future? Who’s history is this anyway? How much preservation is too much?

Join us and find out! Become part of this conversation which will help define tomorrow’s Providence!

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ProJo: $7-million Arcade revival taking shape

Seven months after unveiling a plan to transform the landmark Arcade building into a mix of retail and loft apartments, the owner of America’s oldest indoor mall says the project is taking shape.

Evan Granoff, of 130 Westminster Street Associates LLC, says four “unique” restaurants and 14 other small retail shops may occupy the first floor of the 1828 granite building as early as the end of September.

Posted by gcpvd on August 20, 2012 In Buildings, Development, Downcity , , , , , , , ,
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Two Downtown buildings added to the National Register

gcpvd —  August 7, 2012 — Leave a comment

YWCA

The 1905 Young Women’s Christian Association building and the 1872 First Universalist Church, both on Washington Street near Green Street have been added to the National Register.

Omni Development is working with the Providence Revolving Fund to renovate the Young Women’s Christian Association building into 59 units of affordable housing. The building, known today as the 1890 House, currently contains 52 units of elderly housing.

Read the press release from the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission.

Historic Designations Enable Rehab Projects: New Listings on the National Register

First Universalist ChurchTwo buildings in the amended Downtown Providence Historic District have received federal recognition for their contributions to the history of architecture and social history. Edward F. Sanderson, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, announced that the National Park Service extended the boundaries of Downtown Providence Historic District west on Washington Street to include the Young Women’s Christian Association building (1905-06) and the First Universalist Church (1872). The National Register is the Federal Government’s official list of properties throughout the United States whose historical and architectural significance makes them worthy of preservation.

Originally listed on the National Register in 1984, the Downtown Providence Historic District is bounded on the east by the Providence River, on the south by Interstate Highway 195, on the west by Interstate Highway 95, and on the north by Memorial Boulevard. The district is a densely built area dominated by commercial and institutional structures that chronicle the history of architecture from Federal buildings of the early 19th century through the many commercial types and styles of the 19th and 20th centuries. The district’s dozens of buildings, parks, and works of public art are significant to the history of commerce, landscape architecture, politics and government, religion, sculpture, transportation, and theater. Moreover, the growth of the area and its building patterns reflect the civic, commercial, and cultural development of a major central business district.

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News & Notes

gcpvd —  July 12, 2012 — 8 Comments

If you’re on Twitter or Facebook and live in Providence, then you’ve seen this story posted a thousand times already today, if you’re not, then here you go:

→ The New York Times: 36 Hours in Providence, R.I.

Providence’s grit and obscurity make it easy to underestimate. On the verge of bankruptcy, with a former mayor who served four years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy, the capital of the country’s smallest state has something of an image problem. But like Portland, Ore., or Austin, Tex., it’s also a town many times more creative and cosmopolitan than its modest population and municipal troubles suggest. Home to an Ivy League college, one of the best design schools in the country and a major culinary institute, Providence, unsurprisingly, has exceptional food, compelling art and architecture, a thriving gay scene and an inordinate number of very smart people. Yet the city remains unpretentious and affordable, a place where even the best restaurants rarely demand reservations.

→ Boston Society of Architects: Why punish Rhode Island?

…the [Boston-Providence] corridor has remained overshadowed, particularly after a few recent academic and professional Boston–Washington (Bos-Wash) rail concepts that shift the primary rail corridor between Boston and Washington westward, away from Providence and southern Rhode Island. The shift would reward regions and states, such as Connecticut, that have pursued a suburban auto-centric approach well into the 21st century. In turn, the process punishes Rhode Island after 15 years of rail-oriented advancement and three major breakthroughs…

See also: Fast Lane: High speed rail: right here, right now

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Providence’s Heaton & Cowing Mill added to the National Register

Jef Nickerson —  July 10, 2012 — Leave a comment

Heaton & Cowing Mill

The state Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission announced yesterday that the Heaton & Cowing Mill located at 1115 Douglas Avenue has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Read information from the Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission about the mill and the designation below:

One of Providence’s ealiest factories, The Heaton & Cowing Mill listed on the National Register

A Providence mill built in 1832 has received federal recognition for its contributions to the history of industry. Edward F. Sanderson, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, announced that the National Park Service has added the Heaton & Cowing Mill to the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is the Federal Government’s official list of properties throughout the United States whose historical and architectural significance makes them worthy of preservation. Built for the manufacture of textiles, the Heaton & Cowing Mill is a rare representative of the small-scale textile factories that utilized the water power of Rhode Island’s smaller rivers and streams in the first half of the 19th century.

Located at 1115 Douglas Avenue in Providence near the North Providence line, the Heaton & Cowing Mill is a small, two-story factory built in 1832 with an addition built between 1926 and 1937. The primary block is a coursed rubblestone masonry structure with a shallow end-gable roof. The brick trim—quoins and rusticated window and door surrounds—probably date to a rebuilding project following a fire in 1861. The original building has a generally open plan with timber framing, typical of mid-19th century mill construction.

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Downcity Design Review Committee Meeting – July 9, 2012

gcpvd —  June 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

Notice of Regular Meeting
Monday, July 9, 2012 – 4:45pm
Department of Planning and Development
1st Floor Meeting Room, 444 Westminster Street, Providence

Opening Session

  • Call to Order
  • Roll Call
  • Approval of Meeting Minutes of May 14, 2012 and June 11, 2012

New Business

DRC Application No. 12.16: 130 Westminster Street (The Arcade) Proposal by 130 Westminster Street Associates, LLC, to re?open existing window openings and install new windows; install new signage; and install new exterior stair glass enclosures and security gates as part of the renovation plan for the building.

Adjournment

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