seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Lithuania
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Georgia
seen from Singapore
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from France
The Downcity Plan, II
This view is similar to the one that impressed me from the Arcade (left) on my first visit to Providence. *** Editor’s note: This is the bottom half of the 22nd and final chapter, “The Downcity Plan,” from Lost Providence. Chapter 22 concludes Part II of the book, whose final two chapters record the two major projects that sparked the Providence renaissance, which followed a series of major…
View On WordPress
Westminster Street in 1978. Note the faux modernist siding on ground floors, including, at far right, the sheathing on the Old Providence Journal Building, applied in the 1950s prior to the Downtown 1970 Plan. This is the bottom half of Chapter 22, “The Downcity Plan,” from Lost Providence, published in 2017: *** Economist Richard Florida’s 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class revealed, as if…
View On WordPress
Authenticity in placemaking
AS220’s “Unpacking Authentic Placemaking” at the Peerless Building. Left to right, standing and on panel: Marc Levitt, Lucie Searle, Rick Lowe, Myrna Breitbart, Umberto Crenca and Andres Duany. (This and first photo below by David Brussat) Here is a relatively lengthy post from 2015 that strikes me as picking up a number of themes that bear repeating, not just for downtown Providence but for…
View On WordPress
Fictional billiard room in Oxford
Fictional billiard room in Oxford
Fifth-floor Smith Building loft, in downtown Providence, decked out for holiday tour in 2008. I once lived for 11 years, 1999-2010, in a downtown Providence billiard room. It was a loft on the fifth floor of the Smith Building (built in 1912) on Eddy Street, renovated in 1999 with views looking to the south and east, down Fulton Street between City Hall and the old Providence Journal building…
View On WordPress
Best trad buildings of 2020
Best trad buildings of 2020
Tennis pavilion promoted by Melania Trump on the White House grounds. (White House) Two weeks before President Trump signed his executive order calling for federal buildings to be designed in traditional styles, his wife, the first lady, Melania, announced the completion of a tennis pavilion on the White House grounds designed with the White House itself in mind. It was designed by Steven…
View On WordPress
New and old on Westminster
New and old on Westminster
From left, the Trayne addition, the Trayne, the Wit, and the Lapham. (Photo by author)
Several years in the making, renovations to downtown’s Westminster Street between Union and Mathewson are almost done. It will take more time, and possibly the extirpation of coronavirus “and stuff” (as my son puts it), for the buildings to be fully tenanted (as the property developers put it).
Still, this blog…
View On WordPress
Still attacking Kennedy Plaza
Still attacking Kennedy Plaza
Sketch of Kennedy Plaza plan proposed by Union Studio in 2013. (Union Studio)
A sensible plan to renovate Kennedy Plaza attractively without evicting public transit from Providence’s central square – by far its most logical location – was submitted in 2013, designed by Union Studio. In 2015, this plan was frog-marched out of the picture by transit officials and replaced by a plan worthy of a…
View On WordPress
The Nightingale sings, so far
The Nightingale sings, so far
Brickword on the Washington Street facade of the Nightingale Building. (photo by author)
A large square extraordinarily promising brick building arises on the block downtown where hundreds of Providence Journal employees used to park. I just learned today that it will be called the Nightingale Building. Buff Chace, whose work has revived downtown Providence almost singlehandedly, comes from good…
View On WordPress
