Mashapaug Pond

Providence's Mashapaug Pond has been forgotten and overlooked for decades, contaminated by industrial pollution and separated from the communities that surround it. Now, the pond comes alive as an imagined place, present in memories of former residents, in the bonds that tie together current neighbors, and in the visions of pond activists. Discover the pond’s engaging social history and understand the natural forces that have shaped the pond over the centuries. Learn about current efforts to ensure that Mashapaug Pond is preserved as an urban oasis.

Staring at the endless concrete in the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park, it seems impossible that this was once a vibrant neighborhood. Laughing children ran across neighbors’ yards, caught up in games of hide and seek. The smell of coffee, oranges, and kerosene filled the air. Fruit trees…
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In 1980, up to $1.5 million worth of silver flowed from Providence factories into the Narragansett Bay, giving new meaning to the phrase “a waste of money.” Much of this silver originated from the electroplating firms located in the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park on the north shore of…
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What did Mashapaug Pond look like five years ago? Fifty years ago? Five hundred years ago? Five hundred million years ago? How was that terrain different from today? The physical appearance of the pond today has slowly evolved through the dual processes of geologic change and human action. 565…
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On a frigid February in 1904, fifty riders and horses gathered at frozen Mashapaug Pond for an afternoon of racing on the ice. Beyond the pleasure of competition, the races gave local residents a chance to admire each other’s horses and to appreciate the conclusion of the ice harvesting season.…
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Mashapaug Pond is at the center of a complex freshwater ecosystem. Underneath the pond’s calm green surface is a strange world of toxic carp, three-eyed frogs, and rusting refuse. Many people think of cities and the wilderness as completely separate spaces, but Mashapaug Pond is the perfect example…
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When Liz Camp, a resident of the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, heard that developers wanted to build over two dozen townhouses on an open plot of land near Mashapaug Pond, she knew she had had to do something to halt the construction. After years of campaigning, when the governor’s office told…
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In the summers, Providence residents waded into Mashapaug Pond to get clean – or, more precisely, for spiritual cleansing. "The choir would sing and the Word was preached before the candidate entered the water to have his sins washed away," recalled Ralph Simmons, a member of the Pond Street…
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A school did not always stand on this ground. For nearly a century, the Gorham Manufacturing Company operated an extensive factory on the banks of Mashapaug Pond. Gorham left a complex legacy. While it brought thousands of well-paying jobs to the community, it also polluted the groundwater and…
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Rhode Island has a long history of industrial manufacturing. Slater Mill, on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is considered  the “birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution.” By the early 1800s, that fervor for manufacturing had spread, and companies, like the…
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Walking down Resevoir Avenue today, the sweet fragrance of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits mixes with the aroma of traffic. Strolling through Reservoir Triangle and the surrounding neighborhoods, the scent of Cambodian and Spanish food wafts out of kitchen windows. Buckets filled with garden soil,…
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