If Garibaldi Park and the Gateway Arch are the welcoming arms of Federal Hill, DePasquale Square is its beating heart. The quatrefoil fountain and wide plaza were built as part of the Federal Hill revitalization effort. Back in the day, however, this was Arthur Avenue, a transverse artery of the “Italian Colony.” Tens of thousands of immigrant families packed into narrow streets and triple-deckers. The historic building rising four stories over the square is the Cappelli Block, completed in 1909 by Antonio Cappelli, who was among the earliest Italian arrivals on Federal Hill, when Irish immigrants dominated the avenue. An unregulated building boom resulted in tight streets and small flats without plumbing—the bathhouse in Garibaldi Park was a critical necessity. Along these streets, too, were the Hill’s famous pushcarts, which sold every variety of fruit and vegetable. Imagine the laborers of a hundred years ago who struggled to build a new life here, working in the mills, living in small tenements without water or light, and doing their daily shopping amid the vendors who stood along these storefronts.

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In the spring of 1975, women with sledgehammers marched on what was then called Franklin Park to attack a dilapidated bathhouse. Built in 1911 to serve the crowded Italian immigrant community, the bathhouse had outlived its usefulness. The women threatened to call the site “Mayor Cianci Park” after Providence’s first Italian-American mayor, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. Federal Hill had been the epicenter of the Italian immigrant experience in Rhode Island. Tens of thousands of new arrivals in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries got their start in America on Federal Hill. Their children and grandchildren wanted their neighborhood revitalized. Buddy turned the PR disaster into a coup. The bathhouse was demolished. The park rehabilitated and renamed Giuseppe Garibaldi Park. “This is the gateway to Federal Hill,” the mayor said at the rededication ceremony the following October. Within a few years, the gateway arch decorated with “La Pigna,” a symbol of hospitality, welcomed visitors into the hometown of the Italian diaspora, a neighborhood dedicated to the celebration of Italian culture and contributions to Rhode Island.

Watch a video featuring Taylor Polites, Curator of the West Side of Providence Rhode Tour, sharing his inspiration and insights on the development of this tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTkBitQ5sM.

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Entering Narragansett Bay in 1524, the explorer Giovanni de Verrazano was probably the first Italian visitor to Rhode Island, long before tomatoes made it to these parts. Rhode Island named the Jamestown Verrazano Bridge (in the southeastern part of the state) after him. It took more than three centuries before many other Italians settled in Rhode Island. Like many urban areas throughout the Eastern United States, Providence experienced several waves of immigration from Italy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Providence’s India Point was a main port on the Fabre Line, which offered the only transatlantic route to southern New England. Almost eighty-four thousand immigrants came into the United States through Providence, and around eleven thousand of them stayed. These Italian immigrants settled in the area now known as Federal Hill, on the west side of Providence, where their descendants and many other Italian Americans still live today. Visitors to this unique enclave of Italian-American heritage pass under a large sculpture of a pine cone, called La Pigna, which hangs above Atwells Avenue. The symbol of welcome and abundance tells people that they have arrived at one of the best-known culinary and cultural districts in the state. DePasquale Square marks the cultural, if not geographic, center of this vibrant neighborhood. A large central fountain is surrounded by outdoor seating, colorfully-painted buildings, and seagulls galore, all of which help create the feeling of a Mediterranean piazza. Numerous restaurants, serving Italian-inspired cuisine from all regions of Italy, fill the streets surrounding the square. Diners have options ranging from upscale dining in candlelit establishments to busy late-night pizza parlors. Numerous specialty food stores like Antonelli Poultry, where savvy cooks can purchase chickens wholesale, stand alongside bakeries and cafes where diners enjoy both espressos and an Ocean State classic, pizza strips -- consisting only of pizza dough topped with spicy tomato sauce.

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