Founded in 2002 on the former site of Providence Steel and Iron Company (PS&I), the Steel Yard’s 3.5-acre site has become a community gathering space for people interested in creative, industrial arts. The design of this former brownfield site embraces the property’s urban industrial history while incorporating innovative approaches to sustainability.

Founded in 1822, PS&I built precision iron castings, water meters and architectural ironwork. In addition to installing pipes in numerous local buildings, such as the Pawtucket Times Building and the William Fletcher Building, PS&I produced ironworks for the iconic Library of Congress. PS&I purchased the 27 Sims Avenue site in 1902 to accommodate its growing manufacturing output. The complex expanded over the next forty years, eventually absorbing the former Providence Brewery site. PS&I was an early adopter of electrical power in the 1890s and utilized electrically driven movable cranes and hoists to manage heavy materials and parts in their fabrication and assembly process. Technological innovation in steel manufacturing resulted in increased output of large industrial products such as bridges, trusses, girders, stairs, fences, railings, and grillwork. After 179 years of operation, PS&I closed in 2001.

In 2002, two local artists and entrepreneurs purchased the property. The owners formed the nonprofit Woonasquatucket Valley Community Build, which operates as the Steel Yard, and began to actively rehabilitate the facility. The first priority was to address the site’s toxic environmental legacy. As part of their operations, PS&I sprayed lead-based paint onto steel beams. Overspray resulted in elevated lead levels in the soil. In 2007 the Steel Yard began a brownfield cleanup in compliance with the EPA, the RI DEM and the Narragansett Bay Commission, which it completed in 2007. The Steel Yard’s cleanup is a showcase for regenerative design. What was once two acres of unusable space is now a de facto public park, home to over 100 trees, a half acre of green space, and storm water-managing wetland plants.

As part of the transformation, old PS&I buildings have been converted into over 9,000 square feet of workspaces for artists, classrooms (for education and job training), and office space. The Steel Yard is the recipient of the 2010 Providence Preservation Reuse and Neighborhood Revitalization Award, the 2011 Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the 2013 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.

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When Alfred Augustus Reed of Providence formed the Oriental Mills Manufacturing Company for the production of cotton sheet goods, he and his associates also formed the Oriental Print Works, located in Warwick, RI.  Although the printworks failed during the Depression of 1873, production at the parent mill lasted until the Depression of 1893 when Oriental went out of business.  The mill property was purchased by J.P. Campbell & Co., which continued cotton production until 1907.  The following year, the mill property was purchased by Edgar J. Lowenstein and reborn as the American Silk Spinning Co. Despite its name, American Silk eventually would branch out into weaving synthetic fibers with considerable success until 1962.  Union Industries of Providence then purchased the mill complex, transforming it into a production facility for packaging materials. Originally known as Union Paper, the firm now calls itself Admiral Packaging Division of Union Industries. Today, the original mill serves as a showroom and corporate offices, with remaining spaces rented to other firms, while production continues in the more modern parts of the complex. The mill complex is located on the northeastern edge of Smith Hill at the southern end of what was the West River industrial district.  Originally part of North Providence, this area began to develop as a factory corridor following construction of the Providence and Worcester Railroad in 1848. Noted Providence architect Niles B. Schubarth designed the original three-story production loft which is mostly visible today, although obscured by later single-story weave sheds on the west (Whipple St.) side and by other buildings to the east and south.  Additionally, the original complex contained a smaller three-story loft as well as a power house, of which only the brick chimney remains. The main building is a classic “New England Mill” design, long and narrow to accommodate line-shaft mechanical power and copiously endowed with arched windows to allow for maximum natural lighting.  The most distinctive architectural features of the site are the twin external stair towers on the east and west sides, originally crowned with helm roofs (one was lost years ago and not replaced). Despite twentieth-century modifications to windows and doorways and infilling of the site with more modern structures, the basic architectural integrity of the complex remains. Construction of this mill and its neighboring industrial facilities spurred rapid residential development in both Smith Hill and West River for the simple reason that factory employees needed easy pedestrian access to their places of employment. The City of Providence annexed this area by 1874, and urban amenities such as schools, churches, public safety installations and public transit gradually followed.  Very little of this development remains today, the result of highway construction, urban renewal, and the de-industrialization of the city. The West River residential neighborhood to the north has entirely disappeared along with most of its factories.  Railroad roundhouses and storage tracks to the east likewise are gone. The extensive Chad Brown/Admiral Terrace housing project on the west side dates only from the 1940s. Thus, the old mill seemingly stands alone, without historical context save for remnants of old Smith Hill to the south.

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The urban landscape of southern New England displays an iconic form of domestic architecture seldom found elsewhere: stacked three-unit apartment house commonly called a “triple decker.” Thousands of such structures were built between 1880 and 1930, principally to house an ever-growing and largely immigrant working population. Although the social and economic forces that created the style have long since vanished, a surprising number of triple deckers have survived, thanks due to their basic livability and potential for adaptive re-use.   Although constructed by a myriad of small-time designer-builders, most triple-deckers share a common set of design characteristics, determined largely by maximizing practicality while minimizing less-desirable aspects of urban tenements. Three features in particular are predominate. First, generally there is one apartment per floor, with adequate roominess (1000-1200 square feet), numerous windows on all sides, and generous porches on the front and often on the rear. Second, the room arrangement is typical of middle-class single-family homes,  typically including a parlor, dining area, kitchen, bath and two bedrooms. Third, architectural integrity provided visual interest: while not professionally designed, most copied popular Queen Anne Style features such as strong vertical lines (stacked columned porches and window bays), visual interest (contrasting siding textures and colors), and decorative details such as art-glass windows. Triple deckers were marketed to a specific type of buyer: successful new home-owner. Within the building, one unit could be the homeowner’s residence, while the other units either provided rental income or could house members of an extended family. Thus, this sort of home ownership not only provided a taste of middle-class respectability, but also offered an entry to middle-class economic security. However, society at large did not share this vision in the long run, principally due to anti-immigrant bias.  Passage of strict building codes coupled with immigration restriction brought an end to new construction by the later 1920s. Oakland Avenue, the western edge of the Smith Hill neighborhood, features a fine display of surviving triple-deckers, a streetscape little changed for nearly a century. Most of these were built during the 1920s, when clearly this was a middle-class neighborhood.  Although urban decay previously left its mark, many of the structures have been rehabilitated, finding use as housing for students at nearby Providence College.  In most cases, original details have been lost, but the overall impression is intact.  Well-kept examples abound, an image of what much of Providence once was.

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The modest sign remaining on Kinsley Avenue does not do justice to this former industrial behemoth. The contribution of machines, and the parts and tools needed to run them, can sometimes be lost on the consumer who purchases the end product.

Nicholson File is a toolmaker that today’s consumers might not appreciate or even notice. Yet if you had opened any newspaper from any region of the US at the turn of the 20th century, chances are you would see an ad for a Nicholson File. Nicholson File Company was the world’s first commercially successful manufacturer of machine-made files (rather than hand sharpened). Founded at the end of the Civil War in 1864 by William T. Nicholson, the company dominated the file market for a century. The company occupied these buildings for 90 years.

William T. Nicholson was born in Pawtucket, RI in 1834. His coming of age story reads like a journey across Providence’s major industrial giants. At age 14 he joined his father and learned the machinist’s trade (shaping, cutting and forming of metal) and at 17 worked in the manufacture of screw machines for Eagle Screw Company in Providence. In 1852 Nicholson worked for Joseph Brown (founder of Brown and Sharpe) in the manufacture of surveyors’ instruments, watches, clocks, rules and gauges for precision measurement. By 1858 he formed a partnership with Isaac Brownell to manufacture jeweler’s tools and light machinery. He took over the company in 1859.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Nicholson got into the arms business, making parts for the Springfield rifle, the standard infantry weapon for the Union Army. At the end of the war, he started making files to be used in machine tool production. By 1886 his company manufactured 1500 files a day that ranged in size from 10 pounds to featherweight files used by watchmakers.

Ever vigilant of the market, and following a trend in American manufacturing at the time for horizontal integration, Nicholson began acquiring file manufacturers around the country in the 1890s. By 1909 the various Nicholson plants produced 120,000 files a day, employed 2,500 people, and comprised 80% of the national market for files.

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This 25-acre parcel and 12-building campus along the Woonasquatucket River was once home to one of Providence’s premier companies, Brown and Sharpe.

In 1833 David Brown and his son opened a shop in Providence for the making and repair of watches and clocks and other precision mechanical work. Lucien Sharpe joined the business as an apprentice in 1848 and became a full partner in 1853. While Brown concentrated on mechanical problems, Sharpe provided business acumen. Together they made Brown and Sharpe into a nationally recognized machine tool producer.

Brown and Sharpe’s products were the day-to-day tools of machinists and allowed them to produce the individual parts of complex manufacturing machines. Machinists, and the products they make, constitute the foundation of precision manufacturing.

The 1850s marked the beginning of the company’s spectacular rise. Brown devoted his career to raising the standard of accuracy in machine shop operations: he built an automatic linear dividing engine so fundamentally correct in design and workmanship that it has remained in continuous service. His pocket vernier caliper (a linear measuring instrument) of 1851 has been called "the first practical tool for exact measurement which could be sold in any country at a price within the reach of the ordinary machinist." In 1861, in perhaps his most important contribution, Brown invented the modern universal milling machine for cutting spirals. This machine helped advance mass production of cheap, interchangeable, and standard, parts.

After Brown's death in 1876, Oscar J. Beale became the company's genius in the field of mechanical design. He developed a measuring machine that enabled the company to make and sell its gauges with a guarantee of accuracy to within one ten-thousandth of an inch. In 1880, he invented an automatic screw machine.

Brown and Sharpe’s success depended on and helped to advance the mechanization of daily life in the 19th century. The machine tools the company produced proved instrumental to countless automotive, aeronautic, commercial, and domestic products. Brown and Sharpe's skilled workforce contributed to the development of the automobile and aviation industries and to the emergence of the United States as a global leader in manufacturing.

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The US Rubber Company Mill has a complex history of ownership and use that stretches over 80 years. From its inception as the Joseph Banigan Rubber Company (1896-1910), through its acquisition and expansion as a regional plant of the US Rubber Company (1910-1975), to its current use as the Waterfire Arts Center and other industrial, commercial, and residential uses, this complex is representative of the reinvention and reuse of industrial buildings throughout New England.

The story of the complex begins with Joseph Banigan, Rhode Island’s first Irish-Catholic millionaire. Born in Ireland in 1839, he fled the ravages of the Irish potato famine as a child and came to Providence, where he joined nearly 16,000 of his fellow Irish immigrants. As a young man Banigan apprenticed at the Providence Rubber Company where he learned the industry. In 1889, at the age of 50, Banigan established his own company in Woonsocket. The Alice Factory, named for his mother, was the largest rubber factory in the world.

After a few years, Banigan returned to Providence to find that the city’s industrial base had changed; machine tool manufacturing now surpassed textile production. With the rechanneling of the Woonasquatucket River, the introduction of rail service along the city’s expanding industrial corridor, and the availability of process water (water that is no longer clean enough to drink but can be used in a factory), a number of new manufacturing firms moved to the banks of the river. Banigan purchased a building owned by the Saxon Worsted Company and constructed a number of new buildings to house the production of rubber shoes and boots.

While building his rubber empire, Banigan did not forget his Irish heritage and humble beginnings. He donated generously to the city’s orphanages, the Lying In Hospital (now Women & Infants Hospital), the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Home for the Aged, and St. Maria’s Home for Working Girls. After Banigan’s death, his business was sold to US Rubber Company, which shifted its production from footwear to rubber tires and rubber thread.

US Rubber doubled down on Providence in what the Providence Journal described as “one of the largest real estate transactions that has ever been recorded in this city.” The company expanded, purchasing the idle ALCO buildings in 1918 and began outfitting them for the manufacture of solid and pneumatic tires. In its adaptation of pre-existing buildings for new uses, the US Rubber Company was typical of expanding manufacturers of the period.

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