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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On any given summer day in the city of Providence, you’re likely to notice a steady flow of people—Rhode Island locals, university students, families and young children—making their way down North Main Street towards Wickenden St., in the Fox Point neighborhood of the city.

It’s more than likely that all of those individuals are en route to India Point Park, located along India Street, where the Providence River meets the Seekonk. Providence has long been a crucial port city of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States—in fact, the area now known as India Point was an important center for trade since the late 1680s, far before the United States was even a nation.

In the late 17th century, goods such as teas, spices, and textile were exchanged here between the early settlers of Providence and the world; over the years, as time and industrial needs developed continued to grow into the 1800s and later, the focus would shift more to the exchange of valued products such as hardware and machinery, wool, and coal. After the Crash of 1929 and the devastation of the Great Depression, trade activity in the area declined greatly, and came to a full halt. However, in that span of 250 years, this port saw the coming and going of an incredible volume of ships, traders, merchants, and goods, although it looks quite different today than what one would have imagined it to be all those years ago.

Today, India Point Park is one of the largest public spaces in the city of Providence. After trade activity in the area ceased, and most of the incoming cargo was redirected to a new port located along Allens Avenue in Providence, the area was used mostly as a scrapyard and fell into disarray. In the 1960’s, with increasing efforts to urbanize Providence, the I-95 Interstate was constructed, running through the Fox Point neighborhood and essentially creating a divide between the India Point grounds and the rest of the city and infringing upon the lands of other public parks in the city, leaving them fragmented and neglected.

However, in the 1970s, one woman would come about with an arsenal of great ideas and mission—a passion—to beautify to city. That woman was Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, of Providence: a passionate gardener and self-taught landscape architect with a deep love for her city. Sharpe, the wife of the 12th Chancellor of Brown University, Henry Dexter Sharpe, parlayed her passion for her sprawling home gardens into landscaping projects for the University and, later, for the city of Providence. She had a particular passion for Japanese gardens, as well as for trees—she worked many years on creating a tree-planting program for the city, and lead efforts to combat the pervasive Dutch Elm Disease, whose effects were felt strongly in the city of Providence.

Sharpe established a committee of philanthropists and donors from among the citizens of Providence in order to petition the city to allow for a conversion and repurposing of that industrial scrapyard as public land—complete with a variety of green spaces, public amenities such as benches, piers, and walkways, and direct access to the waters of the Providence and Seekonk Rivers. Mrs. Sharpe not only appealed for the allocation of funds to found what is now India Point Park and to restore other parks around the city, but also donated roughly $153,000 of her own money to the realization of her project.

Her valiant efforts did not go unrewarded, and in 1974, India Point Park was formally dedicated, and given its name hearkening back to the earliest roots of the area as a point of commerce and trade with what were then called the East Indies by the early citizens of Providence. The park’s history, rich and colorful, truly cannot be told without acknowledging the work and passion of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, though much of the publicly-available information regarding the park today fails to mention her incredible efforts. Even after her death in 1985, she continued to support the beautification of the city of Providence with the Mary Elizabeth Sharpe Tree Endowment, a trust dedicated to tree-planting created by the Sharpe Family Foundation in 1988 to ensure that beautiful foliage would always be had wherever it was needed.

Today, the park is a hallmark of the city’s landscape, and provides some of the most scenic views of Providence and the surroundings waters. The park has recently been outfitted with an amphitheater for public events, as well as a newly-renovated pedestrian bridge and towering staircases that have reintegrated the park into the city and made it far more accessible, allow passersby to enjoy views of Providence and the Harbor as they cross above Interstate 95 on their way to the park, the Brown University boathouse, or to the popular hotel that was recently built right along India Street.

Now, each year, the July 4th celebrations at India Point also attract thousands of people from Providence and beyond—undeniable evidence of the fact that Mrs. Sharpe’s determined efforts have not gone unrecognized, and that the park will be loved and appreciated by all those who visit for many years to come.

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Thomas Davis, the namesake of Davis Park, was born in Ireland in 1806, and came to the United States in 1817. Unlike most of the Irish immigrants who would come to Providence, Davis was not Catholic, but instead a member of the Westminster Unitarian Church. Both his religion and financial success allowed him to move into the powerful elite of the state despite his foreign birth. Davis served as a member of the Rhode Island Senate from 1845 to 1853 and then a single term in the U.S. House from 1853 to 1855. In 1869, Davis and his second wife, Paulina, a prominent social activist in her own right, moved into a mansion with extensive grounds totaling thirty-four acres at the corner of Chalkstone Avenue and Raymond Street.

As one of the nineteenth century centers of the Industrial Revolution, by 1880, Providence was a city of over 100,000 people. During this time, a national movement arose for the preservation of green space for recreation. The Providence Parks Commission was founded in the 1880s with the original purpose of preserving the Cove Basin – the original tidal basin of the Providence River that the railroad companies wanted to pave over. The Commission advocated urban green space, specifically “a chain or system of smaller parks” throughout the city.  Many particularly believed that a park was needed in the Tenth Ward, a populous and geographically large area.

Meanwhile, Thomas Davis’ fortunes had taken an extreme turn for the worse. His wife Paulina died in 1876.  His businesses failed completely. In 1880, he even lost his right to vote because he could no longer meet the requirement to own $134 of property that naturalized voters such as himself were required to possess. Davis decided in 1890 to sell his mansion and grounds to the city for $75,000, enough to restore his financial security but considered a bargain price for the city. Davis died on July 26, 1895.

The new park was named Davis Park in honor of the former owner and became home to baseball games, children’s pageants, and scenic strolls for local residents.  After World War II, the city government made the controversial decision to donate all the land to the federal government for use as a Veterans Administration hospital.  Those that opposed said that construction of a hospital in Davis Park “means taking away from thousands of growing youngsters their only available recreational ground.” The city and the VA attempted to allay this concern by setting aside a small section of the old park that would include a baseball diamond and tennis courts. This plan immediately proved to be fraught with problems though and was abandoned. Children were instructed to use nearby O’Brien Park (at the corner of River and Regent Avenues) instead.

Eventually, the VA allowed neighborhood children the use of a playground, and in 1953, ceded eight acres back to the city, which would then include a larger park with baseball and softball fields and a basketball court.  Davis Park has remained a major center of recreation for the people of Providence.  As Valley and Smith Hill are now home to a large Hispanic population, a statue of César Chávez has been added to the park.  The installation of wrought iron fencing, the creation of a walking track, and the planting of community gardens that have further beautified the area.  Although most of those who use the park are probably not familiar with early social advocates Thomas and Paulina Davis, their name and legacy live on at Davis Park.

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