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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As part of a nationwide “City Beautiful” movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Providence’s civic leaders envisioned the creation of numerous parks through the city as a means to provide refuge and beauty for its citizens as a counterweight to overcrowding conditions. The population of Providence had doubled between 1880 to 1910, and with the accompanying building boom came the construction of  nearly 30,000 dwellings. The congestion of the city meant that parks were no longer considered “luxuries,” but instead were recognized by the 1906 Board of Trade Journal as “necessities for the health and wellbeing of every community.”   In its report presented to the City Council of Providence in 1906, the Metropolitan Park Commission urged the “building of a parkway from Promenade Street, running along the easterly side of Davis Park, then running in a westerly direction through Pleasant Valley, and extending to Academy Avenue.” This area, a natural valley amidst Providence’s hills, was named “Pleasant Valley Parkway.” The intent of the new boulevard was two-fold: first, it would provide a welcoming, green destination, especially for drivers as automobiles were recent luxuries for the wealthy; second, the park would also increase the real estate value of surrounding homes. Pleasant Valley Parkway’s geographical layout -- running north from Promenade Street to Davis Park, then angularly veering west to run parallel with Chalkstone Avenue, until briefly heading north again to connect to Academy Avenue  -- was a response to the area at the beginning of the twentieth century. The stretch from Promenade Street to Davis Park had, over time, become a communal dumping ground for the residents of Smith Hill. (Open dumping grounds were a common occurrence during this time period as this was the first time that city-dwellers outnumbered those in rural areas on average in the nation. Cities were filling faster with people than municipal demands could generally keep up with.) Pleasant Valley Parkway was planned to rehabilitate this unslighty dumping ground, turning it into a more sanitary, usable location. Added onto this section, the east-west turn of the Parkway continued, following the course of a natural brook, which was incorporated as the scenic center of the boulevard. Apparently, after its completion in 1909, response to the new green thoroughfare was poor. The Metropolitan Park Commission noted that “the Pleasant Valley Parkway will in time prove to be a good public investment although it now begins dismally at Promenade Street, and ends unfortunately, before it gets much of anywhere.” Despite this negative response, the Commission was hopeful that the changing waterfronts of downtown Providence would lead to changes in the streetscapes, and thus in the appeal of Pleasant Valley Parkway. Over that past century, some scenes along the Parkway have changed,  like the building of the Roger Williams Medical Center or Nathanael Greene Middle School, but a good portion of Pleasant Valley Parkway is still residential and scenic -- either overlooking parks or the green space of the boulevard. One can get a sense of how the area looked and felt over a century ago when it was first created. Moving to the  southernmost section, closest to Promenade Street and the Woonasquatucket River, is urban and industrialized, with a number of businesses and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company Plant.

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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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One acre of water in the four-acre park here today represents a vital part of early Providence history. The water is a reminder of the hundreds of acres of brackish water that covered the area that Roger Williams knew as the Great Salt Cove. Over time the water was drained, the land filled, and by 1898 all water had been drained to support laying railroad tracks for a booming transportation industry that supported the successful commercial businesses of Providence. Times changed; businesses declined; the downtown area languished. However, the River Relocation Project of the 1980s and 1990s brought life back to the Providence city center and with it a reimagining of the water that once ran through it. Today, Waterplace Park and the surrounding areas are home to walking paths, restaurants, concerts and WaterFire.

Imagine the smoky smell of bonfire fire, the crisp sound of wood crackling, and the warmth of thousands of people gathered around the rivers to witness the city’s star attraction, WaterFire. The performance art piece first opened in 1994 with eleven braziers lit on the water. By 1998, 81 braziers were installed and thousands of people a night came to see the mesmerizing performance credited with bringing pedestrians back downtown.

Following decades of industrial decay in downtown Providence, few people made their way to the heart of the city. Artist Barnaby Evans wanted to create a space where people could gather and walk together along the newly engineered Rivers that flow through downtown. The newly unveiled River Project was a blank canvas for Evans to work, and as a city dweller he was dedicated to making the space a destination for pedestrians. "By design, there is no point where you can see the whole installation at once, so you mingle with other citizens as you walk," said Evans. "It is designed so people can interact with each other, with the artwork and with the urban environment.” Using public art to rethink urban space, Evans made Waterplace Park a destination for locals and tourists alike.  Over a million visitors have walked along the Riverwalk to see Providence’s star attraction.

Today, over eighty wood burning fires, a music program, and street performers lure visitors and residents alike to Waterplace Park and the Providence Riverwalk on WaterFire evenings. Former Mayor, Buddy Cianci, once said, “There is nothing like it anywhere in the world, even in Florence or Venice.”

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Amidst the flurry of trains and industry that marked this area during the 19th century was a much needed bucolic retreat, what we now call Burnside Park. Adjacent to the historic transportation hub of Providence, Burnside Park was originally created as a public space in 1892. The park eventually became a convenient downtown space to showcase two large public art works: the Bajnotti Fountain and the statue of notable Rhode Islander Ambrose Burnside.

Dedicated in 1901, the Bajnotti Fountain was a gift from Italian Diplomat Paul Bajnotti to the city of Providence in honor of his late wife, Carrie Mathilde Brown, whose family was prominent in the city. Bajnotti and Brown married in 1876 and spent most of their wedded life in Italy, but maintained strong ties to Providence. After Brown’s death in 1896, Bajnotti erected three monuments in memory of his beloved wife: the Carrie Tower at Brown University, the Pancratiast Statue at Roger Williams Park, and the Carrie Brown Bajnotti Memorial Fountain at Burnside Park. Enid Yandell, a student of Auguste Rodin and a prominent female sculptor at the time, was the only woman to submit a design proposal. She won the competition. The sculpture consists of three allegorical parts. One interpretation states that life is symbolized by the woman, the spirit, symbolized by an angel, and “earthly tendencies” represented by three male figures. Life holds onto the spirit and they are both bound to the earth for eternity––an appropriate memorial for the marriage.

The Burnside statue, dedicated in 1887, commemorates former Rhode Island governor and Civil War general Ambrose Burnside. Born in Indiana, Burnside attended the United States Military Academy, and was eventually stationed at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. When the Civil War began Burnside raised the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry Regiment becoming its colonel. He quickly climbed the Union ranks and played important leadership roles in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Unfortunately, Burnside is not well remembered for his military acumen. Failure at the Crater caused Union general Ulysses S. Grant to order Burnside on “extended leave” effectively ending his military career. Following the war, Burnside served three one year terms as governor of Rhode Island, and remained a popular public figure until his death in 1881. Launt Thompson, a New York sculptor, completed this memorial in 1887. It was dedicated in the park bearing Burnside’s name in 1906. The park is not Burnside’s only namesake, however--the term “sideburns” comes from his instantly recognizable facial hair.

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Created as Exchange Place in the 19th century, Kennedy Plaza stands out in a neighborhood defined by change. It’s served same role for over a century: the city’s central transportation hub. Today, as many as 69,000 people move through the site daily! In addition to being the geographic center of downtown and the main transportation hub, the plaza also serves as the city’s gathering point for civic events. The steps of City Hall make Kennedy Plaza an ideal spot for oration. Thousands of people stood here to listen to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, to witness the magical acts of Harry Houdini in 1914, and to see presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960. Following his assassination, Exchange Place was renamed to honor the President in 1964.

Kennedy Plaza is also home to several statues and monuments honoring Rhode Island veterans. The large Soldiers and Sailors Monument recalls Rhode Island’s involvement in the Civil War, including the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment, an African-American unit. The Hiker Statue commemorates Rhode Islanders’ involvement in the Spanish American War. Today, Kennedy Plaza remains a gathering place for the community, anchored by the Alex and Ani City Center, which features arts and music programming, as well as seasonal roller derby and ice-skating.

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At the crest of Smith Hill, once pastureland for a sleepy colonial town, sits a marble giant, the Rhode Island State House. Designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, responsible for the design of the Boston Public Library (1895) and renovations to the White House (1902), the domed building fitted in white Georgia marble was built (1895-1904) during a period of industrial prosperity for Rhode Island. In fact, thanks to the successes of textile, machine-tool, and jewelry manufacturing, to name only a few, Rhode Island emerged as one of the most prosperous states in the nation at the turn of the twentieth century. The State House stands as a testament to that wealth.

Inside the State House, a Royal Charter Museum showcases the Colonial Charter granted in 1663 by King Charles II of England. The Charter represents the first official sanctioning by a monarch of a colony that guaranteed religious liberty. In addition to the Charter, the Museum also displays materials that tell the fraught story of early relations between Rhode Island’s indigenous people, the Narragansetts, and English colonists. These materials include the original deed to Providence secured by Roger Williams and signed by Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomo. Thanks to his friendship with the Narragansett leaders, Williams would claim that, unlike other colonial land deals, “It was not price or money that could have purchased Rhode Island. Rhode Island was purchased by love.” Many assume that the statue atop the State House dome depicts Williams. However, the gold-covered bronze figure actually represents Rhode Island's Independent Man, embodying the spirit of freedom of thought and action that Williams espoused.

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Luongo Memorial Square was named in honor of Thomas S. and Vincent Luongo, World War I veterans who lived nearby. Before the name change in 1938, this was Decatur Square and is today a rare space in the city that evokes 19th century city life. The confluence of Fountain and Carpenter echoes the organic flow of streets and squares in early Providence. Hidden behind the major thoroughfares of Broadway and Westminster, these smaller squares often housed the working class. When the industrial bottom dropped out of Providence, many left these dense neighborhoods for the suburbs. Homes were abandoned to decay and corruption. Organizations like the WBNA and the Providence Revolving Fund served as advocates and change-makers, working hard with public and private partners to reanimate this once-moribund public space. Take a look at the before and after photos. Through research, WBNA Executive Director Kari Lang discovered that a horse fountain once adorned the square and commissioned one of similar design to recreate the aesthetic of old Providence in this now dynamic part of the city.

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Deborah Manchester gave Wheeler Ball Field to the town for “the children of Adamsville” in honor of her nephew, Philip Manchester Wheeler, and great-nephew, Stafford Manchester Wheeler who was killed in World War II. Miss Debbie worked for many years in Manchester’s Store. She had no children of her own, but for six months of every year she and her sister Lizzie and her brother Abraham raised their orphaned niece and nephew. The field has been a gathering spot for local kids for decades, first for informal pick-up games and today for the local Little League. In the 1940s and 1950s, local organizations often held bake sales on its stone walls.

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He looks surprised to see her but who can blame him? Goddesses do not often descend from the heavens and communicate with humans. The goddess Liberty hands a spear to a young farmer, still holding his plow. Leave your work in the fields! Take up arms and fight for freedom! History, the future, demands it!

William Granville Hastings (1868 – 1902), an extraordinary young sculptor, designed this classical Civil War memorial, Liberty Arming the Patriot. Gorham Company of Providence cast the memorial in bronze, and it was installed in Park Place in 1897.

Below Liberty and the farmer there is a Union artillery battery, men in the heat of battle, led by Rhode Island’s General Ambrose Burnside at Antietam Bridge. And on either side, two female figures: the Scribe of History, writing on a tablet; and Eternity, identifiable by her fern.

Rhode Island would see over 25,000 men go to battle during the course of the Civil War. Moved by the troops’ service, the Rhode Island Ladies’ Soldiers’ Memorial Association worked for eleven years to raise money to build the memorial, “conducting donations, public subscriptions, and entertainments.”

Many Ladies’ Soldiers’ Memorial Associations developed during and after the Civil War to support the troops, sending clothing, nursing the wounded, raising money for “the cause”, locating the bodies of the dead, and commemorating the fallen troops. Col. Elliott F. Shepard once claimed, “They were the ladies who, if they had been men, would have been soldiers.”

William Granville Hastings was born in Surrey, England, three years after the American Civil War ended. He won awards in art school for his renaissance-style vases, and he moved to Paris, France, to apprentice with artist Jules Dalou, who was known for producing realistic figures. At the age of twenty-three, Hastings immigrated to the United States to work as a designer and sculptor for the Gorham Manufacturing Company in New York. He received the commission for Liberty Arming the Patriot five years later, in 1896.

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In the 1780s, a visitor traveling through the Blackstone River Valley might have smelled the rich aroma of roasting cacao beans wafting from a small wooden building as they passed through the hamlet of Central Falls. Americans consumed chocolate products with a passion in the late eighteenth century, and for nearly two decades, Central Falls was a center of chocolate production, earning itself the title of “Chocolateville.”

Chocolateville’s namesake mill opened in 1782, operated by confectioner William Wheat. Wheat, who had previously established a chocolate-making business in Providence, moved to Central Falls to take advantage of the power provided by the Blackstone River. His chocolate mill was one of America’s earliest water-powered chocolate manufacturing facilities.

Within the mill, imported cacao beans were roasted and ground into a chocolate slurry, with plenty of sugar and spice added for taste, before being shaped into small blocks. Don’t think of a delicious chocolate bar when you imagine these blocks – even after processing, the chocolate of this era was chalky and gritty. Most people purchased chocolate to use in baking or in concocting the fashionable beverage of “drinking chocolate.”

“Drinking chocolate” or “hot chocolate” became enormously popular during the late 1700s; Thomas Jefferson even predicted that it would overtake tea and coffee in usage. In 1773 alone, over 320 tons of cacao beans were imported into the American colonies. By this period hot chocolate was affordable to nearly everyone and was frequently served in coffee houses, where colonists would gather to talk about politics and the news of the day. When colonists boycotted tea during the American Revolution, hot chocolate was favored as an alternative drink.

Chocolate was also sought for its supposed medicinal powers. Thought to aid everything from the stomach to the brain, people used chocolate as a home remedy for illness. At least one doctor in the period even prescribed chocolate with a biscuit as part of one’s preparation for a smallpox inoculation.

Chocolate production connected the small community of Central Falls with the wider Atlantic world. Caribbean and South American slave plantations provided William Wheat, and other New England chocolate manufacturers, with cacao beans. Once processed, Wheat found a ready market for his chocolate in the bustling port cities of Providence and Newport. It’s even thought that chocolate from Wheat’s mill may have fed European soldiers fighting in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars – a far cry from the waters of the Blackstone.

However, Chocolateville didn’t last. The chocolate mill changed ownership in 1784, and as economic tides shifted, cotton production soared in the region – surely a blow to the area’s chocolate aficionados. Following a major flood in the early 1800s, the empty and dilapidated building became known to locals as “the Quail’s Trap.” By around 1834, all traces of the mill that gave “Chocolateville” its name were gone. In recent years, Central Falls has reclaimed its identity and nickname, opening the Chocolate Mill Overlook Park. Visitors can imagine the smell of chocolate drifting over the park, linking the area to its tastiest product.

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In 1880, about 104,000 people lived in Providence. Thirty years later, the city’s population had more than doubled, reaching over 223,000 people. Most of this population increase was due to immigration; among those attracted to the city’s numerous manufacturing and industrial jobs were Irish, Italians, French Canadians, and Germans. This rapid population growth fueled the dramatic expansion of new residential areas at the city’s edges – areas like the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood of Mashapaug Pond. Today, although the people who call the neighborhood home have changed over time, Reservoir Triangle remains one of the most ethnically diverse spaces in the city.

In recent years, immigrants have come from such places as Cambodia, Ghana, and Vietnam. Since the 1950s, a large number of Latino immigrants also have made Providence their home. Today, Latinos make up close to forty percent of the city’s population and tiny Rhode Island is the twelfth most Hispanic state in the country. Asian Americans are also well represented within Providence, consisting of seven percent of the city’s population.

These groups – like the immigrants to the region in the early twentieth century – are united in their common interest to create new lives for themselves, using both what they find here in their new country as well as skills, traditions, and practices brought from their homelands. Immigrant groups and refugees in the United States face many challenges, but there is much to learn from neighborhoods where diverse groups work together to create positive change. In the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, Mashapaug Pond can be the catalyst that unites these groups.

Mashapaug Pond, with its contaminated water and restricted access, can be an imposing site to newcomers in the neighborhood. Sokeo Ros, who moved to the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood from Cambodia, says that many of his neighbors avoid the pond: “It’s a beautiful neighborhood. It’s quiet, it’s not loud, it’s nice. There’s a lot of trees, which I like. I love trees. And then there’s this pond. That nobody goes near.” The big fences that surround the contaminated land of the former Gorham plant intimidate residents, block their view of the pond and create a culture of fear.

For some residents, the pond beckons with the opportunity to fish and enjoy nature in the city.  Samnang Yong, another Cambodian resident who grew up in the neighborhood in the 1980’s, remembers shopping at local Asian markets and fishing in the pond: “Coming from a country where we were just always fishing in our backyard. We don't expect anything, we just go and fish for food.” Now  years of pollution have made the fish unsafe to eat. Discouraging this practice and educating people about the pond is an ongoing struggle.

Some area residents try to teach their neighbors about the pond. Ana Quezada, originally from the Dominican Republic, works with the Environmental Justice League on outreach and education. She compares the neighborhood – and especially the presence of the pond and its plant and animal life – to her experiences growing up in the Dominican Republic. “Well for me being near the pond is normal because I come from the Dominican Republic. There it is hot all the time. We had a lot of mosquitos and we used to see all kinds of wild things.” Ana Quezada notes that her husband enjoys sitting out by the pond and that she has community events at her house. She hopes that in the future the cleaned up pond will be a more vibrant and lively space for all members of this diverse community.

Discussion Questions

Besides the United States, what other countries do you have ties to?

Do you smell any food being cooked in your neighborhood? What types of food does your family make at home?

What can the immigrant history of this area teach us about Providence and the United States?

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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 Gorham Manufacturing Company, appeared throughout the state. Known for its world-class products in bronze and silver, Gorham left behind a toxic legacy at the site where its Mashapaug Pond factory operated for nearly 100 years.

Today, the Gorham Manufacturing Company is infamous in the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood for polluting the water, soil, and air of the community. For all of the nineteenth century, and most of the twentieth century, there were few restrictions on companies’ use of potentially harmful materials.  At Gorham, workers regularly used cleaners with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), solvents, heavy metals such as lead, and other contaminants. With little thought to the environmental impact, these pollutants leached into the surrounding soil and water.

By the 1960s, industrial manufacturing had largely left Rhode Island and other states, and Americans were left to deal with the waste that factories had produced. The Environmental  Protection Agency (EPA), established in 1970, set guidelines to control industrial dumping and provided ways to force polluters to clean up contaminated sites. Two years later, the Clean Water Act of 1972, set water quality standards and prohibited the dumping industrial waste directly into waterways.

Textron, Inc., bought Gorham’s assets shortly before the passage of the Clean Water Act. In doing so they became responsible for the cleanup of the Gorham site, including Mashapaug Cove and the ground water. With help from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Textron has funded the effort to make the Gorham site safe for human use. It is a long process that is taking many years. Thus far, Textron has completed the ground remediation of the area that is now home to Alvarez High School and the Mashapaug Commons shopping center. Air filtration systems have also been added to both the school, shopping center, and nearby homes on Adelaide Avenue, ensuring the safety of local residents.

Further cleanup work includes covering contaminated soil with clean infill, dredging the Gorham “cove” of Mashapaug Pond to remove toxic sediment, and undertaking groundwater remediation throughout the area. Although it has been a slow process, this parcel will soon be safe for human recreational use. Eventually, the polluted land will hold a new neighborhood park and athletic fields for Alvarez High School.

Today, high levels of heavy metals, VOCs, PAHs, and dioxin are still found in the sediment of Mashapaug Cove. Carp, bass, and perch swim valiantly through the water, collecting chemical contaminants in their tissues. None of the fish in the pond are safe for human consumption. It is impossible to know whether these toxins are due solely to Gorham or if they have continually accumulated through storm-water runoff. Despite the extensive remediation work, Mashapaug Pond and the fish within it will remain contaminated, a legacy of the state’s industrial heritage.

Discussion Questions