In 1764, Thomas Olney established one of the first mill privileges along the Woonasquatucket River. Through the rise and fall of industries and technologies, we now have the Rising Sun Mills . The complex is named for the paper mill Olney’s son built and operated until the early 1800s when it was sold and converted into a textile mill.

Although Rhode Island’s textile industries had originally been based on cotton manufacturing, by the mid 19th century, woolen production dominated. The blockade of southern ports during the Civil War cut the supply of cotton to New England’s textile mills, pushing many local manufacturers to produce yarns and cloths from local and imported wool. Soon there was a new market for worsted wool. Coats, suits, and cloaks made of worsted cloth had a smooth texture and sheen, a look that the public took to with gusto. Worsted fabrics were also highly desirable for military uniforms. Capitalizing on the trend, Providence became the largest producer of worsted goods in the country by the 1880s.

Jumping into the growing industry, Charles Fletcher bought the property in 1875 and converted the old paper mill building into a bustling yarn factory named the Providence Worsted Mill. In the volatile boom-and-bust business climate of the late 19th century, the textile industry consolidated to stay competitive. In the mid 1890s, the Providence Worsted Mill merged with the National Woolen Company to become the American Woolen Company. As Fletcher continued to add buildings to his yarn-making complex, his business expanded to produce a range of fabrics, not only woolens. Eventually, Fletcher incorporated his woolen and cotton textile factories to form the National and Providence Worsted Mills. At its height the company employed 750 workers, produced 900,000 yards of worsted goods yearly, and became the largest single consumer of wool in the United States.

The mill closed in the 1950s, along with many New England textile factories, as the industry moved south in search of a non-unionized work force. Oversized, distinctive mill complexes like Rising Sun stood empty and underused as Providence’s once mighty industrial base of textile and machine-tool production dispersed. Fortunately, mills like Rising Sun have more recently become beacons of innovation and adaptive reuse. Rising Sun, for example, is now home to 135 residential lofts, 120,000 square feet of corporate and professional office space, and houses architects, designers, software and pharmaceutical firms, and a yoga studio.

For more (including 2 images) view the original article

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.”

For more (including 2 images & 2 audio files) view the original article

Canonicus was the Narragansett sachem who offered refuge to Roger Williams and his party in 1636, but before this place was named that in a fit of Colonial Revival fervor, it was popularly called Hoyle Square. In 1953, Rhody Photo News said the district was “our 20^th century version of the Streets of Bagdad,” where you could find “a derelict headed for a mission soup kitchen brushing up against a well-to-do housewife on a bargain hunt.” Cranston and Westminster were both busy highways in the early 18^th century, providing access to western towns and Connecticut. Rochambeau marched his armies down Cranston Street in June 1781 to meet Washington and defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown. Back then, those soldiers marched past the Hoyle Tavern, where the Citizens Bank stands now. The tavern, built in 1739, became a focal point for gatherings and entertainment as the city grew. The tavern was demolished in the late 19^th century and the bank constructed in 1921. Redevelopment projects of the 1960s have drastically altered the life of the square. The north side of Westminster suggests the busy commercial area that once thrived here. 

For more (including 3 images) view the original article

For more (including 4 images) view the original article

Rainbow-colored homes spring up from the street grid in New Bedford’s West End like children’s play blocks. However, underneath the colorful patina of the Temple Landing Apartments lays a dramatic history of protest, neglect, and reuse.

To understand the full history of these bright new houses you must travel back half a century to the summers of the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the Civil Rights era, Black residents of New Bedford increasingly voiced their discontent over high unemployment and discriminatory hiring practices, poor public schools, and inadequate, unsafe housing.

In a series of actions called “the rebellion” by protestors and “the riots” by many others, the summer of 1970 erupted in arson, looting, sniper fire, and street confrontations in an increasingly hostile relationship between New Bedford’s Black residents and the police department. At one point, the National Guard was placed on alert in nearby Fall River.

These conflicts started in a variety of ways. Protests arose over the arrests of young African American men without obvious justification, and again when three white teenagers from surrounding towns drove into the neighborhood and shot indiscriminately into a crowd, killing one bystander and wounding several others. A white resident driving through the area told police he had been shot in the ankle as he passed the protest headquarters. The following day, New Bedford and state police raided the building, targeting the Black Panther-affiliated organizers. Twenty-one people were arrested, including unaffiliated activists, community supporters, and bystanders, and were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, anarchy, and riots.

Following this unrest, a group of community members established the United Front Development Corporation, which supported the construction of more and higher quality housing in the neighborhood on the site of the New Bedford Cordage Company, established in 1842 by ship owners and captains who needed rope for whaling vessels. The company grew and eventually filled a four-acre parcel bounded by Court, Emerson, Ash, and Kempton Streets, before closing in 1964. In 1973, a massive fire destroyed a two-block section of the vacant rope factory, and the remainder was demolished, along with older, blighted housing to make way for the United Front Homes.

The project was progressive and experimental for its time. Closed off from the general street grid, the 200-unit affordable housing development was accompanied by green space, a community center, and a daycare facility.

However, these 200 units did not meet the demands of the housing shortage. Meanwhile, the closed-off nature of the compound prevented police from driving through the development. Crime flourished, much of it committed by the United Front street gang, further damaging the development’s reputation. In 2008, a quarter of all shootings in New Bedford took place in United Front.

The tide began to turn after 2009, when several gang members were arrested. In 2010, the Boston-based group Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) extensively renovated the complex, partnering with United Front Development Corporation to improve 138 units, demolish 62 others, and build 35 new units. The net loss of 27 units was caused by reopening the complex to the street grid, connecting United Front with the rest of the city, and making crime prevention easier.

The new developers, eager to shed the connotations that United Front carried, renamed the development “Temple Landing” after Lewis Temple, the African-American inventor of the toggle harpoon that revolutionized whaling. Crime in the neighborhood has decreased since the opening of the new units, but only time will tell if this project serves the community better than its predecessor.

For more (including 5 images) view the original article

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 grew everywhere. On a warm day you could hear cicadas sing, and, at night, the frogs chirped. Everybody knew each other.

A close-knit neighborhood, old West Elmwood referred to the community bounded to the east by Mashapaug Pond, to the north by the railroad tracks at Huntington Avenue, and to the west by Niantic Avenue.

Dennis Maynard grew up in West Elmwood in the 1950s: "As a child living in that area it was like Disneyland. It was just a playground. To this day we always talk about West Elmwood as probably the best place you could grow up. It was a combination of residential, country, a lot of gardens. Not farms, but gardens. Lots of fruit trees. You had the access to the water. Everybody knew each other. Regardless of your race, everybody knew each other. As kids you were in everybody's house."

Today, old West Elmwood is gone.

Providence was one of many American cities drastically altered by so-called “urban renewal” projects in the mid-twentieth century. Supposedly “blighted” and deteriorated neighborhoods were demolished to make way for highways, industrial parks, and other modern urban structures. These changes were supposed to improve cities, but in many cases, they destroyed vibrant communities and negatively altered people’s lives. This is what happened in West Elmwood.

The Providence Redevelopment Agency bulldozed West Elmwood to construct the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park. Studies describing unhealthy and unsafe living conditions in this portion of West Elmwood were used to justify the city’s action.

Knocking down this portion of old West Elmwood forced families to leave both their homes and their community. As a result of implicitly racist practices of banks and lenders, people of color often could not get mortgages to purchase new homes in new suburban developments. “Many neighborhoods, [the government] classified as white,” explained Cliff Montiero, a longtime activist and opponent of urban renewal. “People of color could not get mortgages [to live] in those areas.” For the former residents of West Elmwood, who could not afford to buy a home in desirable neighborhoods outright, that meant they were forced to live in sub-prime housing. ”Many people [in West Elmwood] used to be homeowners. After losing their home ownership in the Mashapaug Pond area, [they] became renters,” Montiero said.

Some West Elmwood homeowners fought to save their homes with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League. Two hundred people signed a petition. People attended city government meetings, speaking out about the injustice of the urban renewal project and the Providence Redevelopment Agency’s misrepresentation of West Elmwood. Arguing that “urban renewal is Negro removal,” they highlighted the implicit racial discrimination in urban renewal projects, which disproportionately negatively affected colored people.

For five years, the people of West Elmwood fought for their neighborhood, but in the end their struggle failed. Most of the houses in old West Elmwood were knocked down. Over five hundred families were forced to leave. "They came in and tore down the houses, bulldozed the hill," recalled neighborhood resident Ed Hooks. Now, West Elmwood survives only in the memories of the people who once lived there.

Discussion Questions