Providence developments

I'm with everyone else here. The Holy Trinity of Art Deco towers in New England (so far as I'm aware) are 75-101 Fed & 160 Fed in Downtown Boston and this.

Superman Bldg. is a Top 5 iconic fixture in Providence's civic/cultural fabric, with

RISD,
Biltmore Hotel (in particular the stool where Buddy Cianci held forth from inside McCormick & Schmick's),
Federal Hill/Atwells Avenue (especially 169 Atwells Ave., where Raymond "L.S." Patriarca administered his reign of terror),
and the high-water mark of the Great 1938 Hurricane.
Civic Center--especially David Gavitt Memorial Drive & the rafters with the jerseys of Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, Ernie DiGregorio, Raymond L. Flynn.
(Throw in H.P. Lovecraft's grave & Waterfire & Giant Blue Bug for Top 10).

In particular, the drive I've done dozens of times northbound on I-95, where you come over the crest at Exit 18 and the Giant Blue Bug--Nibbles!--is on the left and the Superman tower emerges: This. Is. Providence.

picture.php


Finally, since we're talking all things Providence iconography, this gives me the excuse to link to this. Great movie; "the new Rocky."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ6ny-fROX8&t=54s
 
shmessy said:
If Providence truly wants to be considered a major league city it has to have a modicum of pride. It shouldn't be a smaller Newark.
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I'd modify that to:
"If Providence wants to be considered anything other than a totally failed wasteland, it has to have a modicum of pride."

Not demolishing your most iconic building doesn't make you a major-league city. Demolishing your most iconic building makes you Luanda.

Newark -- heck, even Camden or Trenton -- wouldn't demolish their equivalent of the Superman Building. Even **Detroit** doesn't do that these days.

Providence would vault into the US city with the least pride and grimmest prospects instantly if it did this.
 
The Superman Building is what I think of when I think of Providence.
 
Exactly. It's an icon, and to demolish it would be a travesty.
 
I found a couple of pics on flickr showing that the new 15 story building is well underway. The first one also makes me continue to wonder how they could possibly consider demolishing the city's most iconic building.

This view by Daniel Torres, on Flickr


The City by Daniel Torres, on Flickr
 
In that second photo, you can see the hotel that is starting to go up across the street. It is barely visible through the base of the tower crane.
 
Bergeron37 said:
Providence is tough market. I love the area (PC graduate) but they just can't get their shit together.
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RI has been fucked up forever. Some of the comments from the hearing and to the article are staggering. They all yap about 38 studios, but that was simply a ploy to steal a company from a rival state. This at least builds something that remains, and will spur more development. And might even entice restoration of the Superman building, since the cost to restore is so much and ROI so high, you need similar values in close proximity. Money draws money. Else you go the way of a Detroit.
 
Off topic development wise, but my take on PROVIDENCE, HARTFORD, WORCESTER, SPRINGFIELD, NEW HAVEN and BRIDGEPORT seeing there was some back and forth with previous posts. They are all impressive and historically important in their own right with similar populations (120K Hartford now - 253K Providence 1940) during the past 70 years.

Biggest city feel NOT based on population or land area: Hartford, Providence, New Haven, Springfield, Worcester, Bridgeport

Most impressive skyline: Hartford, Providence, New Haven, Springfield, Worcester, Bridgeport

City I'd most prefer to live in: Providence, New Haven, Springfield, Worcester, Hartford, Bridgeport

Best downtown for shopping and restaurants: Providence, New Haven, Hartford, Worcester, Bridgeport

Best city for entertainment, concerts and sports: Providence, Worcester, Hartford, Bridgeport, Springfield, New Haven

My choices are based on numerous visits to all five cities over the years and opinions from my brother who has been a commercial airline pilot for the past 22 years with many layovers in all the cities except for Bridgeport. Stamford was not added because I still don't consider it a classic New England hub city and it has more of a New York (White Plains) vibe than New England
 
Lrfox said:
None of the above, but it is small and provincial to a fault and that frustratingly rears its head in situations like this one. It's a weird place, man.
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If it's weird, it's only because its quintessentially New England ethnocultural traits/tapestry is so colorfully compressed within a narrow geography. Otherwise it's just like the rest of New England: vestiges of the original Puritan elites (i.e, descendants of the founders of Brown Univ. + their cohort), a large class of Swamp Yankees in the hinterland, large Italian & Irish urban cohorts descended from their forefathers who found themselves plunged into the breakneck urbanization/industrialization of 1850-1920, overlaid with a newer immigrant class from Central America, Southeast Asia, etc. And the overall story from approx. 1820-on mimics the rest of the region to a very large degree: the industrial dynamo of the world from ca. 1820-1920. Horrific deindustrialization from 1920-1980 or so. Urban renaissance since then to a large degree driven by "eds + meds".

Rhody's population is only just shy of ME & NH (they're both 1.3 million, RI is 1.0 million). Certainly, Rhody's sociopolitical traditions & tendencies get skewed by how utterly Providence dominates not only as the capital but as its GDP driver. I wonder if Providence metro has the most disproportionate share of any overall state economy in the country. But is the Providence effect that much more pronounced compared to how much Boston exerts such a fearsome gravitational warp on the MA hinterland?

Finally: it is probably hard to overestimate the immediate calamity--and lasting repercussions--of when the US Navy installation at Newport was abruptly shutdown by Tricky Dick Nixon in 1973:

"After the base closings, the statewide unemployment rate soared from about 6 per cent to 18.2 per cent, rising to more than 30 per cent in some towns.

Coupled with the economic impact of the Middle East oil embargo and the national recession, the loss of the Navy's $344 million annual payroll caused an immediate 6 per cent loss in the gross state product. Rhode Island, which trailed the average national per capita income by only $9 in 1972, fell $138 behind two years later. In one year, small-business income dropped by 25 per cent in the Newport area and by 15 per cent in the Quonset Point area."

Prior to that, the naval/maritime industries in the Greater Newport region probably served as a far more effective counterweight to the Providence economy. After, of course, Newport converted to an overwhelmingly tourism- and leisure-driven economy.

If only the Watergate timeline had been accelerated by a year?
 
^^^Good read DBM. Thanks for the background info.
 
DZH22 said:
^^^Good read DBM. Thanks for the background info.
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I forgot to add, simultaneous with the Irish/Italian influx of 1850-1920 or so, in RI the Franco-Canadian immigration was pretty damn significant. After all, Woonsocket [Woon-sock-et] is celebrated as "the Franco-Canadian Capital of America." That ethnocultural injection was most significant in Maine over all the other New England states, I have to think, but then maybe MA & RI are tied for 2nd place?

But again, I think that just reinforces the argument of how New England-ness is still a very real tangible phenomenon that can be measured demographically, and that the New England-wide regional similarities/associations outweigh the differences that exist on a town-to-town basis within any particular subregion, county, metro, what have you...
 
DBM said:
I wonder if Providence metro has the most disproportionate share of any overall state economy in the country.[/B]
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It's a tough one to measure or extrapolate given that the Providence metro area extends well into MA (Attleboro, Fall River, New Bedford, etc.).

Here's what I could figure out, with some back-of-the-napkin math involved:

Providence Metro Area GDP = $71.9 billion
Rhode Island GDP = $50.3 billion

In comparison, the Boston metro area GDP (which also includes Southern NH) is $438.7 billion, while MA GDP is $446.5 billion.

Another New England example would be the Portland metro area, with a GDP of $27.4 billion compared to all of Maine at $51.8 billion.

So, I think there is some validity to your thought that Providence metro has the most disproportionate share of any overall state economy in the country. Obviously these examples look at only New England, but I can't think of any other state that is dominated by one metro area as it's primary economic engine (maybe Anchorage, but how much economic stimuli is actually generated there vs. other parts of the state, with Anchorage simply being the main funnel for money?).
 
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