The Other "P" City

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castevens

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PROVIDENCE!!!

I live outside Providence in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. I love the city.

There are currently 2 big towers going up, one that will change the famous skyline significantly. All Rhode Islanders know the three big buildings in the middle, and anyone who has seen Family Guy has seen the skyline 40 times per episode in the background. The new building, One Ten Providence, will be far and away the tallest building in Providence.

The Westin next to the mall is also being built. This building will be taller than the other Westin tower, and the 4th tallest in Providence (including One Ten). Also being built are Waterplace 1 and 2, both within the top 12 in height.
 
this is a very exciting time for providence, which is probably the fastest growing city in New England. I have been watching those projects you spoke of develop over the past few years. What a cool city. I used to think it was trashy but the more i learn, the more i like.
 
castevens--I wanted to impress upon you to take and post some photos now that you are down Providence way.

Is The Living Room still there? Lupos? (Yeah, you're not of age, but you may know.)

I haven't really been to Providence in a few years. Looking forward to spending a few days there next time I'm east.
 
The Living Room is still open and Lupos has combined buildings with "The Strand" now known as "Diesel" dieselri.com

Definately a huge club/music venue with big names.... but is currently undergoing a court battle for the "violence" that occurs outside of the club.


To learn more about the projects and anything Providence related (pics, construction, etc.) check out urban planet.


http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showforum=141
 
I'm making Patrick live up to his promise of being "all ears" on Providence!

another tid-bit on the city: It holds a celebration called "Waterfire" on many weekends, during which they floating fires are set and gondolas ride across waterplace park in downtown Providence. Live music is usually performed.

http://www.waterfire.org/ is their website, try to visit if you can!

Waterfire.JPG


waterfire-.jpg


waterfire-lg.jpg


waterfire_tetto.jpg
 
well, to tell you the truth, I don't like big cities like boston or bigger. sure, they are very interesting to visit and admire from afar, but once youre in them, unless you were raised there, they become unmanageable..to me at least. part of the reason (besides cost) I chose to attend UMaine over suffolk, is because of the hassle associated with living in boston. in a place like portland, you get half the excitement of boston for one-quarter of the hassle. as an economics student, that is a wiser choice...that is, you get more bang for your buck. providence mjst be similar. you must get 3/4 the excitement and opportunities of boston for about half the hassle. and boston, in turn, is better than NYC because you get 90% of the excitement and opportunity (or more?) for about 10% of the hassle. therefore, my point with all of this is that, in my opinion, cities ranging in size from portland through hartford are my types of places, those are the municipalities in which i am VERY interested. also, new development need not be as large as the manino tower to make an impact. a 9-story office tower in portland is currently making waves..haha. so, with that long intro done, i say to you bring on any and all info about providence. first let me ask you a few questions so that i might get better aquainted with the city:



current population?

independent metro population (not the boston metro into which it is sometimes pulled)?

racial demographics?

student population?

neighborhood set up?

tallest completed building?
 
current population?
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178,126 in a 2004 MiniCensus. that is 1/6 the total population of the state of Rhode Island

independent metro population (not the boston metro into which it is sometimes pulled)?
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621,602 - the total of all the cities and towns in Providence County, basically the metro area. personally I would add Warwick to Metro Providence, and take out Foster, Glochester and Cumberland, which basically makes the Metro population about the same, about 617,000.

From Wikipedia:
The 2000 US Census estimate for the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) including Providence, Fall River, Massachusetts, and Warwick was 1,188,613.

racial demographics?
Click to expand...

From Wikipedia:
The racial makeup of the city was 54.53% Caucasian, 14.54% African American, 1.14% Native American, 6.01% Asian, 0.16% Pacific Islander, 17.55% from other races, and 6.08% from two or more races. 30.03% of the population were Hispanic or Latino Hispanic from any of the above categories.

student population?
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from wikipedia:
* Brown University, an Ivy League university
* Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), one of the world's top art colleges
* Providence College, a Catholic school, one of the top master?s level colleges in the northeast United States
* Johnson and Wales University, notable for culinary program, considered one of the best such programs in the world
* Rhode Island College
* Community College of Rhode Island (Providence campus)
* University of Rhode Island (Providence campus).

According to my calculations (adding the student population of all the schools), there are 36,388 students in Providence

One of the best business schools in the country, Bryant University, Isn't very far away.

The total student population of these schools:

neighborhood set up?
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East Providence has most of the nice neighborhoods, much like the back-bay area of Boston. The rest of Providence (south west area) is kinda crappy.

tallest completed building?
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I like Providence's skyline. The tallest completed building is the Bank of America Building (formerly Fleet Building), which is 427 feet tall. Currently being built is One Ten Providence right behind the Bank of America Building, at 518 feet.
 
The building is also known as by the locals as the Superman Building, for its uncanny resemblance to the building used in the old Superman tv show as the Daily Planet headquarters.
 
So why are your own estimates of the metroploitan area so drastically different from the estimate on wikipedia? Are you thinking "greater" providence (greater boston, for example is all the communities inside 128, so im told, as opposed to metro boston, which stretches into RI, ME, and NH).

It must be closer to the wikipedia estimate, due to the size of buildings there, because portland, maine's metro area, as estimated on emporiscom is 622,000 people as of today.


and lastly, the reason for that uncanny resemblence of the superman building is because that in fact is the building in the old superman tv show. now i could be wrong, but my father told me that, and he is from boston, and is usually right about the rumors he passes on. anyone know for sure? i always thought it was...
 
Wikipedia includes Fall River and maybe even New Bedford, two of the larger cities besides Boston, Worcester, and Springfield in Massachusetts. I did not include them as they are in a different state and about 15 minutes away, which I guess most cities would include them in the metropolitan area.

I guess I should include them too
 
anyone know for sure?
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I added a "Fact" on Emporis stating that it resembled the building, not that it was the building, after doing a little research. Many, many Rhode Islanders think it WAS the building, but I could find no definative evidence that it was in fact the building. All I'm looking for is like a screenshot from the TV show to tell whether it was the building or not. I couldn't find any.

AKA: I'm not sure.
 
castevens said:
Wikipedia includes Fall River and maybe even New Bedford, two of the larger cities besides Boston, Worcester, and Springfield in Massachusetts. I did not include them as they are in a different state and about 15 minutes away, which I guess most cities would include them in the metropolitan area.

I guess I should include them too
Click to expand...

is it correct to assume that fall river and new bedford are, for the most part, bedroom communities (like nashua, NH)? i mean, they both have bigger populations than portland, but from what ive seen portland looks more developed. leading me to believe that they must be commuter towns...? if so, would they commute to Prov or Bos? thats how i would determine their inclusion. ill look around for info on the superman building. how do you get to be an editor on emporis, cause i have tons of old pics of portland developments and proposals that are not on that site..
 
You must apply to become a photographer first, then apply to become an editor (I would suggest waiting at least 6 months so they take you seriously when you apply to become an editor). Send me the pictures that you're thinking of using in your application before you apply, because the pics are some of the most important factors in the application process. Or better yet, send me to a site with all/most of your pics and I'll tell you which are most likely to get you in. (They HATE white/gray backgrounds)

Also, you must at least put SOME effort into the writing part. Write a paragraph for each thing, not just a sentence.
 
Oh, and concerning the first part, you make a very good point concerning Fall River and New Bedford. They don't have a real down-town area, and very few jobs considering the population. I don't have ANY statistics to support this, but I would say that it is probably more-or-less split between Boston and Providence.

On the one hand, it is VERY close to Providence. On the other hand, they are both very close to Rt. 24, which takes you right up to rt. 93 into Boston. And more and more people are moving to the Rhode Island border (in and outside Rhode Island) and working in Boston.

I would tend to think it's leaning toward Providence, but I wouldn't be suprised if theres a significant number of Boston workers residing in New Bedford and Fall River. an hour is a killer commute though.
 
castevens said:
Oh, and concerning the first part, you make a very good point concerning Fall River and New Bedford. They don't have a real down-town area, and very few jobs considering the population. I don't have ANY statistics to support this, but I would say that it is probably more-or-less split between Boston and Providence.

On the one hand, it is VERY close to Providence. On the other hand, they are both very close to Rt. 24, which takes you right up to rt. 93 into Boston. And more and more people are moving to the Rhode Island border (in and outside Rhode Island) and working in Boston.

I would tend to think it's leaning toward Providence, but I wouldn't be suprised if theres a significant number of Boston workers residing in New Bedford and Fall River. an hour is a killer commute though.
Click to expand...

let me pull together some of my photos, and then ill sned them to you in a linked page. also, an hour certainly is a killer commute, but my mother was almost enticed to make the commute from portland to boston, something not unheard oh around here for medical professionals...i would include FR and NB in prov metro the way you described it. that adds another quarter million right?
 
oh and i should add that the pics i was referring to earlier are renderings...which might pose a copyright boundary..but i got them all off of the internet, free of charge, so they were made available to the public in the newspaper, if that would make a diff.

also, i am going out to take some pics of portland tonight. if you are on later tonight i may have some of them on here. i have so much time on my hands...
 
Fall River (91,938) + New Bedford (93,768) = 185,706

+ Bristol County (closer to Prov. Than FR and NB, not included in my first set of numbers) 50,648 = 236,354

+ surrounding areas in MA to the north such as attleboro (about 50,000) = 286,354

+ my original estimate (621,602) = 907956

They must still be including more than me. But I really only included areas that you can get to Providence in less than 15 minutes. I'm sure the metro area extends beyond that. Us in Rhode Island have a bad sense of what's far. 20 minutes is too far for me. Anyway, I can totally see where the 1.2 million number comes from
 
Patrick said:
oh and i should add that the pics i was referring to earlier are renderings..
Click to expand...

You're talking about to get into Emporis, right? While you're welcome to upload renderings once you're part of the team, the application photos must be your own. If you're taking night shots, it is very easy to impress us with night shots at Emporis (my highest rated photos are my night shots). Just use a tripod and try to get longer exposures.

I should be on later tonight :)
 
Also, try to get pictures of specific buildings, preferably the taller ones. And fill the picture with the building, don't make the building some little thing with mostly sky around it. For reference, my highest rated photo on emporis is this:

DSC_00591.jpg


Obviously, that was a beautiful night and all, so it doesn't have to be perfect picture, becuase I have had much worse get accepted. But we assume you're giving us your best when you apply.

Keep the sky blue if it is daytime. the building must be in the center and looking straight up (this isn't an artistic site, it's for records of buildings), and so on. Blah blah blah, you'll do fine.

The bigger the file = the better

I wish I could show you some of the crap people send us though, and I was going to show you what an applicant sent, but all three applications pending on the site are set to be accepted (over 50% of the votes positive (for editors it is 70%) and keep in mind the people there are BIG critics, the perfect candidate will end up with 80%).
 
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