Topic: Providence, RI - Oct. 2006 - Part 1

[ragerunner]

I really enjoyed downtown "Down City" Providence. It had a great mix of old and new architecture, shopping, dining and culture. I would go back in a heartbeat. I will have part 2 later.

[ink]

Looks great! Thanks for the photos! 

[mrnyc]

i liked your views, great job. i have a friend from providence so i go often & i do like it a lot despite it's shortcomings. my biggest peeve is the crappy highways really cut up the city center in the worst way. also, it's kind of bland, esp the new city mall part downtown around the station.

otoh, the old downtown itself, brown, the warehouse area & federal hill are all very cool. also, as ri is so small its so close to other fun & scenic places like the cape, mystic and newport. 

[dfly]

Wow, looks like a pretty interesting city.  Nicely done.

[Wheelingman]

It may just be one of the best midsize cities in the country.

[ColDayMan]

I never was a fan of Providence but these shots are wonderful.

[LAsam]

Great photos, looks liek a lovely place!

[BallHatGuy]

Very nice.  Photos are great and it looks like a nice downtown with some cool buildings.

[UncleRando]

Nice collection of photos....great architecture, awesome infill, and some very cool public spaces.  I especially love the areas surrounding the canal....the mall looks really cool too!  This has enlightened me about Providence, some stuff that I never expected.

Thx, Rage

[dfly]

I never was a fan of Providence but these shots are wonderful.

Having never been to Providence, I really don't know anything about the city, but it looks great in the the pics.  Any particular reason why you're not a big fan of the city, ColDayMan?  I'm just curious.

[ColDayMan]

The city, I found, to be quite insular, the cops have issues (we [Paradox24, I should say] had an incident with them), and the downtown wasn't as "nice" or active as I thought it would be.  The mall seemed to be detached from the downtown, which I thought was weird. 

The Italian neighborhood was wonderful though and Brown was a nice college area.  But generally, I wasn't a fan of the city.

[mrnyc]

i like the city ok, but i think it is very insular, too. broadly speaking so is all of rhode island. the local scuttlebut is that the small state is heavily influenced by the mafia. who knows?

yeah that growing city center mall while right there is very oddly cut off from anything. it seems to me that plowing highways thru such an old city really disconnected the downtown.

brown, risd and federal hill? sure gotta give'm that, those areas are indeed very sharp.

[StrapHanger]

Well the former mayor is sitting in federal prison right now on corruption charges, so it there is likely something to that mafia scuttlebut.  And the police department has a bit of a racist rep (not helped when some white cops shot and killed a black off-duty officer (the son of another officer) who was running out of a building to help them a couple years ago).  And most of the downtown new construction is remarkably bland...

But it's tough not to adore the beautiful old wooden houses.  And considering it's small size (less than 200k, though still the second largest city in New England I believe), it's a pretty darn impressive place.

Thanks for the great photos, Rage.

[mrnyc]

^oh i know, my friend is um, close friends with the mayor's daughter. heh. small state!