USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 19
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In spite of the advantages of the sewerage system the pollution of the waterways was not abated; this was due to the disposal of raw sewage into the streams outside the city limits and the continued discharge of mill wastes. A special committee, appointed by the City Council in 1895, sought means to overcome those conditions.21 Remedies were still being sought fifty years later (page 282).
The Providence water system (page 135) was extended by construction of a high service reservoir, located at an elevation of 275 feet above sea level in the Fruit Hill section of North Providence. This project, including connections with Hope pumping station, was completed in 1889. During the next ten years 94 high pressure hydrants were installed on the principal streets for the use of the fire department.22 The city also maintained
17. Field, II, 487. 18. C.D. No. 25, 1884.
19. C.M., 1889, p. 10. Previously owners of property were not compelled to make connections with city sewers and on January 1, 1889, 5,000 privy vaults and 2,500 cesspools were still in use on property bordering received streets.
20. C.E., report, 1900. 21. C.D. No. 30, 1895; C.D. No. 21, 1897. 22. C.D. No. 10, 1900. The city engineer reported, as of December 31, 1899, a total of 318 miles of water pipe laid, 19,582 service pipes installed, and 1,772 ordinary hydrants in use in addition to the high pressure hydrants.
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drinking fountains and horse drinking troughs at various locations on the public highways. The latter were of particular importance in the pre-automobile era; although horse cars had passed into history before 1899, the superintendent of hacks issued licenses in that year for 633 wagons, 154 hacks, 76 low gears, 154 carts, 25 lumber reaches, and 31 lunch carts.23 The city directory for 1900 listed 83 livery stables in the city, and several hundred stables were maintained by home owners.
The fire department was placed under control of a board of three fire commissioners in 1895, and an organization was effected consisting of a chief engineer (George A. Steere),
RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL TAUST & SAFE DEPOSIT & STORAGE VAULTS
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PAWTUCKET
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R.I.H.S.
View of Market Square toward west, 1892. Union Bank Building (c. 1810) and Merchants Bank Building (1855) left. Industrial Trust Building under construction, center. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building (1891-1916) and Washington Buildings (1843-1916), right.
deputy chief engineer and two assistants. In the following year underground wires were laid to the signal boxes in the fire district.24 Fire stations were erected on Manton Avenue (1889), Greenwich Street (1889), Branch Avenue (1890), South Main Street (1892), Olney Street (1892), Wickenden Street (1895) and Broad Street (1896). These were two-story buildings, mostly of brick, with wide-arched portals, stables in the rear, and sleeping quarters on the second floor for the firemen, who made quick descents by means of brass poles. The Olney Street station (Hoppin, Reid and Hoppin, architects), was ornamented
23. C.D. No. 13, 1900.
24. C.D. No. 8, 1897.
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by a gabled roof section composed of stepped-up parapets. A fire station on Plainfield Street was acquired when the city annexed a part of the town of Johnston in 1898.25
The police department in 1900, under Chief Reuben R. Baker, comprised about 200 staff members, officers and patrolmen. Included in the personnel were a superintendent of hacks and a superintendent of the signal system, the latter having oversight of the signal boxes recently erected on poles on the city highways where patrolmen reported to head- quarters.26 A central police station was erected in 1895 on a lot bounded by Fountain, Sabin and Beverly streets where two schoolhouses formerly had stood; it provided quarters for the police and poor departments and the Police Court (page 187).27 District stations were erected on Atwells Avenue (1889) and Chaffee Street (1890), and stables for mounted police were built adjacent to the Knight and Plain Street stations in 1895.
Roger Williams Park, originally a tract of 100 acres (page 148) was increased in size between 1886 and 1893 to a total of 462 acres,28 one-quarter of which was composed of water areas including Cunliff pond, No-Bottom pond, and three artificial lakes. The land- scape development, designed by H. W. S. Cleveland, included the construction of the lakes in the marshland through which Mashapaug brook originally flowed into Cunliff pond, the layout of roads and paths, the construction of stone bridges, and the planting of trees and flowers. An enclosure was built for a deer park, a steam launch and row boats were pur- chased, and electric lights were installed along the drives. Skating and tobogganing facilities were provided for winter sports, and concerts were given by Reeves' American Band during summer months,29 with Bowen R. Church and Claude Spary cornet and trombone soloists.
The earliest buildings erected after acquisition of the park were a boat house and What Cheer Cottage which were replaced, respectively, by the Dalrymple Boat House (Martin and Hall, architects) in 1897 and the Casino (Banning and Thornton, architects) in 1898. Other buildings included a stable in 1890, a menagerie in 1891, and a Natural History Museum, designed by Martin and Hall in the French chateau style in 1895. The museum was the recipient of numerous gifts, including mounted animals, skins, minerals, and a collection of birds, the latter presented by Charles H. Smith. The menagerie acquired an elephant, "Baby Roger," in 1892, the gift of Providence school children. Among the sculptured works erected in the park, in addition to the statue of Roger Williams (page 148), were a statue, "The Athlete," by Theo. Ruggles-Kitson and a replica of "The Fighting Gladiator" (both executed by Gorham Manufacturing Company), a bust of King Ferdinand of Naples, and "The Falconer," the latter designed by Henry H. Elton and given to the city by Daniel W. Lyman in memory of his grandfather, Governor Elisha Dyer.
25. All of these stations were vacated between 1940 and 1952. The Olney Street station was altered and converted to commercial use in 1956.
26. C.D. No. 13, 1900.
27. The central police station was vacated upon completion of the Bureau of Police and Fire Building in 1940 (page 261) and was used subsequently by the Providence Water Department and the Department of Public Welfare.
28. The additions included (1) the purchase in 1886 of a three-acre strip west of Elmwood Avenue, extending to the railroad; (2) the purchase of a two-acre triangular tract in Cranston, south of the park entrance on Elmwood Avenue, including the west end of Crystal lake, re-annexed to Providence May 6, 1887; (3) the conveyance of two small lots by John M. and Susan P. Clemence in 1891; (4) the purchase of a tract of 285 acres in Cranston, extending southerly to Park Avenue and including Cunliff pond, re-annexed to Providence July 1, 1892 (see map, page 130); and (5) the purchase of two tracts aggregating 82 acres in 1892-93, one extending the park northerly to the Harbor Junction branch of the railroad and easterly to Broad Street and the other fringing the north border of Cunliff pond.
29. Park Department reports, 1890-97.
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The most important addition to the public park system during this period was the 34-acre Thomas Davis estate (page 141), acquisition of which was effected through the activities of the Public Park Association in cooperation with the Board of Park Commis- sioners which became operative January 1, 1891. Following legislative approval,30 the city purchased the property July 14, 1891, and named it Davis Park. Improvements were made to the grounds during ensuing years and the park was increased in area by purchase of 47/2 acres in 1897. It was abandoned in 1945 (page 278).
On July 7, 1891, the City Council, acting upon authority granted by the General Assembly March 24 of that year, condemned for public purposes the Hopkins Burial Ground at the corner of Charles Street and Branch Avenue,31 and named it Admiral Hopkins Square in the following year. A bronze statue of Esek Hopkins, first admiral of the United States Navy, executed by Mrs. Theo. Ruggles-Kitson, was erected in the park in 1897 with funds devised by Harriet N. H. Coggeshall, a great granddaughter of the admiral.
A bronze replica of the silver statue of Christopher Columbus, cast by Gorham Manufacturing Company from the design of Auguste Bartholdi for the Chicago World's Fair, was erected on Elmwood Park (page 147) at the junction of Elmwood and Reservoir avenues, in 1893, in which year the area was re-named Columbus Park. A bronze statue of Ebenezer Knight Dexter was donated to the city by Henry C. Clarke in memory of the man "who gave his property for the benefit of the public and the homeless" and was set up in the center of Dexter Training Ground (page 147) and dedicated June 29, 1893, in which year the maintenance of that public area was transferred to the board of park commissioners.
The area of Providence was increased in the closing years of the century to a total of about 1872 square miles by re-annexations of about 275 acres from Cranston in 1892, principally for a southerly extension of Roger Williams Park (page 184), and about 11/4 square miles from Johnston in 1898, including the Olneyville section and the eastern part of Neutaconkanut Hill.32 Under the city charter of 1832 the city was divided into six wards and the council was required "from time to time . . . to revise and, if needful, to alter said wards in such a manner as to preserve, as nearly as may be, an equal number of freemen to each." Although four new wards were established between 1857 and 1874, through re-annexations of territory and ward subdivisions (pages 135, 149), no revisions were made to their boundaries to provide an equal distribution of qualified voters until 1887. On April 19 of that year the General Assembly enacted an amendment to the city charter providing for election of an alderman and four councilmen from each of ten wards and authorizing the re-districting of those wards by commissioners. A second readjustment of ward boundaries was made by a committee appointed by the council in 1900,33 in which the re-annexed portion of Johnston was included in ward 8.
The destruction of the United States battleship Maine in Havana harbor February 15, 1898, precipitated the Spanish-American war, which was waged between April 22 and August 12 of that year resulting in the ceding to the United States of the Philippines, Guam, Porto Rico, and all the Spanish West Indies possessions, and the recognition of Cuba as an independent territory under protection of the United States. Following a call for troops by President William McKinley, April 23, a Rhode Island regiment of infantry
30. P.L., 1890, chapter 873.
31. The burying ground was conveyed, in 1791, to the town of North Providence by Esek Hopkins and was re-annexed to Providence in 1874. Upon its abandonment the bodies were removed to North Burial Ground. 32 . A.&R., July 1, 1892, January session, 1898. See map, page 130.
33. P.L., 1900, chapter 798.
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volunteers was organized under Colonel Charles W. Abbot, but saw no active service. The Classic revival in American architecture, originating in the eighties, was stimulated by the architects of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 who designed most of the buildings in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Its effect on Providence architecture is reflected in a number of institutional and public buildings designed by Stone, Carpenter and Willson. The Home for Aged Men (1891)34 at 807 Broad Street, Saint Maria's Home for Working Girls (1893) at 175 Governor Street and Rhode Island School for the Deaf (1895)35 at
R.I.H.S.
Providence Public Library, 1900, 229 Washington Street.
520 Hope Street are symmetrical in plan with red brick walls, hipped roofs, Classic details and academic porches. The Telephone Building36 at 112 Union Street and the Central
34. The Home for Aged Men was incorporated 1875 and first located at 63 Chestnut Street. The Broad Street building was financed by funds provided in a bequest by Henry J. Steere. An infirmary was added later. The name was changed in 1908 to the Home for Aged Men and Aged Couples.
35. The School for the Deaf was established in 1876 and maintained as a free school for children with defective hearing.
36. Telephone cables from the main switchboard, carried through the basement, were laid in cement-lined iron pipes underground in the principal streets of the city and were extended to overhead wires in other sections. About 7,500 stations were in operation in 1893. The Telephone Company later moved its offices to 234 Washington Street; the Union Street building is now used for business purposes.
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1890- 1900
Police Station (page 184) at 153 Fountain Street, both erected in 1893, are yellow brick. The facade of the former is ornamented with terra cotta, including a row of Corinthian pilasters over two stories of rusticated work; the latter building is composed of a central block and two wings with academic Renaissance details executed in limestone. The firm's outstanding achievement was the Providence Public Library37 at 229 Washington Street, designed in the style of the Italian Renaissance (illustration, page 186) and opened in 1900, its yellow brick and limestone walls rusticated in the first story and treated in the second story in a manner reminiscent of the Library of Saint Mark in Venice.
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Robert W. Taft house, 1895, 154 Hope Street.
The trend toward a Colonial revival in domestic architecture was first manifest by symmetry in plan and the abandonment of towers and other forms of adornment. A distinguishing characteristic of the early nineties was the hipped roof with its many dormers and high chimneys. This is noted in such contrasting dwellings as the Shaw house at 126 Melrose Street, with its bracketed cornice, large paned windows and buttressed dormers,
37. Providence Public Library, incorporated 1875, established its first quarters June 1, 1877 at the corner of Weybosset and Orange streets in which year William E. Foster commenced a period as librarian which continued for 53 years. It was moved to Butler Exchange in 1878, and to the first story of the English and Classical School building on Snow Street (page 152) in 1880. A large addition to the Public Library was dedicated in 1954 (page 285).
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and the clapboarded Kimball house at 120 Brown Street whose Ionic entrance porch is flanked by small-lighted Colonial windows. A closer approach to the Colonial is the gambrel- roofed Metcalf house at 132 Bowen Street (Andrews, Jacques and Rantoul of Boston, architects) in which adherence to tradition is offset only by bay windows flanking the Classic entrance porch and the use of large panes in the lower window sashes. The full traditional flavor was effected by Stone, Carpenter and Willson in the design of two brick dwellings of the period, namely, the three-story monitor-roofed Smith house (c. 1890) at 112 Benevolent Street, reminiscent of the works of John Holden Greene, and the Taft house (1895) at 154 Hope Street (illustration, page 187), whose curved gable ends somewhat resemble those of the pre-Revolutionary Joseph Brown house (page 51) on South Main Street.
The business buildings of the period were varied in style. The J. B. Barnaby Company (now Kennedy's Clothiers, Inc.), at Westminster and Dorrance streets, followed the extrava- gant motives of its predecessor (1876) which was destroyed in a spectacular fire December 13, 1890. The Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, incorporated in 1867 as a pecuniary helper to the hospital of that name (page 137), erected a bank and office building at 15 Westminster Street in 1891, designed by R. W. Gibson of New York. Its five-story facade, with closely spaced windows, contained Romanesque motives which were followed when an addition, with a massive arched-portal, was erected in 1903 (Peabody and Stearns of Boston, architects, illustration, page 183).38 The Industrial Trust Company (established 1887) acquired a four-story building at 49 Westminster Street39 which was remodeled in 1892 (Stone, Carpenter and Willson, architects), extended northerly along Exchange Street to Exchange Place, and raised to a height of eight stories, with a heavy bronze cornice above the street facades (illustration, page 248). Tilden-Thurber Company erected a small four-story store at 292 Westminster Street in 1895, designed in the French Renaissance style by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge of Boston, its lower stories having display windows framed by ornamental iron and its upper stories composed of engaged fluted-and-banded columns and an entablature in the Ionic order. The Old Stone Bank (page 126) at 86 South Main Street, was remodeled and enlarged in 1898 (Stone, Carpenter and Willson, architects), including the erection of an entrance portico in the Italian Renaissance style (illustration, page 125) and a large bronze dome rising above an attic.
A ten-story fireproof office building, designed by Winslow and Bigelow of Boston, was erected by the Joseph Banigan estate in 1896, on the lot bounded by Weybosset Street, Post Office Court, Dyer Street and Exchange Street.40 The walls were built of Stony Creek Connecticut granite with arched entrances provided on Weybosset and Exchange streets, and the building was crowned by a heavy ornamental bronze cornice (illustration, page 189). Access to the 420 rooms and offices was provided by means of two stairways and five elevators. First known as Banigan Building, the name was changed in 1910 to Grosvenor Building, and in 1955 to Amica Building.
The brick Manufacturers Building, seven stories high and over one acre in area, was erected by Kent and Stanley, manufacturing jewelers, in 1892, with arched granite entrances
38. The building was replaced by the present Hospital Trust Building in 1918 (page 228).
39. This building, designed by Alpheus C. Morse c. 1870 stood on the site of the former Hamilton Building (page 136). The Industrial Trust Building was enlarged on the east in 1910, the addition including a new entrance portal flanked by two-story Corinthian columns. The Trust Company vacated the building on completion of the new Industrial Trust Building in 1928 (page 247).
40. The building replaced an old barrack, formerly Washington Hotel (page 121). A part of the site was taken by the city for widening Dunnell's Gangway to become an extension of Exchange Street.
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located at IOI Sabin Street and 7 Beverly Street for the use of owners and tenants. It was said to be the largest building in the world, at that time, devoted exclusively to jewelry manufacture. A contrasting type of industrial design, adapted for the first time in Provi- dence, was the structural steel and ribbed-glass machine shop erected by Fuller Iron Works (page 174) at the corner of South Main and Tockwotton streets in 1893; it was still standing a half-century later, its walls covered with asphalt shingles.
The ecclesiastical architecture of the nineties represented a considerable range in styles. The Church of the Messiah41 at Westminster and Troy streets (Peabody and Stearns, architects, c. 1890) and Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church42 at Broadway and Barton streets (James Murphy, architect, 1864-1901) are stone Gothic buildings, the former having a front gable, crowned by an open bell tower, and the latter with a square corner tower. Saint Edward's Church43 at 991 Branch Avenue (James Murphy, architect, 1889) is French
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View of Dyer and Westminster streets c. 1905, showing Banigan (Grosvenor, Amica) Building (1896) left, and R. I. Hospital Trust Building as enlarged (1903) right.
Gothic and has a central front tower and spire. Among the Romanesque buildings are Saint James Episcopal Church44 at Broadway and Courtland streets (C. Howard Walker of Boston, architect, c. 1890), a brick and limestone structure with corner tower and open belfry; Cranston Street Roger Williams Baptist Church (A. B. Jennings of New York, architect, 1892), a granite building with pedimented facade flanked by turreted towers; the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Academy Avenue and Regent Street (Heins and LaFarge of New York, architects, 1897-1905), a brick and terra cotta structure with a campanile rising to a height of 136 feet (illustration, page 190); and Holy Name Church on Camp Street (A. J. Murphy, architect, 1896-1900), a limestone edifice with a campanile,
41. The parish was established in the Olneyville district in 1856.
42. The church was completed under supervision of A. J. Murphy, nephew of the original architect.
43. Upon completion of the church an adjacent building, which had served both as a church and school
since 1867, was used exclusively as Saint Edward's Parochial School until replaced by a new schoolhouse in 1907. 44. This became the Church of the Saviour (colored) and, more recently, Saint Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church.
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combining elements of Italian Romanesque and Renaissance.45 The Central Congregational Church at Angell Street and Diman Place (Carrère and Hastings of New York, architects, 1893) which succeeded the building erected on Benefit Street in 1856 (page 127), is a brick and terra cotta building in the style of the Spanish Renaissance with a facade composed of a pediment flanked by towers and a large round dome, crowned by a lantern, supported by piers and pendentives, rising above the auditorium (illustration, page 191). In contrast with these ecclesiastical styles is the Mathewson Street Methodist Church (1895) whose Classic facade blends with the adjacent commercial buildings.46
Blessed Sacrament Church, 1905, Academy Avenue.
Substantial advances were made in hospital facilities, due largely to the generosity of benefactors. Rhode Island Hospital (page 137) acquired four buildings, all designed by Stone, Carpenter and Willson, including the Royal C. Taft Building for Outpatients, given by Thomas P. I. Goddard and furnished by Mrs. Elizabeth A. Shepard, and erected near the main entrance in 1891; a Nurses' Home, erected on Lockwood Street in 1893 with funds provided under the wills of Mr. and Mrs. George Ide Chace; a building for contagious
45. Parochial schools were later established by Blessed Sacrament in 1924 on Regent Avenue (John W. Donahue, architect) and by Holy Name in 1939 at 109 Camp Street (O'Malley and Fitzsimmons, architects). 46. Mathewson Street Church was organized in 1848 and its first building erected 1851. The facade of the new building was altered in 1950 (page 283).
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1890 - 1900
diseases, constructed in 1895 under municipal financing; and Southwest Pavilion, a five- story building for women and children, erected in 1900. Among the numerous additions to Butler Hospital (page 119) were Sawyer Memorial Ward (Stone, Carpenter and Willson, architects, 1888); Goddard House (Hoppin and Ely, architects, 1898), donated by William Goddard, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Shepard and Moses B. I. Goddard; and Weld House (Hoppin and Ely, architects, 1900), the gift of Mrs. William G. Weld in memory of her husband. Saint Joseph's Hospital was established by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rhode Island which purchased, in 1871, the former Cyrus Harris estate of two acres at 573 Broad Street and remodeled the dwelling47 for hospital uses. A new brick building was erected on the
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Central Congregational Church, 1893, Angell Street.
south portion of the estate, facing Peace Street, in 1893 (William R. Walker and Son, architects), with a three-story piazza facing a garden on the east.
When the centennial of the establishment of free public schools was observed in 1899 the school department, under superintendence of Horace S. Tarbell, was operating four high schools, 16 grammar schools and 88 primary schools with a total enrollment of 23,000 pupils, one-sixth of whom attended evening school. The city erected 30 of these schools during the nineties, several replacing obsolete buildings. It was not until 1896 that the policy was established of constructing all schoolhouses of brick, and at the close of the century nearly one-half of the buildings in operation were wood. Among the new buildings
47. A square brick house with a low hipped roof and cupola, designed about 1870 by Perez Mason.
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were the Manual Training High School and Classical High School, both located in proximity to the former high school,48 and Hope Street High School, erected on the East Side, opposite Hope Reservoir. The Manual Training School (Stone, Carpenter and Willson, architects, 1893) on Pond Street reflects, by its Classic cornice and round-arched openings of the main entrance and third story windows, a transition from the French Romanesque style to that of the Classic Renaissance.49 Classical High School (southwest corner of Pond and Summer streets, 1897) and Hope Street High School (1898, illustration below), both designed by Martin and Hall, were similar in plan, each having a center section comprising an assembly room, offices, and a library, flanked by classroom wings with basement gymnasiums and
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