USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
R.I.H.S.
Hope Street High School, 1898.
lunch rooms. Both buildings have hipped roofs and the exterior walls are brick with lime- stone trimmings, broken by Classic entrances and clusters of five windows in each of the principal rooms.50
Two buildings on the Brown campus, a physics laboratory and a gymnasium, each reflecting elements of Romanesque architecture, were completed in 1891, shortly after Dr.
48. See page 150. The Summer Street building was known thereafter as English High School until Central High School was opened in 1923; since then it has been identified as Central Annex A (page 243).
49. A heating plant was conveyed to the city by the Harris Steam Engine Company December 14, 1892. A large addition was made to the building in 1908 (Fred E. Field, architect), extending it westerly to Summer Street and the school subsequently was named Technical High School. It has been used since 1936 for adminis- trative offices of the school department.
50. A new Hope High School was erected on Hope Reservoir site in 1938 (page 264), and the former building was used in 1950 by the United States Veterans Administration.
192
1890 - 1900
E. Benjamin Andrews had become president of the university. Wilson Hall, named for George F. Wilson who had bequeathed a sum to the university to promote the study of natural sciences, was erected on the middle campus, south of Sayles Hall, from plans drawn by Gould and Angell with the assistance of Professor Eli Whitney Blake of the Physics Department. Lyman Gymnasium (Stone, Carpenter and Willson, architects) was built
R.I.H.S.
Rhode Island School of Design, 1892, 21 Waterman Street.
adjacent to Lincoln Field51 with funds provided under the will of Daniel Wanton Lyman. 52 Women were admitted to the university, in 1892, and classes were held for them, until 1897,
51. Lincoln Field, named for Professor John L. Lincoln, extended easterly from the gymnasium to Thayer Street and was used for athletic sports until 1899 when Andrews Field, a ten-acre tract on Camp Street, was developed and named in honor of ex-President Andrews.
52. Colgate Hoyt Swimming Pool was added to the gymnasium in 1903.
193
WEYBOSSET SIDE
in a small building at 235 Benefit Street, formerly the home of a private school for girls.53 A permanent building for the Women's College was erected on Meeting Street, through the auspices of the Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, and was opened November 22, 1897. It was designed in the English University style of the 16th century by Stone, Carpenter and Willson and named Pembroke Hall after the college at Cambridge attended by Roger Williams.
Rhode Island School of Design, established in 1878 in the Hoppin Homestead Building (page 155) on Westminster Street, erected the first unit of its present group on Waterman Street in 1892 (illustrations, pages 193, 215), the gift of Jesse Metcalf. The Building, con- taining a museum, offices and class rooms, was designed by Hoppin, Reid and Hoppin in the French Romanesque style with rounded window openings and a corbeled brick cornice. By 1900 the school had an enrollment of 500 pupils.
A Normal School (Martin and Hall, architects) was erected by the state on a site bounded by Francis, Gaspee, Promenade, Park and Lincoln streets, on a part of which the former State Prison (page 108) had stood. The plan comprised a central building and three wings and the exterior was designed in the style of the Classic revival with yellow brick and terra cotta walls (illustration, page 250). On its completion in 1898 the school was moved from its former location on Benefit Street (page 152). It was incorporated as Rhode Island College of Education in 1920 and a new building, Henry Barnard School (William R. Walker and Son, architects), was erected on the campus in 1922.54
Several important highways on Weybosset Side had been changed in name since the official listing adopted by the Town Council in 1807 (page 73). Weybosset Street, as defined that year, branched from Westminster Street at Turks Head and extended westerly to re-intersect Westminster at the present Cathedral Square; the highway beyond that inter- section was named High Street as far as the junction with Cranston Street, and Johnston Road from that point to Olneyville; Pawtuxet Street branched southerly from Weybosset Street at Chestnut Street. Part of Weybosset Street was re-named about 1923, the section from Dorrance to Chestnut becoming Broad Street and the section from Chestnut to Westminster changed to High Street and extended to Olneyville. The 1850 directory defined Broad Street as running from Westminster Street (Turks Head) to the city line at Grace Church Cemetery, eliminating the names Weybosset Street and Pawtuxet Street. By 1857 the name Weybosset Street had been resumed from Turks Head to Dorrance Street. The final adjustment of names was made about 1893 when Weybosset Street reverted to its 1807 status, Broad Street branched southerly from Weybosset at Chestnut, Westminster Street ran from Market Square to Olneyville, and the name High Street was abandoned.
The culminating achievement of the 19th century was the erection of the State House. The former capitol, erected as the Colony House in 1762 and twice enlarged (page 39), had become inadequate for modern requirements, in consideration of which the General Assem- bly appointed a commission in 1891 to select a site and obtain plans for a new building. The site chosen was on Smith's Hill (formerly known as Jefferson Plains), overlooking the former cove lands from the north, as recommended by the Public Park Association.55 The
53. The Young Ladies School was founded by John Kingsbury about 1828 and the wood schoolhouse on Benefit Street was built in 1848 (Thomas A. Tefft, architect). It was taken over by Professor Lincoln in 18 58 as a girls' high school. The schoolhouse was razed in 1924 when a building was erected on the site for the Rhode Island College of Pharmacy.
54. Plans for a new building were under way in 1957.
55. Public Park Association, Tract No. 10, 1892.
194
1890 - 1900
state purchased a six-acre tract to which ten additional acres were added, by gift of the city, for the development of the grounds, providing a site bounded by Smith, Francis and Gaspee streets.
The State House Commission conducted a competition for the design of the building in which a number of the country's leading architects participated. Following the submission of plans January 14, 1892, the award was made to McKim, Mead and White of New York. A Board of State House Commissioners was appointed the following year to erect the building.56 Ground was broken September 16, 1895, the cornerstone laid by the Grand Master of Masons October 15, 1896, and the building was occupied by the General Assembly, Governor William Gregory and other state officials January 1, 1901.57 The building, with terrace approaches and grounds as completed, was delivered to the state June II, 1904.
The white marble State House (see frontispiece) is composed of three juxtaposed units, surrounded by a terrace, the elevation of which is 78 feet above mean high water. From the central unit a marble dome, 50 feet in diameter, rises to a height of 149 feet above the terrace. Over the dome are a gallery, a lantern, and a bronze statue symbolizing the "Independent Man." The total length of the building, including the wings, is 333 feet and the depth of the central part is 180 feet. The design is Classic Renaissance. The first story walls are broken by round-arched windows and doors, and the upper stories are composed of Classic orders and embellished by Corinthian pilasters and columns. Similar columns surround the base of the main dome and the bases of the four miniature domes below it. Flat domes rise over the two assembly rooms in the wings. Wide, monumental steps lead from the grounds to the south entrance, and a porte-cochère forms an entrance on the north.
Under the state constitution, adopted in 1842, sessions of the General Assembly were held in the five county seats, Newport, Providence, South Kingstown, Bristol, and East Greenwich. Constitutional amendments confined the sessions to Newport and Providence in 1854 and to Providence alone in 1900. Thus with the opening of the State House Providence became the sole capital of Rhode Island.
56. P.L., 1893, chapter 1201. The commissioners included Herbert W. Ladd, William Ames, Olney Arnold, Albert L. Sayles, Francis L. O'Reilly, John W. Davis, George Peabody Wetmore, Nathaniel B. Church, Joshua Wilbur, Enos Lapham, Rowland G. Hazard, D. Russell Brown and Ellery H. Wilson.
57. Three other governors were concerned in the erection of the State House, namely, D. Russell Brown (1892-95), Charles Warren Lippitt (1895-97) and Elisha Dyer (1897-1900).
195
CKET
MAP OF THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND,
YOLYDAD JOJE
Christopher
+-1899-
Published hy SAMPSON, MUROOCK.& CO. Baston Mass
Dist. 3. -
No 54 NORTH MAIN STREET
ÇA PABODIT & SON MAP DIGRAKERS PROVIDENCE RI
+
ATE
Dis1. 2.
prvusindg
Meridy
2
Dist
.YMANSVILLE
......
...
...
10
Dist. ].
Viclert
PARK
Capitol
R
15
IS
15
=
15
Is
Pawoss
Dis
-
br
Boundary
Queen v
=
THE
--
Dist
=
NILAFR L.AK
1
#
.......
Wolleet.
AV
DOT &
LEimidale
-
-
Linwood
Dist. I
6
=
Prospec!
---
4
14
Dist2
....
PIONT
BAHNTO
CANSET
.......
WILLIS
MS
A
KRAG
Lewest
Istercy St
Clarence
51
Wmien
,um yrford
·let deirne
Dora 5.
---
=
Farmid
Av.
Stations St
-
Dist.
-
-
-
HISFES
---
PART III East Side, West Side
CHAPTER 16
1900 - 1910
T HE 20th century opened officially in Providence with the inauguration of Daniel L. D. Granger as mayor, January 7, 1901. The city had an area of about 181/2 square miles including 225 miles of received streets and 528 acres of land dedicated to park purposes (see map, page 196). Its population, according to the 1900 Federal census, was 175,597, constituting two-fifths of all the people in Rhode Island.
Providence had become a trading center of a metropolitan area which was broadened, as suburban railway lines were established, to include most of Rhode Island as well as a considerable area of southern Massachusetts. Generally speaking, however, the city's streets were only wide enough to meet the necessities of a small town and were entirely inadequate for the coming invasion of automobiles.
Nature had imposed two obstacles to an easy and uninterrupted flow of traffic, namely, the waterways and the hillside topography of the East Side. For the awkward highway plan, the narrow streets, and the traffic barriers imposed by the railroads, succeeding town and city councils were primarily responsible.
The hillside pattern of the East Side originated in the 17th century home lots (page 10) and the highways, later constructed, were laid out along the old lot lines with little attempt to provide easy grades. The only direct street railway transportation between the business area and the heart of the East Side was effected by means of cable cars, and later by counter- weights, on College Hill (pages 162, 179). The problem of the waterways had been solved, in part, by the erection of bridges and by confining the cove waters to river canals. The construction of the cove basin and its later abandonment (pages 115, 179), however, proved to be both ill-advised and costly. The arrangement and width of many secondary streets originated in private subdivision platting over which the city failed to exercise adequate control (pages 121, 143).
In permitting the railroads to run their tracks at grade for a distance of seven miles through the city the City Council not only created a new impediment to highway circulation but sanctioned a development which led, inevitably, to a widespread area of slums. In approving the terminal development plan late in the century, by which a railroad viaduct was erected and freight yards established near the civic center, the Council effectively blocked any plan for integrating the State House approaches with Exchange Place (page 165).
Having overcome some of the traffic obstacles imposed by the rivers, the city was remiss in its failure to take steps for the conservation and development of the inland
197
EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE
waterways and tidewater areas. The Woonasquatucket, Moshassuck and West river valleys, already largely industrialized, were allowed to degenerate into areas of blight while the river banks, washed by polluted waters, became dumping grounds. Undeveloped sections of the tidewater shores of Providence and Seekonk rivers were equally neglected. Only about one-sixth of the shore property, abutting the harbor line a distance of seven miles from Field's Point to Pawtucket, was under municipal ownership, including Blackstone Park (page 147), the bridge approaches, the City Dock (page 181), Field's Point estate,1 and the sewage disposal plant (page 182). The city had relinquished opportunities to control and develop other tidewater shore areas, notably the South Water Street district (page 83) and the west shore from the City Dock to Sassafras Point.2
Dredging operations were carried out in Providence river under the Federal Rivers and Harbors act of 1896, whereby the harbor was widened to 400 feet and deepened to 25 feet from Sassafras Point southerly to deep waters of Narragansett bay, opposite Conimicut Point; and under succeeding acts of 1902 and 1907 anchorage areas 25 feet in depth were provided for practically the full width of the harbor north of Sassafras Point.
Steamboat lines were extremely active during this period. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad had acquired the Providence line of the Providence and Stonington Steamship Company and operated the Plymouth and Connecticut from Fox Point Wharf (see map, page 220) to New York. The railroad also maintained the Narragansett Bay Line to New York on which the old steamboats Massachusetts and Rhode Island were run, at lower rates, from Lonsdale Wharf on India Street. Two independent lines to New York - the Joy Line and the Enterprise Line - ran from South Water Street docks, south of Point Street Bridge. Steamships were run by the Providence, Norfolk and Baltimore Line, the Boston and Philadelphia Steamship Company, and the Clyde Line to Wilmington, North Carolina, from wharves on India Street.
The local steamboat lines docked in the upper harbor above Point Street Bridge.3 The Providence, Fall River and Newport Steamboat Company's principal wharf was on Dyer Street, opposite Hay Street, from which point steamboats made regular and excursion trips to Field's Point, Crescent Park,4 Rocky Point, Prudence Park, Conanicut Park, Newport, Narragansett Pier, and other shore places. The fleet included the Bay Queen, City of Newport, Day Star,5 What Cheer, Squantum, Pomham, and Baltimore. The same company operated the Mount Hope to Block Island and the Richard Borden to Fall River, from wharves on South Water Street, south of Crawford Bridge. The Seaconnet Steamboat Company ran the Islander to Sakonnet from Doane's Wharf, opposite Planet Street. And from docks farther south on South Water Street the Corsair made trips to Saunderstown
I. See page 147. Most of the land at Field's Point was leased as a shore resort, where Colonel Atwell's clam bakes were a specialty.
2. See page 182. Commenting upon the activities of the Federal Government, in providing anchorage areas and straightening the ship channel, Mayor Patrick J. McCarthy stated, in his inaugural address January 7, 1907, that "all natural avenues of trade and commerce should be owned by the municipality, especially commercial navigable waterfronts, for harbor and dock purposes . .. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad now controls the steam and street railways of the state . . . It has acquired rights in Providence river and is rapidly getting more . . . We should acquire the harbor rights for the people of greater Providence and future Rhode Island."
3. The Commissioner of Public Works reported that 23,248 craft passed through Point Street Bridge in 1900, including steamboats, tow boats, sailing vessels and barges. See illustration, page 232.
4. An amusement resort at the north end of Bullock's Point.
5. The Day Star was partially burned, rebuilt, and re-christened Warwick.
198
1900 - 1910
and the New Shoreham ran to Block Island. Over a million and a quarter passengers were carried annually over these bay lines.
At the opening of the century the Union Railroad Company was operating electric cars on the former horse car routes (page 179) to which several lines had been added. On the College Hill system lines were now extended over Butler Avenue and Blackstone Boulevard to Swan Point Cemetery; on Elmgrove Avenue to Sessions Street; and on Brown and Camp streets to Andrews Field (page 193). Cars branched from the North Main Street route over Olney and Camp streets, and over Charles and Admiral streets and Douglas Avenue. The tracks were relaid on Exchange Place, extending around the railroad station approaches and underpassing the station at Francis Street to connect with the Smith Street route. The Union Railroad Company also operated suburban lines running, respectively, to Saylesville by way of Silver Spring and Smithfield avenues; to Rumford and Phillipsdale over Red Bridge; to Riverside and Crescent Park by way of Washington Bridge; to Centredale over Smith Street; and to the Pawtuxet Valley mill villages of Pontiac, Natick and Riverpoint over Reservoir and Pontiac avenues.
Three longer suburban lines were operated by the Rhode Island Suburban Railroad Company,6 including the Warwick and Oakland Beach Railroad (page 156) which was taken over from the New York, New Haven and Hartford in 1900 and extended to Buttonwoods on Cowesett bay; a railway running over Elmwood Avenue and the Post Road to East Greenwich, where connection was made with the Sea View Railroad to Narragansett Pier; and the line to Bristol which followed the Crescent Park route and continued over highways through Barrington and Warren. Interstate lines operating on the rails of the Union Rail- road Company in Providence included the Providence and Fall River ("snake line") and the Providence and Taunton, both leaving the city by Washington Bridge, and the Providence and Danielson which followed Hartford Avenue.
The Union Railroad Company leased its system in 1902 to the Rhode Island Company, an operating concern chartered that year, the stock of which was controlled by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. That company secured a lease of the Rhode Island Suburban Railroad Company and the Pawtucket Street Railway Company and controlled various other lines in the state. By the year 1910 the system of out-of-town lines, radiating from Providence, was extended to the Attleboros, Woonsocket, Worcester, Chepachet, and Pascoag.
Automobiles were in operation on the city streets in 1900, but not in numbers sufficient to constitute a traffic problem.7 A small percentage of the people owned horses, carriages and sleighs and these facilities were available for hire at numerous livery stables. Horse- drawn trucks, carts and moving vans were operated for the transportation of freight and merchandise in the city and freight cars, hauled by strings of horses, were drawn over the rails on certain highways. Bicycles were seen in great numbers. The first public control of automobiles was effected in 1904, in which year the General Assembly provided for the registration of motor vehicles and the licensing of their operators under direction of the secretary of state. In 1908 the control was transferred to the state board of public roads, established that year.8
6. The Union Railroad Company and the Rhode Island Suburban Railway Company both were con- trolled by the United Traction and Electric Company, a syndicate organized in 1893.
7. The first recorded automobile fatality occurred at Roger Williams Park in the summer of 1902 when a sightseeing car, operated by the Providence Auto and Transportation Company, caught fire and burned one of the passengers, resulting in her death a few days later.
8. P.L., 1902, chapter 84; 1908, chapter 1 592.
199
EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE
Traffic congestion on the streets of Providence became a major civic problem with the expansion of the system of suburban street railway lines. The radial plan of the city, originating in the old country roads and turnpikes (page 84), was sound in theory in pro- viding direct access from the civic center to outlying districts. In practice, however, the streets were too narrow for an easy flow of traffic and, in most cases, only single lines of tracks were permitted, with turnouts at intervals. As nearly all of the suburban lines terminated in the center of the city it was in that area that the congestion was most acute.
Several highway projects, financed by loans authorized by the General Assembly, were carried out by the city for providing better means of circulation and relief from traffic congestion. Among the more important were the widening of South Main, Hope and Eddy streets. South Main Street, constituting the southerly end of the original Towne street, was an important artery for traffic headed for the Fox Point and India Street docks and Washington Bridge. Although several times altered in lines and contours it still retained, at the opening of the century, an irregularity in width ranging from 40 to 60 feet. The street was widened, between 1902 and 1905, to a uniform width of 60 feet between Crawford and Transit streets, and an outlet was provided to South Water Street by widening Crawford Street to 80 feet. The Hope Street project was confined to the northerly section from Rochambeau Avenue to the Pawtucket line which was widened, in 1905, from 40 to 60 feet, conforming to the width of the highway southerly to Olney Street.9 Electric cars were run over Hope Street to Pawtucket to provide service for this rapidly-growing residential area. The section of Eddy Street, from Dyer to Crary, over which freight cars were run on spur tracks to industrial plants and docks, was widened between 1906 and 1911 to 60 feet.
Exchange Place, at the opening of the century, was an undeveloped area, 250 feet wide and 1200 feet long, extending from City Hall to Canal Street. Near the easterly end, now identified as Memorial Square, was an open water area between Burnside and Exchange bridges (see map, page 164), over a portion of which the fire station stood on pile foundations. In front of it was the Burnside monument (page 175) and at the western end of Exchange Place stood the Soldiers and Sailors monument (page 149). The remainder of the area was paved from curb to curb with granite blocks.
On a tract of land on the north border of Exchange Place, near the east end of the new railroad buildings and formerly a part of the Cove Promenade, a new Central Fire Station was erected, financed by a loan authorized by the General Assembly June 13, 1900. It was a three-story brick and limestone building with a bell tower, designed by Martin and Hall.10 Upon its completion and occupancy, March 26, 1903, the former station was sold at public auction and subsequently removed.
A bridge, later identified as Post Office Bridge, was built across Providence river between Burnside and Exchange bridges in 1904, filling the last gap of a span, 1147 feet in width, extending from the head of navigation at Crawford Street to the railroad viaduct (see map, page 144). Point Street Bridge (page 145) was rebuilt in 1907 with a 40-foot roadway between curbs and a swing span of 284 feet.
Landscape improvements were made in City Hall Park (dedicated to park purposes, 1892), situated between Exchange Place and the railroad station, including the layout of
9. This section of Hope Street originally was the East Turnpike (page 85), freed and named East Avenue in 1872, and re-named Hope Street in 1900. Rochambeau Avenue, previously known as Hearnden's Lane, Harrington's Lane, and North Street, was named in honor of Comte de Rochambeau (page 53) about 1895. 10. See illustration, page 216. The building was razed, in 1938, and on its site the Federal Building Annex was built (page 262).
200
1900 - 1910
flower gardens and the planting of oak trees (illustration, page 250). A fountain, designed by Enid Yandell, was erected in the center of the area in 1902, the gift of Paul Bajnotti in memory of his wife (page 206). The central group, cast in bronze, symbolizes "the struggle for life." In 1906 the Soldiers and Sailors monument was taken down and rebuilt on a spot in the center of Exchange Place, midway between Dorrance and Exchange streets, and the Burnside monument was moved to City Hall Park. The Scout Monument, designed by Henri Schönhardt, was erected in the park in 1911 and dedicated to Major Henry H. Young for valor in the Civil War.
In 1903 the United States Treasury Department conducted an architectural competi- tion for the design of a Federal Building, to be located on land given by the city in the center of the portion of Exchange Place extending 200 feet east from Exchange Street. The award was made to Clarke and Howe, whose design followed an adaptation of the Classic style exemplified by contemporary buildings in Washington (illustration, page 216). The length of Exchange Place was now shortened to 900 feet, including two roadways flanking the new building, and the area extending from that building to Canal Street was named Post Office Square, later changed to Memorial Square. The Federal Building, opened in 1908, housed the post office, the Federal Court and the customs department which were removed from the former Federal Building on Weybosset Street (page 129). The customs service was returned to the Weybosset Street building in 1922.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.