USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 25
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undergraduates in 1928. Andrews Field (page 193) was sold by the university and was platted into small house lots.
Pembroke College was further developed by the erection of two buildings of Colonial design on Cushing Street, identified as Metcalf Hall (Andrews, Rantoul and Jones of Boston, architects, 1919), a dormitory given by Stephen O. Metcalf and others, and Alumnæ Hall (Andrews, Jones, Briscoe and Whitmore, architects, 1926), a building for social and assembly purposes given by alumnæ and Mr. Metcalf.
President Faunce resigned in 1928 (he died the following year) and was succeeded by Dr. Clarence A. Barbour (1929-37). In 1931 an enlargement of Rockefeller Hall (page 205) was undertaken with an easterly extension on Waterman Street, connected with the original building by an archway over the driveway leading to the campus from Waterman
Courtesy of Brown Alumni Monthly
Faunce House, Brown University. Building at left, originally Rockefeller Hall, 1903; Addition at right, 1931.
Street. The addition, designed by Howe and Church, contained a theatre, a cafeteria, and offices for undergraduate activities. It was the gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., at whose request Rockefeller Hall, with its addition, was re-named Faunce House (illustration above).
Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and Allied Sciences, a degree-granting institution chartered in 1902, erected a building (William R. Walker and Son, architects) at 235 Benefit Street in 1924, on the site of the former Young Ladies School (page 194). The college became a unit of the University of Rhode Island in 1957.
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Rhode Island School of Design erected, in 1926, the Eliza G. Radeke Building (William T. Aldrich, architect), adjacent to Pendleton House (page 207) and conforming to the Colonial design of that house. It is five stories in height and its main floor, containing a museum of fine arts and entered from Benefit Street, is on the fourth level. The museum is connected by corridors and stairways with the school galleries on Waterman Street.
LaSalle Academy, a parochial school which had been located on Fountain Street since 187233, acquired a tract of 43 acres at Smith Street and Academy Avenue (page 219) in 1924, on which a large schoolhouse (John W. Donahue, architect, illustration below) was erected the following year.
Police precincts were increased in number to eight upon the erection of a new station on Chad Brown Street in 1929. New fire stations were built on Academy Avenue in 1927 and Rochambeau Avenue in 1929.
The Armory for Mounted Commands and the State Office Building, both financed by
LaSalle Academy, 1924, Smith Street and Academy Avenue.
construction loans, were built in Providence by the state during this period. The armory (William R. Walker and Son, architects), erected at 1051 North Main Street and consisting of a drill shed (built in 1913) and a three-story head house, was completed October 9, 1925. The office building (Jackson, Robertson and Adams, architects, illustration, page 246) was erected on a three-acre tract on the north side of Smith Street, opposite the State House, a part of which had constituted the Albert W. Smith estate including a three-story house erected in 1800. Construction was started May 14, 1927 and the building was completed August 7, 1928; a west wing was added in 1935.
The post-war period was productive of quite a number of business buildings. The Citizens Savings Bank,34 erected in 1921 on the site of the former Hoyle Tavern (page 54)
33. The school expanded to an adjacent building, in 1901, which was reconstructed for its use. LaSalle Square, laid out in 1914 (page 215), took its name from the institution, which bordered it on the west. The building was razed and replaced by the Bureau of Police and Fire Building in 1940 (page 261).
34. The bank was established in 1871 and first located at 846 Westminster Street.
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View showing State Office Building, 1928, (left); Saint Patrick's Church, 1916, (center); State House, 1900, (right).
1920- 1930
at the junction of Westminster and Cranston streets, and the Providence Gas Company Building, which replaced the Taylor and Symonds Building (1860) at 100 Weybosset Street in 1924 (both designed by Clarke and Howe) followed Colonial precedent. The design of the Morris Plan Building (Jackson, Robertson and Adams, architects, 1926) at 25 Canal Street was inspired by the Market House and the nine-story Insurance Building (Clarke and Howe, architects, 1929) at 31 Canal Street was crowned by a parapet reminiscent of the Roger Williams Bank Building.35 Old Colony House (Thomas H. James of Boston, architect), a nine-story building erected in 1927 by the Old Colony Cooperative Bank at 58 Weybosset Street, replacing Harkness Block (1866), and the Providence National Bank 36 (Howe and Church, architects, 1929), erected in replacement of the Lyceum Building (page I26) at 100 Westminster Street, both recall elements of the Early Republican era.
A departure from traditional forms is noted in other business buildings of the period. The limestone frontispiece of Kresge Building (1927), at 191 Westminster Street, was a harbinger of a new era. Modern technique as applied to skyscrapers, with setbacks at successive levels, is exemplified in the Industrial Trust Building37 (Walker and Gillette of New York, architects, 1926-28), erected on Exchange Place in replacement of Butler Exchange (page 149) and Brownell Building. It was the tallest structure yet to be erected in Providence, its limestone walls rising 418 feet to the top of the great lantern above the 26th story.38 The main banking room occupies the ground floor, flanked by a corridor extending from Exchange Place to Westminster Street.
The decade of the twenties marked the culmination of the trend in theatrical patronage from legitimate stage shows to motion pictures. A city ordinance was enacted in 1926, permitting Sunday performances. The erection, in 1930, of Loew's State Theatre, a picture palace at 220 Weybosset Street seating 3200 persons, was followed the next year by the closing of Providence Opera House (page 153). While professional stage shows thereafter were comparatively rare events, interest in the drama was kept alive by numerous amateur organizations, including Sock and Buskin of Brown and The Players.39
Infantry Hall, the only large concert auditorium in the city, was closed in 1926.40 An-
35. See illustration, page 254. These buildings replaced Parsons Block and Hanley Building. Morris Plan Bank was reorganized as Plantations Bank in 1946 and subsequently moved its offices to 61 Weybosset Street. The building at 25 Canal Street was occupied by the Workmen's Compensation Commission in 1955. The Insurance Building was acquired by the Blue Cross Hospital Service Corporation Plan in 1946.
36. The Providence National Bank was a merger of the Providence Bank (page 51) and the Merchants National Bank (page 124). Subsequent to 1950 it was united with the Union Trust Company (page 209) and the Industrial Trust Company as the Industrial National Bank.
37. See illustration, page 248. The former building of the Industrial Trust Company at 49 Westminster Street was continued as an office building
38. As the site bordered on the original shore line of the cove, and included a portion of Waterman's marsh (page 35), foundations of considerable depth were required. The height of the building exceeded the limitations prescribed by the zoning ordinance and an exception was granted by the board of review.
39. Sock and Buskin, organized in 1902, performed in Providence Opera House and other auditoriums until permanent stage facilities were provided in Faunce House Theatre in 1929. The Players, established in 1909 as successor to the Talma Club (page III), gave their earlier productions in Talma Theatre, Infantry Hall and Elks Auditorium. The club purchased the Church of the Saviour at 400 Benefit Street in 1932 and converted it into Barker Playhouse, so named in memory of Henry A. Barker for conspicuous activities both in the Talma Club and The Players.
40. See page 154. Recitals and chamber music were heard at the Eloise, Churchill House, Memorial Hall, Providence Plantations Auditorium and Elks Auditorium, the latter occupying the first floor of Elks Home (G. Henri Desmond, architect, 1914) at 241 Washington Street. After three years of idleness Infantry Hall was reopened in 1929 for a few seasons. The building was destroyed by fire October 4, 1942.
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Westminster Street, c. 1932, showing (left to right) Turks Head Building (1913), new Industrial Trust Building (1928) and old Industrial Trust Building (1892).
1920- 1930
other concert hall was contemplated in the new Masonic Temple on Francis Street, the erection of which was started in 1927 (Osgood and Osgood, architects) but, upon comple- tion of the walls and roof-construction, work was suspended.41 Rhode Island Auditorium (Funk and Wilcox of Boston, architects), a commercial enterprise, was erected at IIII North Main Street in 1925, containing an arena used for a skating rink and other purposes, surrounded by 5800 fixed seats in tiers.
Three Catholic churches of Romanesque design were erected during the period, namely, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (John F. O'Malley, architect, 1925) at 64 Brayton Avenue; Saint Adelbert's (Ernest Ludorff of Bridgeport, Connecticut, architect, 1925) at 860 Atwells Avenue; and Our Lady of Lourdes (A. J. Murphy, architect, 1928) at 901 Atwells Avenue, the latter having an adjacent parochial school on Mongenais Street. Scandinavian design is reflected in Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Hayes Street (Martin Hedwig, architect, 1928)
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Temple Emanu El, 1928, 295 Morris Avenue.
and the modern trend in Temple Emanu El (Krokyn and Brown, architects, 1928, illustra- tion above), a stone and brick synagogue at the corner of Morris Avenue and Sessions Street.
Rhode Island Hospital42 received a bequest from Jane Frances Brown for a building for private patients and erected Jane Brown Hospital (Kendall, Taylor and Company, architects), at the north end of the hospital grounds on Lockwood Street, which was opened in 1922. A training school for nurses was built in 1927.
41. See illustration, page 205. The unfinished building was purchased by the state in 1945 and the audi- torium was opened in 1951 (page 279).
42. See page 137. Rhode Island Hospital was the recipient of a substantial sum from the proceeds of a unique block party known as the "Blockaid," held in June, 1922 under direction of Mrs. I. Harris Metcalf. The site was on Brown Street, which was closed to traffic from Power to George, and overflowed into the yards of abutting houses.
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Photo by William Mills & Son
View of City Hall Park, c. 1930. In foreground Union Station (1898) and Bajnotti fountain (1902). In distance, left to right, R. I. College of Education (1898), Masonic Temple (c. 1929) and State House (1900).
1920- 1930
Providence Lying-In Hospital and Homeopathic Hospital of Rhode Island established new estates on opposite sides of Pleasant Valley Parkway, in 1926, the former erected at 50 Maude Street and the latter at 825 Chalkstone Avenue.43 Lying-In Hospital (Stevens and Lee, architects) is Elizabethan and Homeopathic Hospital (Kendall, Taylor and Company, architects) Colonial in design. A nurses' home and training school (Jackson, Robertson and Adams, Clarke and Howe, associated architects) was added to Homeopathic Hospital in 1927. An addition to Lying-In Hospital was under way in 1956 (Howe, Prout and Ekman, architects).
Saint Joseph's Hospital (page 191) was expanded in 1929 by the addition of a six-story wing on Peace Street (A. J. Murphy, architect), the funds for which were received from a diocesan charity drive.
The Knight Library Association, organized by Colonel Webster Knight in 1924, erected the Knight Memorial Library (Edward S. Tilton of New York, architect) at 275 Elmwood Avenue, a limestone building designed in the classic manner, for the use of the Elmwood
Photo, 1957
Providence-Biltmore Hotel, 1922, 11 Dorrance Street, now Sheraton-Biltmore.
Library Association.44 Providence Public Library (page 187) increased its usefulness to the people by establishing neighborhood branches in various sections of the city. The vacated Hope Street Methodist Church (page 152) was acquired in 1928 and was remodeled for Tockwotton Branch Library. Small buildings were erected for the Wanskuck branch (1928) at 245 Veazie Street; Rochambeau branch (1930) at 708 Hope Street; South Providence branch (1930) at 441 Prairie Avenue (all designed by Howe and Church), and Smith's Hill branch (1932) at 31 Candace Street (Albert Harkness, architect). Other branches were
43. Lying-In Hospital, founded in 1885, was first located in the General James house at 12 Slocum Street and later in the Fletcher house at the corner of State and Field streets. Homeopathic Hospital, established in 1878, was located, successively, in the Nichols house at 151 Morris Avenue (later Morris Heights School) and 62 Jackson Street. It was changed in name to Roger Williams General Hospital February 19, 1947.
44. Elmwood Library Association was established in 1915 through activities of Mrs. Frederick E. Shaw, and first located in the Greenwich Street fire station.
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located at 15 Armington Avenue (Sprague House), 12 Olneyville Square (Olneyville Free Library) and the Broad Street School (Washington Park).
Providence Plantations Club, a women's group established in 1916,45 erected a club house (Andrews, Jones, Briscoe and Whitmore, architects) on Abbott Park Place in 1927, containing an assembly hall, dining rooms, lounges, a library, a swimming pool and bed rooms. The principal facade conforms to the domestic architecture of the early 19th century.
Providence Biltmore Hotel (Warren and Wetmore of New York, architects) was erected in 1921-22 on a triangular area bounded by Dorrance, Washington and Eddy streets, the site of Butts Block, following the organization of a stock company under auspices of the Providence Chamber of Commerce. The building is L-shaped, its 19-story wings connected by a two-story entrance facade on Dorrance Street, and the design of its brick and stone walls is based on Italian Renaissance motives. A large ballroom occupies the top floor. It was re-named Sheraton-Biltmore after a change in ownership in 1947 (illustration, page 251).
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768 Elmgrove Avenue, 1930.
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Huntoon house, 1925, 55 Cooke Street.
Wayland Manor, a seven-story apartment hotel (Harry A. Lewis, architect), was erected at 500 Angell Street in 1922, on the site of the Banigan house (page 211). It was known for a number of years as the Sheraton, and reverted to its original name in 1947.
In spite of the modern trend in residential design, manifest in many sections of the United States, traditional forms were continued in Providence in the period after World War I. This may have been due in part to the local interest and pride in the Colonial style as exemplified by surviving houses of the early period, many of which were rehabili- tated and converted into attractive homes. As a general rule the houses of the 1920S, although planned to meet modern requirements, were fabricated with walls and roofs of Colonial simplicity. Among these are the Huntoon house at 55 Cooke Street (Jackson, Robertson and Adams, architects, 1925, illustration above) and the Wood house at 72 Manning Street (Howe and Church, architects, 1930), both of which reflect the Early Republican period. By contrast is the Sharpe house at 86 Prospect Street (Parker, Thomas
45. The club was first opened in the Eloise on Franklin Street.
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and Rice, architects, 1928), a large French-influenced dwelling of brick and limestone with an entrance composed of pink marble columns and a curved pediment.
A tract of about 40 acres in the northerly section of the Neck, originally constituting a portion of the great swamp (see map, page 14), was developed as a high-grade residential area, between 1917 and 1922, by John R. Freeman. The tract extended easterly from Morris Avenue along a slightly declining hillside across Taber, Elmgrove and Wayland avenues to Cole Avenue, and from Doyle Avenue southerly to Laurel Avenue through which Hazard Avenue, Freeman Parkway and Barberry Hill were constructed. Over 200 restricted house lots were platted, having an average of 8000 square feet each. Another tract of about the same size, located west of Blackstone Boulevard and extending from Rochambeau Avenue northward to Swan Point property, was platted by Blackstone Boulevard Realty Company into house lots from 8,000 to 11,000 square feet in area. The highway improvements, carried out between 1923 and 1930, included the extension of Elmgrove Avenue in a sweeping curve to Blackstone Boulevard, the extension of Cole Avenue northerly to Elmgrove, and the construction of several cross streets. While the earlier houses erected on the Freeman plat were conservative in design, with Colonial characteristics, several of those in the Elmgrove Avenue area were constructed of such a varied assortment of building materials as to suggest a sophisticated revival of the works of E. I. Nickerson and his contemporaries in the late 19th century (page 170). Exceptions to that trend were the large brick hipped-roof Bodell house (Harrie T. Lindenburg, architect, 1928) on a four-acre estate at 61 Intervale Road (razed in 1954), and a white brick Colonial- type house (William T. Aldrich, architect, 1930, illustration, page 252) at 768 Elmgrove Avenue.
By act of the General Assembly, in 1930,46 the city charter was amended, increasing the number of wards in the city from 10 to 13, and providing for the election of one alderman and three councilmen from each ward. Extensive changes were made in the ward divisions, which were established, approximately, as follows: wards 1-3, the East Side; ward 4, the North End; wards 5-6, the Northwest Section; ward 7, the Olneyville area; wards 8-9, the Elmwood district; wards 10-11, South Providence; ward 12, the down town area; and ward 13, the central West Side.
46. P.L., 1930, chapter 1521.
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View of Market Square and Canal Street, 1950, showing (left to right) Insurance (Blue Cross) Building, 1927; Morris Plan (Workman's Compensation) Building, 1926; School of Design Auditorium, 1950; Market House, 1773; Peoples Savings Bank, 1913; Metcalf Building, School of Design, 1936.
Photo by Rhode Island School of Design
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CHAPTER 19 1930- 1940
R HODE ISLAND, together with the rest of the nation, encountered a long period of depression which followed the financial collapse of 1929. Many industrial plants were closed, production was greatly curtailed, and unemployment reached a high level. Governor Norman S. Case (1928-33) called a special session of the General Assembly in November, 1931, to make provisions for the relief of unemployed citizens in the state. An Unemployment Relief Commission and an Emergency Public Works Commission were organized and bond issues were approved for relief loans. Following the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt March 4, 1933, many Federal bureaus were established under the "new deal," charged with the administration of hugh sums of money to provide employment for many classes of people, in accordance with their needs and abilities. Over 60 Federal bureaus and agencies maintained branch offices in Rhode Island or were opera- tive through state departments.1 The Public Works Administration furnished a portion of the necessary funds and cooperated with the state in the preparation of plans for various projects including highway, bridge and building construction.2 The Works Progress Admin- istration provided work of all kinds for persons on unemployment relief, through projects sponsored by public agencies; its activities covered a wide range from the digging of trenches to the writing and publication of a state guide book under the Writers' Project.3 The Historic American Buildings Survey furnished work for unemployed architects and draughts- men in taking measurements and making drawings of old houses and other buildings of architectural and historic interest.4 The Federal Housing Corporation encouraged private housing enterprises by means of insured mortgages and established certain standards of building construction. The National Planning Board stimulated planning activities, nation- wide in scope, through the organization of regional and state planning boards and the assignment of planning consultants to local agencies.5 Pursuant to its offer of assistance and cooperation Governor Theodore Francis Green (1933-37) appointed a State Planning Board in December, 1934, coordinated with the National and New England Regional planning boards.
The State Planning Board was put on a continuing basis under an act of the General I. National Emergency Council, Directory of Federal and State Departments and Agencies in Rhode Island, 1938.
2. After four years of operation William J. Maguire, state director of Public Works, reported the com- pletion of 92 major projects in the state at a cost of 20 million dollars, about two-thirds of which amount was financed by the state and the remainder by the Federal Government. Among the projects were new buildings at the State Institutions in Cranston, the State Sanitorium at Wallum Lake and Rhode Island College at Kingston, 33 schoolhouses, improvements at the State Airport, and the repair and reconstruction of many miles of streets. - Providence Journal, June 13, 1937.
3. American Guide Series, Rhode Island, A Guide to the Smallest State (Boston, 1937).
4. Philip D. Creer was state director of the survey. A Catalogue of Measured Drawings and Photographs of the Survey in the Library of Congress, compiled and edited by the Historic American Buildings Survey, 1941, lists 144 historic buildings in Rhode Island, 31 of which were measured and drawn under the project.
5. The board was later identified, successively, as the National Resources Board, National Resources Committee, and National Resources Planning Board. Cady was assigned as consultant to the Rhode Island State Planning Board and served until 1938. He was succeeded by Justin R. Herzog, 1938-40.
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Assembly, approved March 21, 1935, creating a board of nine members as a division of the state Executive Department6 with John Nicholas Brown as chairman. Headquarters were established in the former Elmwood Avenue schoolhouse at 520 Potter's Avenue and a staff was organized, comprising a few technicians, employed by the state, and about 30 draughtsmen, statisticians and clerks furnished by the Works Progress Administration. The board's early activities were confined, principally, to the assembly of basic data and the preparation of maps.7 Clarence R. Bitting succeeded Mr. Brown as chairman in 1938. In the following year the powers and duties of the board were expanded by the General Assembly8 and its activities coordinated with the Rhode Island Industrial Rehabilitation Commission, with offices in the State Office Building. Under the subsequent chairmanship of Robert F. Shepard the board undertook studies of traffic control, highway circulation, water pollution abatement, flood control, airports and other problems.
The decade of the 1930s marked the commencement of commercial aviation in Rhode Island. A State Airport Commission was created by the General Assembly in 1929 under whose direction a 4II-acre tract at Hillsgrove, seven miles south of Providence, was purchased as a site for Rhode Island State Airport, later named Theodore Francis Green Airport in honor of Rhode Island's governor and senator. Scheduled passenger and air- mail service was inaugurated by American Airways, Inc. in 1932, but was suspended the following year pending construction of cement runways, grading and drainage work, erection of an administration building and hangars, and the establishment of lighting and signal systems. Service was resumed May 30, 1936.9
The city increased the area of its Field's Point estate, by additional purchases, to a total of about 175 acres (see map, page 220). The chemical precipitation plant was rebuilt in 1931 and converted into a mechanically-operated sludge process plant; the Ernest Street pumping station was enlarged, and a new pumping station was erected for the Washington Park district. An incinerator was built in 1936 to supplement the plant on Kinsley Avenue (page 240). Facilities at the municipal wharf were improved by the construction of a steel shed and a traveling crane, in 1925-26, and a concrete office building in 1936, the latter crected by Federal aid under a Works Progress Administration project. The quay wall was cxtended 1300 feet southerly along the harbor line between 1938 and 1941.
Shipping facilities in the port of Providence were advanced by dredging operations undertaken by the United States Engineers in 1938. The ship channel was deepened to 35 feet at mean low water, from Fox Point to Narragansett bay, with a minimum width of 600 feet which was increased to 1700 feet in the harbor. Shipping at this time was confined principally to oil tankers and freighters. The Luckenbach line made regular sailings from the Pacific coast to the municipal wharf, with shipments of lumber and merchandise. At the State Pier coal shipments were received from Wales, Russia and domestic ports, and lumber from the Pacific coast, the Great Lakes and Canada. Towing service was maintained by the Providence Tow and Steamboat Company (established 1881), with a base for its fleet at a wharf opposite the end of Crary Street. The Providence Line to New York, a
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