I am thrilled to share that the Pond Street Rhode Tour is online. I have been focusing research and narrative on this area on the western edge of downtown Providence--from Cathedral Square to Canonicus Square between Westminster and Broad Streets. The area was redeveloped in the mid-20th century and much of the historic built environment was bulldozed to "modernize" the city--including the construction of Interstate 95, the redesign of the western edge of downtown by architect I.M. Pei, and the redevelopment of the high school campuses. Find the tour here.
My interest in bringing back this "lost" neighborhood is to examine the extraordinary sweep of history through this small area and to acknowledge the extraordinary people who lived here, like civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs, important artist Arshile Gorky, and the teenage girl who desegregated the Providence public schools in the late 1860s Maritcha Lyons.
Please take a look at the tour and tell me what you think! Find the tour here.
With grateful appreciation to the Providence City Department of Arts, Culture + Tourism for supporting this project through a grant. Thanks, too, to the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
