To the Editor,
The bankruptcy of the Providence Place mall gives us a time for a radical rethink. While many folks will look at housing, classrooms, or the like, what the city really needs is more Salt Marsh. When the mall was being built they had trouble putting in the footings because they were sinking them into salt marsh soils. Providence was founded around the great ecological bounty available in the salt marsh that covered much of the lower parts of what is now downtown. All of the low parts of the city are going to be in big trouble as sea levels rise and we may see a repeat of the floods of 1938 and 1954. The best way to absorb the floods is to provide lots of salt marsh to absorb and store the water. Malls are dinosaurs, so let us repurpose it towards the ecological conditions that we are beginning to experience due to the overuse of fossil fuels. Use the mall to absorb the rising seas.
Greg Gerritt
To the editor,
In my years as a teacher in the Providence school system, it was an open secret that the Central Administration was an ever-increasingly bloated repository of failed (professionally AND personally) school administrators and favored friends. I’d look there to trim some fat from the school budget.
Arthur C Norman
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