Music From Junk

by John Sumerlin

Making musical instruments out of recycled or discarded materials, ergo junk, is a worldwide phenomenon. There are entire orchestras in Venezuela and other relatively impoverished cultures, where children use junk instruments to participate in orchestras of their peers, learning to play and concertize together. There [...]

Dual Language Education Offers A Vision for Providence’s Schools

by Diego Arene-Morley

The Boston Globe report on the results of the statewide academic test, the RI Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) on October 18, 2024, included one bright spot:  “Students who recently exited multilingual learner (MLL) programs scored higher than the statewide average in both English Language Arts [...]

Toaster’s Collective Bakery Leavens Delicious Bread and Community

by Amber Ma

In the late 2010s, Toni Jonas Silver and Anya Talatinian were talented bakers on the bread team at the formerly beloved, but now defunct Olga’s Bakery on Point Street in Providence. Shortly after Olga’s shut their doors at the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic [...]

Girls and Boys [and Mom]

by Mark Binder

Let’s start with the recommendation: Girls & Boys  now showing at the Gamm Theatre is a powerful one-person show with a stellar performance by Donnla Hughes. Blending (fictional) Moth-like storytelling with a heartrending twist, it is a riveting emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s a limited run, [...]

How is Providence’s Historic Aesthetic Maintained?

by J. Hogue

Providence has 8 historic districts covering over 2,600 documented properties. These designations mean owners who want to make a change to a structure located in one of these districts have to first apply to the Providence Historic District Commission (PHDC) for a Certificate of Appropriateness. [...]

Legacy Laws Are Hurting Providence Public School Students

by Julia Steiny

Failing urban students is a time-honored habit in Rhode Island, first documented exhaustively in the 1993 ProBE report. The equally depressing 2019 Johns Hopkins report also focused on toxic provisions in the Providence teachers’ contract.  But unlike those two reports, the May 2024 legislative commission [...]

New Interactive Art Project Shows Providence Through a Blind Lens

by Lauren Clem

When Daniel Solomon first arrived at Brown University, he noticed students had few opportunities on campus to interact with blind or visually impaired people. The junior from Miami, who was born with ocular albinism and is legally blind, knew public education would be important to [...]

Stormwater Runoff Now Getting City and Resident Focus

by Bob McMahon

This year, it has rained 55 inches in Providence so far, and with the projected rainfall in the remainder of December, the accumulated rainfall will equal 2023’s 58 inches.  Normal annual rainfall in Providence used to be 44 inches.  As more and more storms deliver [...]

South Providence Scrapyard Insists it is Cleaning Up Its Act. Residents Still Have Their Doubts

by Nancy Lavin

The plumes of smoke soaring from a south Providence scrapyard five months ago have cleared. But frustration over the environmental and health consequences for those who live near Rhode Island Recycled Metals still burned brightly Tuesday during a two-hour meeting at the West End Community [...]

Mary Colman Wheeler (1846-1920) Visionary Artist, Educator, and Founder of Wheeler School         

by Jane Lancaster

Best remembered locally for founding Wheeler School on Providence’s East Side, she was also an internationally known artist and educator, exhibiting in the Paris Salon, receiving an honorary degree from Brown in 1911, and a medal from the French government honoring her role as an [...]