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 [...]

PVD’s Urban Farmers Are Feeding the City

by Brooke Warner

The term, ‘produce aggregation’ doesn’t really conjure up a picture of healthy kids and families and farmers bringing good food to communities facing food insecurity. But Southside Community Land Trust’s Produce Aggregation Program is working to do just that. It’s a way to connect urban [...]

Providence to Pay $15M to Resolve School Funding Dispute with State

by Alexander Castro

The city of Providence will pay an additional $15 million to its public schools, staving off a budget crisis that threatened to disrupt student amenities like sports and bus passes in the coming months, under the terms of an agreement reached this week with the [...]

Radical Roots Farm Leans on the Past to Ensure a More Sustainable Future

by Amber Ma

For the last few years, Radical Roots has been selling pasture-raised meat at farmers markets in Providence. In the summer, they are at the Armory Farmers Market in Providence’s West End neighborhood and from November through May, the Wintertime Market on 10 Sims Avenue. Alycia [...]