Proposed ordinance would require Providence City Council approval before removing bike lanes

by Alexander Castro

The Providence City Council is trying to hit the brakes on a mayoral plan to remove the South Water Street bike lane. An ordinance introduced Thursday night by Councilor John Goncalves would require council approval for the removal of any bike lane in the city, [...]

Overview of the Budget Process

by Office of City Councilor Helen Anthony

On Wednesday, April 17, Mayor Brett Smiley will present his proposed city budget.  The City Council then has the opportunity to review and amend it.  The process is explained here, and public input is encouraged. PLEASE NOTE THAT CHANGES, INCLUDING MEETING DATES, MAY CHANGE OVER [...]

Divorce in the Public Library

by Roseanne Camacho

Linda Kushner, resident of Providence, lawyer, and former Rhode Island politician, has written a book, The Fight That Saved the Libraries: A True Rhode Island Story, being published in May.  It chronicles the split between the Providence Public Library (PPL) and what became the Community [...]

Birders Flock to Swan Point Cemetery During Spring Migration

by Leslie Bostrom

  Every May my friend, Miriam Locke, visits from California, and one of the places we go birding is in Swan Point Cemetery on Providence’s East Side.. A few years ago, we were standing in bright warm sunshine with our binoculars focused on a blue-headed [...]

Free College and Job Skills at CCRI in Providence

by Art Norwalk

After more than a decade as a firefighter and EMT, and then as a woodworker for several more years, Raymond Paulhus decided he wanted more out of life and work. So, he went back to school in South Providence at the Liston Campus of CCRI [...]

What Providence’s Proposed Zoning Changes Would Mean for Your Neighborhood

by Olivia Ebertz

The City of Providence’s Planning Department has released a new map showing proposed changes in growth and density in the city under its draft comprehensive plan. According to the city’s Planning Department, the proposed changes are meant to accommodate more people. Over the last Census [...]

RIDE Has a Plan to Tear Down Mt. Pleasant High School?!

by Dexter Vincent

Mount Pleasant High School (MPHS) is a storied neighborhood landmark with an uncertain future. The Depression-era structure, built in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration, is a “monumental…building in the Collegiate Gothic mode…relatively scarce in Providence,” according to the Providence Preservation Society. Now the Providence [...]

If Education Needs a Revolutionary Idea, No Need to Look Too Far

by Roseanne Camacho

In the late 1990s Len Newman was 50, an experienced and successful teacher of English in Central Falls, when he saw a notice enlisting teachers for the Brown Summer High School. He thought he could do that. He did not expect that the summer would [...]

Providence’s Write Rhode Island Grows Literary Community from the Ground Up

by Taylor M. Polites

Rhode Island’s literary legacy stretches from 17th-century founder Roger Williams to Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri today, with connections along the way to literary titans like Margaret Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. Today’s literary community continues to be vibrant and home grown, [...]

Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: Possible to Have Both? 

by Sarah Gleason

The three historic houses demolished in January on Angell Street on the East Side of Providence got considerable press attention. The vacant space in what had long been a quiet residential area will likely be filled with a multi-story structure, similar to those going up [...]