On the first weekend in May, the global walking festival “Jane’s Walks” will return to Providence, with volunteer-led walks to help residents discover surprises and wonders both in their own backyards and in corners of the city they have yet to explore.
Today, Jane’s Walks are celebrated around the world in honor of urbanist Jane Jacobs, champion of neighborhood preservation in New York City during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Her most famous work, The Death and life of Great American Cities, challenged twentieth-century urban planning orthodoxies, such as urban renewal at the expense of existing communities. Jane’s legacy has enormously impacted cityscapes everywhere.
This year, the number of Jane’s Walks happening in Providence has grown to twenty from last year’s thirteen walks, and for the first time, a couple of culinary surprises have been added.
Here is an overview of some of the walks that will be featured, focusing on clusters of topics: neighborhoods, rivers, urban art, whimsy, and more.
Neighborhood Walks
Neighborhood Walks include walks in Fox Point, Elmwood, the Jewelry District, and along the Port of Providence.
In Fox Point, Claire Andrade-Watkins, a historian, filmmaker, and steward of local Cape Verdean history, will return to places where she grew up in the tight Cape Verdean community west of Benefit Street. Here, the men worked as stevedores on the waterfront, and children played on the grand lawns of the John Brown House and Brown University. She preserves much of this heritage in her celebrated film, “Some Kind of Funny Puerto Rican: A Cape Verdean American Story,” which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year.
The film explores “[…] what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island forcibly displaced by the construction of interstate I95, the expansion of Brown University, urban renewal and gentrification.” . Andrade-Watkins has worked diligently to preserve this history in many ways, including sharing this history through Jane’s Walks.Hugh Gorman, a retired history professor, also grew up in Fox Point. He spent time along the portion of the river where he’ll lead his walk, ending at the iconic Crook Point Bridge. This bascule-type drawbridge, originally part of a railroad system bringing freight from the north to the “old” station downtown, was left in its upright position when abandoned by the state in 1976 (it was not stuck, as is sometimes assumed). While the Rhode Island Department of Transportation has proposed its demolition, Gorman is among those who hope it will be preserved as a distinctive part of our cityscape.
Ben Haas lives in the Fox Point neighborhood east of Hope Street. In the eighteenth century, this flat land was the site of three rope walks, where the weaving of ropes for sailing ships took place. Haas has done original research on how this area subsequently grew, which he will share on his Walk. Jean Higbie and myself will join him in sharing some of our own experiences of the neighborhood.
Valerie Reishuk, an advocate for public transit and safe streets, has a very different focus for her Fox Point Walk. She will visit sites used for outdoor expression— skateboarding, protesting, painting, dancing—and will encourage walkers to imagine how else the city calls on us to express ourselves.
The Elmwood neighborhood, remarkably revived in the past forty years, will be the focus of Doug Victor’s Walk. Doug, an urban pioneer, lived here through it all. He will start at the Peace and Plenty Garden (of which he is lead gardener) and end at the magnificent Knight Memorial Library (of which he is President of the Friends group). The library was a gift of the children of Robert Brayton Knight, founder of Fruit of the Loom, whose mansion on the site was demolished in 1963. Inside its “Roman Forum” interior is a “must-see” reproduction of the Parthenon Frieze. Doug will also share his experience of the restoration of wonderful residential buildings, which he knows first-hand.
The Jewelry District in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the epicenter of the jewelry industry in the United States. Wealthy manufacturers and mostly-immigrant workers both were part of the story. Olin Thompson, who has led tours here since 2014, will focus on its changing uses, and how the re-routing of I-195 has led to a burst of new growth.
A standout in these neighborhood walks is The Toxic Tour of the Port of Providence, part of a sustained effort to reclaim the quality of life of Washington Park and South Providence. Led by Monica Huertas of the Peoples Port Authority, a group that coalesced in a 2015 fight opposing liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanks in the port. Participants will walk through areas surrounding the nonprofit ProvPort which manages much of production, and at key sites such as scrap metal facilities and fuel storage terminals. Members of PPA will share their experiences and data about air quality, asthma rates, chemical storage, and disaster risk—connecting everyday realities to broader systems of environmental justice and regulatory failure.
River Walks
Rivers, like neighborhoods, also offer rich memories of the past. Ian Westcott grew up on the remains of a family farm in North Providence, and his walk, “In Search of the West River Greenway,” results from living near a stream running into the West River. Industrial and commercial abuse has degraded the area since then, and Ian hopes that a greenway proposed in the City’s 2020 Great Streets Plan can return it to recreational use. He will encourage discussion of potential routings and what might be here in the future.
The lower Woonasquatucket River is another waterway undergoing great change. Rich Pederson, steward of the Southside Land Trust’s City Farm, and Kuno Haimbodi, who cares for trees along the River, will lead a walk that focuses on ways people and other living beings have made space here for home, art and continuous change.
Public Art Walks
Public Art of Providence is rich and abundant, and will be explored in several Walks. The Murals of Wickenden Street, led by Myra Jerozal, Janet Miller and Maria Mansella, takes walkers along this main Fox Point street to see how artists have embellished the neighborhood, and why. The Murals of Downtown, led by Carole Marshall, Catherine Cochran and Kathleen Liebenow, will look at works by the renowned Shepard Fairey and others sponsored by The Avenue Concept, and more. They will explore ways of looking at art and consider how these murals contribute to the identity of the “Creative Capital.”
Looking Up, Downtown: The Fine Art of Building Embellishment in Providence, with Matt Hodge and Catherine Hurst, will encourage observation of the structures built in the City’s heyday, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Industrial Revolution enabled mass production of decorative elements and made possible the rich ornamentation of these buildings. Discussions will center around what prompted construction, as well as how design choices reflect the ideologies of owners and architects.
What We Commemorate: Memorials and Monuments in Providence will be led by Lisa Miles, Jessica Siegel and Linda Shamoon. This walk will go from Dyer Street to Burnside Park and will include the Rhode Island Irish Famine Memorial and the 2023 statue of artist Edward Bannister in Market Square. Discussion will center on what citizens thought important to commemorate at different times, what was left out, and what may be memorialized in the future.
Andy Nosal, former owner of The Map Center, will build on his West Side Walk of last year—the Aesthetics of Urban Hiking—by focusing on street art of the West and South Sides. His perspective will be not only of the art works themselves, but all the positions from which they can be glimpsed. He looks forward to active participant discussion.
Whimsical Walks
Other walks are more whimsical. Sarah Zurier, a historian with the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, will share her longtime affection for the well-known 1978 poster by The Mad Peck: “Providence, Rhode Island, where it rains two days out of three except during the rainy season when it snows like a bitch…” She and co-leader Asher Schofield (co-owner Frog & Toad and its collection of Mad Peck poster t-shirts) will visit sites referenced in the poster, from Hope Street to Friendship. She looks forward to learning about others’ engagements with The Mad Peck and this poster.
Singer Joy, artist and writer, has a passion for parking lots. She will continue the explorations of her Jane’s Walk last year by ambling through parking lots from Eagle Square to the Waterfire Art Center. Participants will be encouraged to share their thoughts about future features and transformations through sketches and note-taking.
Please Enquire in the Bread Store: Mapping Providence Clairvoyants with Traci Picard will reveal a side of the City that doesn’t show up in history books: two centuries of “medico-spiritual” practice in Providence. The practitioners, many of them women, performed important care work in the community, and Traci looks forward to an exchange of ideas about the history and culture of clairvoyants in Providence. Her Walk will end with optional drinks at The Avery on Federal Hill.
Jane’s Waddle and Toddle will be led by Liza Birch, to bring together prospective and new parents to explore what walkability really means for parents and young children navigating the city. Jane Jacobs’ own children were present during her activist work in Greenwich Village. Liza hopes to encourage present-day parents to advocate for more curb cuts, more public toilets, more benches, etc., to make ours a walking city for everyone.
A Category of Their Own
With Memorial Boulevard’s Deteriorated Present and Imagined Future, transportation planner Eric Weis highlights degradation of the once-touted downtown Memorial Boulevard. It was part of the redesign of the downtown in the 1980s and 1990s which replaced “the world’s widest bridge” with the structures and historic signs we see today. Eric urges that we address deterioration before we have another Washington Bridge-type calamity here. Expect to take part in discussion of how the Boulevard should be repaired or rebuilt.
Trees in the City: How We Experience Providence’s Urban Forest, led by Cassie Tharinger and others from the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program, will draw attention to where we do and don’t see trees in the city, and how trees fit in and around the urban environment. Urban tree canopy is key in addressing the impacts of the climate crisis; but how can trees fit into a dense, post-industrial New England city, with so many competing needs? What are the barriers to increasing tree canopies and addressing inequities? These are some of the questions that will be discussed.
And Finally, the Valley Arts District Opens Its Doors
On Saturday, from noon to 5 p.m., you can visit the welcome hub for the Open Valley Arts organization, 50 Sims Street! Tour the building, meet the tenants and team behind the project, and explore the neighborhood while connecting with the artists, organizations, small businesses, and creative projects that make this community so special. Performances and activities, plus food and drink, will be available all day. [Editor’s Note: You can read more about Open Valley in a Readers’ Voices piece out this week by Ben Sisto.]
Jane’s Walks run Friday May 1 through Sunday May 3. To learn more about Jane’s Walks and see the full schedule of walks, visit Providence Preservation Society’s website.
[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jane’s Walks Providence are organized by Providence Preservation Society. The walks are volunteer-led, with PPS providing web support and event promotion. The Providence Eye regrets the error.]
Sarah Gleason has been passionate about historic preservation since moving to Fox Point in 1970. She has experienced the connection between people and places in many settings: as a teacher at the Dorcas Place Parent Literacy Program, as the first Director of ReachOut&Read/RI, and as founder of the BeavertailLighthouse Museum when working for RIDEM. Now, she is happy to be writing about this subject for The Providence Eye.
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