Merry Christmas Walk

It was a balmy 55 degrees yesterday, so I went for a walk in the midday sunshine.  Here are some Christmas-themed photos from that walk.  Happy holidays to all!

As I rounded the Occupy Providence encampment at Burnside Park, I saw this tiny decorated Christmas tree between two tents.  What a lovely hopeful sign!

This skating pond is at the other end of the park.  That's City Hall in the background.

A closeup shot of City Hall, with a huge Christmas tree blocking the entrance.

This menorah is just to the right of (and below) the Christmas tree shown in the previous photo.

A poster advertising this year's production of The Christmas Carol at Trinity Rep; in the window of the theatre.  This is the 35th annual production of the show; this year, it was set in the fifties.

A Christmas-wrapped and basketed light pole on Atwells Avenue.  This is the heart of Federal Hill--Providence's Italian neighborhood.

A Christmas cupcake display in the window of Scialo's Bakery.  The bakery has been an institution on Federal Hill since 1916; the brick ovens they use are from the 1920s.

A Nativity scene in the window of Venda Ravioli.  This is an Italian "food emporium" which sells the most incredible collection of meats and prepared foods, with 18 different kinds of olives in one display case, an entire aisle of olive oils and balsamic vinegars, and 150 kinds of fresh and frozen pasta.  Venda's has been on Federal Hill for over 70 years, but only 10 years in this beautiful location on DePasquale Square.

Santa working on his unicycle in the parking lot at Walgreen's.

French Elevator Doors - RISD

Sculptor Daniel Chester French is best known for his statue of the seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.  In New England, he is also known for the statue of the Minuteman at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, and the sculpture of John Harvard in Harvard Square, Cambridge.

But he also created many beautiful cast metal doors, including the main bronze doors at the Boston Public Library, and the elevator doors for the historic building which now belongs to the Rhode Island School of Design.

The building was originally the location of the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Bank, and was built between 1917-1920.  It later became a Fleet Bank, and the first floor banking hall was donated by Fleet to RISD in 2002 to serve as the main college library.  Later RISD acquired the upper floors of the building to serve as housing for 500 students.

French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, but moved with his family to Concord, Massachusetts when he was 17.  He attended MIT for a year, but then left school to study sculpture.  His first teacher was a neighbor of the Frenches, Abigail May Alcott (Louisa May's younger sister), who gave French modeling lessons and supplies.  His first commission, the Minuteman statue in Concord, was obtained through the efforts of family friend Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I'm sure Mr. French would be pleased to know that hundreds of art students now pass through these doors every day!

Swan Point Cemetery

Swan Point Cemetery, off Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, is a stunning place of rest.  Occupying 200 acres on the shores of the Seekonk River, it includes driving roads, walking paths, and areas for contemplation.

Swan Point was founded in 1846, and planned as a "garden" cemetery. Winding carriageways and paths were laid out to give the appearance of a park, and shrubs and trees were planted to enhance the natural contours of the land. Today it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and includes family mausoleums, monuments of various sizes, newer areas with ground-level markers, an urn garden, and a chapel.

Blackstone Boulevard, a long and elegant divided road with a central mall, was designed by Horace Cleveland in 1886, at the request of Swan Point, and the cemetery gave 11.5 acres of land to the City of Providence for that purpose.

There are many famous Rhode Islanders buried at Swan Point, including 10 Civil War Generals, and 23 former governors of the state.  General, and later Governor, Ambrose Burnside (perhaps best-known for giving his name to his facial hair decoration--sideburns) falls into both categories.

Among the other Civil War veterans buried there is Major Sullivan Ballou, who was one of 847 Union and Confederate soldiers killed in the first major battle of the war, the first battle of Bull Run, on July 21, 1861.

Ballou left behind a letter to his wife Sarah, which was made famous by Ken Burns' Civil War film.

O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night-amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours-always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sullivan and Sarah lie side by side at Swan Point.  My sister-in-law (a professional voice-over artist) read the text of the letter while my brother played the "Ashokan Farewell" on his iPhone.  I had brought along the letter but the performance was spontaneous and extremely moving.

One of our favorite monuments was the Edgar John Lownes memorial monument,  a bronze sculpture on a marble base located along a path that dips down to the river right around the corner.  It was created in 1924 by Vienna-born Isodore Konti.  (Konti had emigrated to the US in the 1890s to work on sculptural decorations for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.)

Lownes, who was born Edgar Lowenstein but anglicized his name during a period of anti-German sentiment during WWI, had founded the American Silk Spinning Company in 1908, and was also a local philanthropist.  Among other organizations, he was involved in a volunteer capacity with both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.  (Two of his sons graduated from Brown University, and his portrait hangs in the Brown Faculty Club.)  In his will, Lownes had asked that a casting of Konti's Genius of Immortality be placed over his grave.  At the request of Lownes' wife Teresa, Konti added wings to his original design, and two relief plaques of angels.

My final featured grave is that of H.P. Lovecraft, a horror, fantasy, and science fiction author, whose headstone is littered with objets left by admirers--octopi, shells, stones, and little notes and quotes from his writings.  Lovecraft was not very well-known during his lifetime, and was close to poverty by the time of his death.  But there has been a resurgence of interest in the intervening years; Lovecraft's Wikipedia entry states:

According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft — as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century — has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction".   Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." King has even made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing.



Illustration Credits and References

Photos by Catherine Hurst and Rick Beyer.

The Scultpure of Isodore Konti 1862-1938 by Hudson River Museum.

Swan Point Cemetery Visitor Guide and Map.

Roger Williams at Prospect Terrace Park

Yesterday I took some visitors on a tour of some Providence sites, and on our way home we made a spontaneous detour to visit the statue of Roger Williams at Prospect Terrace Park. This statue can be seen from a number of points around the city, and its location on a steep hillside overlooking the city offers panoramic views (though they are a bit overgrown!)

Roger Williams was, of course, the founder of Providence Plantations in 1636, and that history will be the subject of another post.

Plans to construct the statue were initiated in 1850, when the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers raised $100 to that end. A decade later, Williams descendant Stephen Randall organized the Roger Williams Monument Association to raise funds for a memorial. Only a little over $1,100 was contributed.  Eventually Randall deposited $1,000 in an account earmarked for that purpose in his will--it was to be left to accumulate (as would the monies raised by the Association) until there was enough to construct a memorial.

The park itself (minus a monument) was developed in 1867.

It was not until 1934 that a renewed effort (led by a new Roger Williams Memorial Association) was begun, with the hope that a monument could be build as part of the city's 300th anniversary in 1936.

Randall's will had two requirements for the funds he had contributed--first that the statue be designed specifically for Prospect Terrace, and secondly that it be tall enough to be seen from far away. The Association held a contest for a design that would meet those criteria, and the winning proposal was submitted by architect Ralph T. Walker and sculptor Leo Friedlander. (Friedlander is probably better known as the sculptor of the two Arts of War figures of men on horseback that flank the entrance to the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC.)

The original design called for the statue of Williams at the highest point in the park, and a stairway connecting the upper part of the park to the lower, where two figures of Native Americans would appear by the side of a reflecting pool. This second part was never built.

The statue as constructed is 14 feet high, and carved from Westerly granite. It shows Williams standing on the bow of his canoe with his right hand extended as if blessing the city he founded.

The monument was paid for by a combination of Randall's funds, the original Association's funds, allocations from the City and the Tercentenary Committee, and donations from private individuals.  It was finally dedicated on June 29, 1939. Two boxes were placed in the base--one containing various documents related to the statue and its history, and one containing Williams' remains.

The park itself is a bit scruffy, and the view from the site could be significantly improved with some judicious tree work on the slopes below. The monument, especially the structures surrounding the statue, could also use a good cleaning. But it is still a lovely, if somewhat hidden, gem in the city and a photo of the monument similar to my photo at the top of this post appears on the cover of the Providence 375th anniversary guidebook.

In 2006, Roger's hands were vandalized--someone chopped off all five fingers on the left hand and the thumb of the right. In 2010, this damage was finally repaired by Jim Lawrence and his daughter Ally. Jim, a history major at the University of Rhode Island, who started off his career as a stonemason apprentice, seemed uniquely qualified to do the work, and his daughter Ally, a sculptor, assisted him with the project. They inserted stainless steel rods into the arms, and built up the area with restoration mortar. Then Ally sculpted the new fingers to match the original statue. You'd never know!

Illustration Credits and References

Sources for this post include: the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Providence Journal, and Brown University.

All  photos in this post by Catherine B. Hurst.

Rediscovering the Home Town I Never Knew

When I was six months old, my family moved from Ithaca, NY, where my Dad had been acquiring a doctorate in physics, to Providence, RI. He had accepted a position on the physics faculty at Brown, and we moved to an apartment near the university where he could walk to work.

Then, when I was almost six years old, we left Providence for the suburb of Riverside, where I grew up and went to school.

After I left to attend college in Boston, I only returned for short visits and day trips. I hated the city growing up--it was a post-industrial miasma, with an invisible stinking river, a not-very-bustling downtown, and not much of interest for a teenage girl. I stayed in the Boston area until 2006, when I moved to Santa Fe, NM for some southwestern culture and a taste of the mountains.

But during the last 20 years or so, on my regular visits back home to see my parents, something interesting happened. I started noticing that Providence was changing, and in a good way. With a brand new waterfront and river walk, a thriving restaurant scene, an East Coast "attitude", and the good bones it always had--great universities and pristine 18th century architecture, the city reached out and grabbed me back.

A little over a year ago, on a rainy June afternoon, I was walking on the East Side with college friends on one of my visits from New Mexico. We'd had a lovely brunch, and were visiting little shops and antique stores while we walked and talked. And  I thought, as I'd often thought over the previous 20 years, that Providence had turned into a great place to live. I said to myself:  "I'd really enjoy living here." And in one of those amazing brain flash/recognition moments I realized that I could live anywhere I wanted to, and if I wanted to live here, I should live here already! Within two weeks I'd contacted a real estate agency to begin the process of selling my house in Santa Fe, and in May  2011 I bought a condo in Providence and began to reinvent myself once again.

I hope in this blog to capture some of what brought me back to Rhode Island. I want to write about the history, the ambience, the art and architecture, the colleges and the hospitals, the sights and sounds and smells of a city that's both old and new to me--familiar in some ways and totally unfamiliar in others. I'm happy to have you join me on my journey as I rediscover Providence!