Pawtucket’s Upcoming Elections

Looks like this may actually be an interesting political season at every level of government. The Pawtucket Times reports that incumbent Mayor James Doyle (Democrat) will face Councilman Don Grebien (independent), Rick L. Gibson, (Democrat); Dougie A. Tunstall Jr. (Republican); and Kenneth M. Bowdish, (Independent) in the upcoming election.

For Council At Large, the Democratic contenders include Thomas E. Hodge, John S. Baxter Jr., Albert J. Vitali Jr., Lorenzo C. Tetreault, and Raymond J. Spooner Jr.; Independent Michael W. Newman; and Republican Joel M. Tirrell.

Potential councilors representing downtown districts include:
District 1 – David P. Moran (D), of 127 Revere St.
District 4 – John J. Barry III (D), of 118 Division St.
District 6 – James F. Chadwick Jr. (D), of 51 Lucas St., apt. 3, Pawtucket, and George Patrick Hovarth (I), of 74 Varnum Ave.

We’ll also be voting for school board members.

Not registered to vote? Contact the Board of Canvassers to find out more.

Pawtucket Gateway Design Competition Winners Selected

Nick Hollibaugh and Joshua Enck are the winners of the Pawtucket Gateway Design Competition. Their work is called “Canter and Shed”. According to the press release the work is “a pair of painted metal structures designed to recall smokestacks, buttresses, and rooftop landscapes, inspired by the buildings of Pawtucket.”

Models of the three finalists’ proposals were on view at the Visitor Center but there was no real community process attached to this decision. What do people think about the work?

Pawtucket Proud Day

According to the Pawtucket Times The Pawtucket Foundation’s annual clean-up event was a success. Volunteers worked on several sites, including a mural project at PCDC’s new tot lot in the Barton Street Neighborhood. Artist Brent Bachelder worked with local children on the design. Bachelder created a cohesive piece from the kid’s individual drawings. He then outlined the piece in a color-by-number fashion in preparation for the volunteers to fill in with paint.

Thanks to all the volunteers – and their employers – who took the time to work on these projects. This is the kind of investment that helps strengthen the image of our city – and to members of our downtown neighborhood association the Foundation’s efforts make downtown Pawtucket a better place to live.

Posting on PADS Blog

This blog feels lonely.

To participate:
1. Visit Word Press
2. Register (if you are new to the system) or sign in (if you already have a Word Press user name and password). Please note: you must sign in to word press every time you want to use the PADS blog.
3. Subscribe to the PADS blog
4. Please start posting your thoughts, comments, and observations about downtown Pawtucket.

Thanks!

Rebuilding Providence beyond downtown

Rebuilding Providence beyond downtown
Providence Journal
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 1, 2008

PROVIDENCE — Thousands of people from around the world gathered here last weekend for the annual graduation exercises at Brown University.

They attended dinners, cocktail parties, educational forums, alumni reunions and the actual commencement on a beautiful spring day on the college green. The group, including members of the business, academic and political elite who have benefited from an Ivy League education, also got a good look at downtown Providence.

Many, especially the old timers, were amazed at how the city has changed. They talked about the historic preservation on the East Side, the new condo towers, the Providence Place mall and WaterFire Providence on a river that was once covered over as an embarrassment and now is celebrated.

It’s too bad that all the visitors didn’t get a chance to see the rest of Providence.

They would have understood that the city is more than just the downtown. It’s the urban core of Rhode Island and includes adjacent neighborhoods in places such as Olneyville, the West End and South Providence and spills into the cities of Pawtucket, Central Falls and Cranston. It’s all one metropolitan region.

Many of those areas have not enjoyed the renaissance of downtown Providence. In fact, some of the development gains earlier this decade are in danger of being reversed as an increasing number of foreclosures destabilizes neighborhoods, investment dries up and pockets of unemployment expand as Rhode Island’s recession deepens.

The history here and elsewhere shows that urban areas develop, or deteriorate, based on what goes on at the intersection of public policy and private investment. When courageous, visionary political leaders work with enlightened business executives, the entire community benefits.

Central cities get rebuilt. Neighborhoods form. Jobs are created. Developers make money.

I had those thoughts in mind when I sat in on one of the educational seminars put on during Brown’s weekend. It was called, Transforming Urban Places, and was organized by the alumni of the university’s 35-year-old Urban Studies Program. The speakers talked about rebuilding blocks of New York City after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the development of Asian cities, and the preservation of Providence.

Kathryn Kerrigan, former vice president, external affairs, Alliance for Downtown New York, said the revitalization of a 13-acre site in Lower Manhattan, and adjacent neighborhoods, is already seven years old and has been slowed by the shear scope of the project, competing business interests and a disruption of political leadership.

She said the goal from the start has been to nurture small businesses in the area, bring back the companies that were tenants in the destroyed buildings and reestablish the residential community.

The work has been slow going, however, because of the scale of rebuilding the infrastructure, such as reestablishing electricity, telecommunications and other basic services.

But Kerrigan also said, “In Lower Manhattan, there are so many cooks in the kitchen … the private sector is in place, but it will take many more years to sort it all out.”

She added the turnover of political leaders who set policy, provide guidance and mediate disputes and use their clout to push projects forward also has caused delays. She mentioned the “Spitzer debacle,” referring to the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The lack of strong political leadership has not delayed development in Asia. In fact, the absence of government regulation and involvement has sparked a boom in construction and investment in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, said John So, director of Fund Management, Asia Pacific, for Grosvenor, an international, privately owned property development group.

But the casualty of all the development is the historic, architecturally significant structures that connect the region and its people to their past. He said the new commercial and housing projects are often monotonous, and do not enhance the quality of life. In Hong Kong, the government’s laissez-faire approach has allowed widespread bulldozing of property to make way for new construction because it’s less expensive than historic preservation.

In contrast, Singapore, with less pressure for land, a smaller surge of immigrants and a lower population density, has been a successful innovator and builder of housing. The area has been called the “Switzerland of Asia.”

Preservation was also the theme of the remarks of Barnaby Evans, the creator of WaterFire, who called Providence’s development history “a microcosm for preservation.”

He explained that in the 1950s and 1960s, federal urban renewal dollars were shipped to many cities, including Providence. But while leaders in other places used the money to level older neighborhoods, that did not happen in Providence.

“The money was diverted creatively and was not used to tear down buildings and leave a mess,” he quipped.

As a result, the city’s historic architecture was still intact when preservationists later organized to save structures and the unique fabric of the city.

He also credited two former mayors, Joseph Paolino and Vincent A “Buddy” Cianci Jr., with promoting the arts community as an economic stimulus.

“Providence focused on the art community as a development tool,” he said.

WaterFire is an outgrowth of that focus.

The event creates a social space that draws on the strength of the river to bring people together who enjoy city life, Evan said. Besides being a cultural success, WaterFire has also attracted thousands to Providence and boosted the city commercially by calling attention to its development.

Forward-thinking leaders in the political, business and arts communities drove Providence to draw on its strengths and avoid bad decisions made in other cities.

“Commercial pressure always trumps public good unless you have strong leadership,” he said.

The visitors at Brown who walked down the hill during their weekend gathering to see WaterFire also could have stopped by a special presentation on the city’s development in the late 1880s.

They would have noted that Providence back then was evolving from a mercantile to a textile city. The river was covered over with planks and bricks and an inland, saltwater cove became a hub of an industrial city.

Now, the river has been uncovered. People flock to downtown events. The cove is gone. A new mall filled with shoppers has taken its place.

Who says cities, with strong public and private leadership, can’t change. The challenge now is to extend that development throughout the urban area.

jkostrze@projo.com

Exhibits On View @ Visitor Center

A gritty look at Rhode Island’s past
Providence Journal
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 12, 2008

Lewis Hine’s photograph of boys and girls who worked as “card-room hands” in the Lonsdale Cotton Mills is part of the show “Social Photography Across a Century: The Works of American Master Lewis Hine and Contemporary Artist Scott Lapham.”

Whether they’ve heard of him or not, all Americans owe a debt to Lewis Hine.

In the early decades of the 20th century, Hine’s gritty black-and-white photographs almost singled-handedly exposed one of the nation’s darkest secrets: the widespread use (and frequent abuse) of child workers in high-risk industries such as coal mining, seafood canning and textile manufacturing. It’s thanks to Hine that American children are more likely to complain about too much homework than, say, being mutilated by an industrial spinning machine or beaten by an angry factory boss.

As it happens, about a dozen of Hine’s photographs are currently on display at the Blackstone Valley Visitors Center, in downtown Pawtucket. It’s an appropriate setting. Nearly half the photographs document working conditions at what were once nearby mills and factories, including the Lonsdale Cotton Mills in Lonsdale and the sprawling Atlantic Mills complex in Providence.

Other photographs depict everything from a Providence home for orphaned children to a squalid “workers’ village” in Central Falls to a family cigar-making business on Federal Hill.

But the show, which was organized by the Slater Mill Historic Site, doesn’t stop there. Using a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Slater Mill officials commissioned a contemporary Providence photographer, Scott Lapham, to retrace Hine’s steps around the Ocean State.

The result is a small gem of an exhibit that deftly pursues its then-and-now theme while still paying its respects to one of the founders of American photojournalism. (Too bad the same can’t be said for the show’s title, “Social Photography Across a Century: The Works of American Master Lewis Hine and Contemporary Artist Scott Lapham,” which sounds more stuffy than seductive.)

Taken between 1909 and 1912, Hine’s photographs capture a world that has largely faded from view, at least in the United States. A shot of the Lonsdale Cotton Mills plant, for example, shows two adult workers operating the massive spinning machines that transformed raw threads and yarns into finished fabrics. In the dim light, they look like worker bees tending a vast mechanical hive.

Still, the show’s most poignant shots are those of children. One, taken at the Lonsdale Cotton Mills, features a group of “card room hands” — young boys and girls who helped clean and comb batches of raw cotton, a process known as “carding.” Dressed in denim overalls (boys) and floral-print dresses (girls), they stare back at the camera with the same kind of awkward innocence one finds in school yearbook photos. Incongruously, one of the girls wears a faux-pearl necklace.

Another photograph shows a girl’s sewing class at the Sprague House Settlement, a Providence orphanage. In the foreground, a dozen or so girls dutifully practice their stitches. In the background, the orphanage’s headmistress cradles a new arrival — a newborn baby.

For many viewers, the show’s most shocking photographs will be those depicting the squalid living conditions endured by many mill workers, both young and old.

A view of a workers’ village in Central Falls, for example, shows chickens picking through piles of rotting garbage. Hine, who kept meticulous records, identifies the spot as “Central Falls, Main Street and Bed Bug Alley” — a grimly appropriate description that might have come straight out of Dickens’ Bleak House.

Because Hine kept such good records, Lapham was able to find many of the locations depicted in Hine’s photographs. The Lonsdale mills where Hine spent much of his time, for example, are largely empty today — the victims of global trade and deindustrialization.

But Lapham, who runs the photography and darkroom programs at AS220, also found some more hopeful signs. Among them: Providence’s Sprague House Settlement, which has been transformed into artists’ housing and where, in a delicious bit of déjà vu, several of the building’s current residents continue to hold weekly sewing sessions.

“Social Photography Across a Century: The Works of American Master Lewis Hine and Contemporary Artist Scott Lapham” continues through June 27 at the Slater Mill Gallery at the Visitors Center, 175 Main St., Pawtucket. Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (401) 725-8638.

3 more in Pawtucket

Speaking of artistic transformations, Pawtucket’s own transition from a gritty industrial city to an emerging arts mecca is reflected in a number of exhibits this month.

Two such offerings — “Crossing Borders,” an immigration-themed show organized by the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative, and a display of public art proposals for the city’s Gateway Design Competition — are on view at the Blackstone Valley Visitors Center, at 175 Main St. A third exhibit, featuring works submitted for this year’s Pawtucket Foundation Prize, is located a short distance away, at 245 Main St.

All three exhibits feature some top-notch pieces.

In “Crossing Borders,” look for the work of Pablo Alvarez, a Mexican-born artist whose shape-shifting paintings and photo collages perfectly capture the show’s themes of cultural and emotional dislocation. A pair of playfully macabre marionettes by Dusan Petran — one a leering skeleton, the other a rather suave-looking devil — are also good, although their relation to the show’s border-crossing theme is more obscure. (Perhaps they symbolize death — the ultimate border crossing.)

Architecture fans will want to look for the work of Eric Owen Moss, a prominent California architect who envisions a public park studded with glass columns along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Finalists for the city’s Pawtucket Gateway Design Competition — a major public art project to be installed next to the Visitors Center — are also showing their plans at the center this month.

Newport artist Donald Gerola proposes building one of his trademark kinetic sculptures — this one designed to look like an abstract spinning machine. Providence artists Joshua Enck and Nick Hollibaugh, meanwhile, would install a pair of Cubist-looking sculptures, each loosely based on the mill buildings and smokestacks that are part of the city’s architectural landscape.

Another finalist, Providence artist Kenneth Speiser, also pays his respects to Pawtucket’s industrial past. His proposal calls for a large free-standing metal sculpture shaped like a giant spindle.

Photography dominates this year’s “Pawtucket Foundation Prize Exhibition,” which is installed in a vacant office building just up the street from the Visitors Center. Highlights include Paul Clancy’s wonderfully evocative shot of the former Providence Public Safety Complex in mid-demolition; Paul Lavallee’s electric color study Blue Couch Green Wall, and Millee Tibbs’ Untitled (from the Terror Series), a haunting study of trees at night, which won the show’s $4,000 first prize.

Non-photographic highlights include works by painters Agustin Patino and Gretchen Dow Simpson, mixed-media artists Anna Jane Kocon and Rebecca Siermering, and Providence-based wire-master C.W. Roelle.

“Crossing Borders” ends today while proposals for the Pawtucket Gateway Design Competition remain on display through the end of the month, both at the Blackstone Valley Visitors Center. “The Pawtucket Foundation Prize Exhibition” continues through June 28. Hours: Fri. noon-7 p.m. and Sat. 10-4.

bvansicl@projo.com

Pawtucket Proud Day Scheduled for June 19

On Thursday, June 19th members of the Pawtucket business community and the City of Pawtucket will join together for the Fifth Annual Pawtucket Proud Day! The Pawtucket Foundation organizes the event to focus on public and civic improvement projects throughout the City. There are a number of great projects on the agenda for this year including several downtown locations.

If your company is interested in getting involved please contact the Foundation for registration information, 401.725.4400, info@pawtucketfoundation.org.

Economic develoment at the Central Falls Landing?

The Valley Breeze reports that we can probably expect a Taco Bell or KFC at the Central Falls Landing. According to Bob Billington, Executive Director of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, it is the only dock along the 45-mile Blackstone River. These reports do not exactly fulfill earlier visions for private investment on the site – grand plans for “a multi-use facility that will serve as an economic stimulus for the city” (former Mayor of Central Falls Lee Matthews, 1997) – that helped earn grants from the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and the City of Central Falls among others. According to the Valley Breeze article, back in May 2000 then U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee asserted, “This landing, with its boat launch and restaurant, will become an important attraction – one that renews pride and increases investments in Central Falls.”