New CVS / Old Wounds

Anyone who has driven by the recent CVS construction on Broad Street might not know about the history surrounding this site development or think much of a new pharmacy going into a busy area, but when I look at the new building and the historic building behind it, I see it as a mockery of Pawtucket’s past and an insult to our city.  

Any building built should reflect its time– old buildings remind us of where we’ve been and new buildings should tell us where we are now and maybe even where we hope to go.  The historic buildings we love so much were NEW when they were built, they expressed their time and place. If we only mimic buildings of our past in our new architecture what does that say about us? That we have nothing to contribute and that all we can do is look wistfully back at a mythologized history? 

The new CVS is a disappointment in many ways:
• It blocks the view of the historic station, primarily with an electrical transformer.
• It superficially mimics the facade, but with cheap materials and bad proportions.
• The fake windows on Broad Street are an insult to our active urban environment.
• The entry is not on the street, but rather right into the parking lot.

Our train station was a place full of people, local activity and community ambition connecting it to a larger world. The cheap lookalike next to it is about corporate commerce in a local place and suburban logics in an urban setting.  

We should demand better design. We, as a community, have a variety of cultural and artistic strengths that we should express to tell our story of the time and place in which we live.