micah salkind. “scale, sociality and serendipity in providence, rhode island’s post-industrial...

8/10/2019 Micah Salkind. Scale, Sociality and Serendipity in Providence, Rhode Islands Post-Industrial Renaissance. Cultural Economies in Post-industrial Cities. Ed. Myrna Breitbart, Lo

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Sc ale , Soci ality and Serendipity inProv idence , Rhode I s land'sPost-Indus tria l Renai ssance

Micah Salkind

Intr od ucti on

Wb en culture workers in Providence, Rhode Island celebrate their participa tionin a progressive political legacy, they often invoke the City's lounder and favoredco un ter-cultural ancestor. Roger Williams, a dissident rogue barred from theMassachusett Bay Colony in 1636 As fonner mayor Da' id Cicilline put it inhi s 2003 inaugural address, the City's founders provide a cultural compass for theCity: Those of us who live and work in Providence feel a grateful connection toour seve nteenth century founding fathers and mothers ... [we] owe them a debtfor th eir visionary contribution to the principles of religious tolerance. free speech.and the right to se lf-detenninatioo (Cicilline 2003a).

Providence's economy has flourished in part because its leaders , beginningwith W i ll iams, have dared to do things di ITerently. Whether they were buckingPurita ni ca l fervor, countering the faulty logic of urban renewal. or organizingon behalf of artists creating work in forgotten industrial spaces, the city'sbure aucrats. arts and preservation professionals and business leaders have workedi l l d i i h h h l l


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While foundcll> and directors of nonprofits often appear ru; the p r m a g n n i ~ L rr this story. thear \\or . rnu'>t be undcr..tood as being representative of o m p t e ~ollectivities and interpersonal networks Although much of Providence':. p o ~ t -ndustria1 history r e v o l v e ~around top-down economic development n the caty s

~ o r ebusiness district. underground. non-commercial and anti-cap1talist npractices have been essential to the development of the City's post-indu trialconomy. The tollowmg case tudaes demonstra te that Pro' idence is a city ofiverse .. neighborhood-based creative economies", as opposed to a culturalconomic hub\\ itb marginal s p o k e ~(Stern and Setfert 200R: 6).

Paying close attention to the ways that local assets such as available space inistoric properties. human and capitul resources. socml networks and gcosrnrhicensity have played into Providence 's regeneration, this chapter illuminates amnp lcx post-industrial cu ltural context , one in which artist activists and policylites publicly expose the contradicta c1ns M creative city building by selectively

appropriating its powerful appea l to meet their conve rging and diverging sotialneeds.

An I ndu stri al Eco oomy, Inf rastr u ct

ure, and La bor

Force

In the I 8th century. wealthy Rhode Island families were heavily dependent on theslave trade as a major source of cnp1tal. Sixty percent of slaving voyages departingfrom North America sai led from Rhodt Island, a staggering number even withouttaking into account the fact that many continued to depart illegally after 1787.when sta te law prohibited the trade (Brown Unavers1ty 2006: I0).

In 1789. reacting again t what he believed to be his brother John's immoralongoing investment m the s lave trade. abolitaonist and Quaker activist MosesBrown founded a textile-manufacturing finn in partnership with his son-i nlaw, William Almy. By 1790, with the mechanical expertise of Samuel Slate r.Brown a nd Almy built the fir t textile mill on the Black stone River powered by asophisticated version of the British Arkwright sys tem. The industrial textile mill,which produced inexpens ive s lave clothing from southe rn cotton, may not haveunhitched Rhode Island's economy from slavery, but it sparked nearly a cen turyand a half of eco nomic growth in the state (Woodwar d 1981: 9).

Providence's topography, with its many waterways and tributaries. made ita perfect si te to incubate America's new industria l economy. Ju st 35 miles northfrom open ocean. the c ity was already an important port in the region , whichmeant that even prior to the growU1 of rail transport, which would eventuallygive Providence increased access to markets 40 mile s northeast in Bos ton anc.l157 miles southwest in New York, local manufacturers had access to a vast shippingnetwork. Betwe en 1790 and 1860 nearly 300 te x tile mills opened in Rhode Island,populating the hcnrt of the Capitol City along the Moshassu ck River. and Interalong the Woonasquattlckct and We 1 Rivers. These massive red brick building

S < a l ~ : .Sociality ami Seremliptl Pmw ci. ll l 35

and the hard manual labor that would Lake place in.,idl nf them . h : ~ v ebecomeintegral to Providence's post-industrial story, just as they were to its industnal one.

By the 1820s th.e immense profitability of Prnvidcnce's industrial economyhad spun o trancillar y growth in machine paa1s and steam-engine manufacturing ,tndustries that helped make te:-.tile-manufacwring processes even morecfficienL But this immense growth was tempered by competition from Britishmanufacturers. In 1789, 79 Providence arti-.::Hl:. founded the Pro\ 1denceA'isociat ion of Mechanics and Manufacturers (PAMM). whose tated aims wento encourage the growth of local industry and enforce manufacturing standards .De perate for a riecc of the pie in an increasangly competit tve marketplacedominated by British-made goods. PAMM activists organized to support importtariffs and helped lobby Rhode Island officials to ratify the new U.S. constitution(Fink 198 I : . Just as the built environment of he industrinl city would come tocharac tenze its post-industrial identity, the personality ofits industrial labor forceforeshadowed the rebellious disposition of artists who would live and work in themills at the end of the 20th century.

As Providence became wealthier and more populous in the second half of the19th cent ury, ao outsized cultural economy began to take shape in its downtown

neighborhood. By 1915 there were 13 theatres in downtown Providence alone . inaddition to several on Federal HiU and in Olneyville (Brett 1976). By the 1920sProvidence's industrial machine. and the leisure economy it suppo rted, began to(alter as emp loyers left the state for the out h. Between 1929 and I 931 employmentin Providence declined by 40% in the t e ~ u l e1ndustry, 47% in the jewelry industryand 38% in the base-metal industry (Fink 1981: 30).

Like other cities along the Eastern seaboard, 1950s Providence experie ncedan tense urban decay as a result of accelerated white flight and deindustrialization.What few remaining textile mills had not already left the state shut their doors.and the worsted goods trade suffered heavy losses to the grow ing syntheticsindustry. Between 1950 and 1960 the population of Pro' idence declined 16.6%,the second large st drop experienced by any American city nt the time. By 1970 ithad dropped by another 13.7% (Leazes and Motte 2004: xxiv).

The local arm of the federal Urban Renewal Program, The ProvidenceRedevelopment Authority (PRA). attempted to stanch economic decline in theCity with litt le success, in part because there was almost no buy-in from city orstate leaders. The dem olition of industrial infrastructure and neighborhood s thatdid take place , primarily around the construction of Lhc 1-195 highway in theJewelry District and in the northern part of the city, sttmulat ed little economicgrowt h, displaced poor residents and cost Providence ac res of historic architecture(Fink 1981 : 32). Pro vidence 's tran sition from an industrial ci ty to a post-indtJs trialone began in the 1950s when East Side elites, many the descendents of the City'sfirst fum1hes, organized in response to the failed urhan renewal projects of thePRA and the expansion of Arown University


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3ftC:r UiiVt' / w o m n l l l l ~ l'uvr-lmlu . lntJI Cittl'.\

Buildin g an H istoric Pr ese r vat ion Coa lition on College Hill

John Nicholas Brov.n. a descendent of the University's n ~ m t : s a k cJohn ~ n dindustrial pioneer Moses, called the first meeting of the Provtdencc Preservntl.onSociety (PPS) in rebruary of I956. Under the leadership ~ B r o w nand 3 ~htstMHlllAntoinette Downing, pp4 es


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38 Crc lllll't ' c mmmie .1 tn Po s r-/m/ti { rwl C IIC. >

According to poht1cal s c i c n t 1 ~ t sFranci s Lcatcs und Mark Motte , l ianc1 'sRenaissance prujcct was both a major overhaul nf infrastntcture, and a maJorrevamping of the Prll\ idence brand . To stabiht.e his big-tent pro-developmentcoalitio n. and maintain popular su pport for his costly and dtsruptivc constructionprojects , the Muyor needed to convince city residents that they were buying intosomethin g that hailed them as unique, creative consumers and culture producers

and he needed them to want to be in the city center. An art installati on on theProvidence R i v e r ~aecomphsbed both tasks (Leazes and Motte 2004 : 37. 123).

lncorpomted in 1996 by Barnaby Evans, WaterFire is a site-specific sculpturalinstallation - a network of bonfires on metal bra7it:r. set like a sparkling ncckluceacross the City's newly recovered downtown rivers. The annual lighting ofWaterFire. which occurs on many weekend night s each summer and early Fall. hasbecome a significant tourist attraction and an oft-cited example of the ProvidenceRenatssance's economic and cul tural multiplier eiTeets. WaterFire's enormouspopularity can be largely attributed to the way it creates a sere ne, contempl ativespace in the city center where a huge number of local residents and touris ts canconvene. The installation also activates Provtdence's urban buil t environment byshedding flickering light on the City's uncovered rivers. making them a central partof a local ritual/spectacle. WaterFire at once memorializes Providence's industrialpast and hails the City as a i t eof ndustry and c reativity in the present:

Barnaby Evans' ingenuity and perseverance transformed WaterFtre from aone-off installation held during 1994 s New Year ' s Eve First Night celebrationinto an event that has been successfully restaged year atler year with inexhaustiblesuccess. Evans is not an isolated genius, however. He is a cultural descendentof the PAMM acttvists who collective ly rallied on behalf of indu str ial markets,and the Co llege Hill preservationists who banded together to recogn ize the under-appreciated aesthetic value of tbeir city. According to Lynne McCormack, i r e c t ~ rof Providence's Departme nt of Art, Culture + Touris m, Evans marshaled publicand private financing to suppo rt his own artistic work, but also that of other artists.When Evans and a coho rt of Provtdence a r t i ~ t swere evicted from their studios in

The Foundry Mill in the late 1980s, Evuns took the lead coordinating the financingand political support needed to develop The Regent Avenue Studios, which nowhouses the offices of WaterFire as well as artist live/work space for many of thosewho were displaced (McCormack 2 II .

Branding th e Renais sance for rt ists

While Mayor Cianci marshalled the histoncally-inflected redevelopment ofdowntown Providence's urban landscape. which even tuall y i ncorporated newhotels , a convcntton center. a revamped h ~ t o r i cvaudevi lie theatre and an enormous(and enormously controversial) urban mall, he used his co7y relationship with

The P rovidence Journal to exhort .artists tCl invest in the city. Cianci realized thatartists co uld udd value to downtown de ve lop ment and that lunng them would

al l , S o c iulill ' ami S t' l t IUI IJ IfJ ' P m l lrle n ce

11:tllltrc little or no adtht1onal cap1tal invt:sltncnt. Sebastian lChool students. The commitments that Ruth and Denmead made to stay anddevelop institutions in the city were predicated on a shared belief that their etlort.c,would be valued as part ofthc larger artistic Renaissance. They also knew that Cianc 1W < ~ s~ b c u s c don _bringing in and retaining outside talent, not nurturing the City'se x 1 ~ t1 ng population. Aware that there were very few options for artistic trainingavmlable to public school yout h in the city, Ruth and Denmead simultaneous ly tookadvantage of he possibilities created by, and implicitly critiqued tJ e limitations othe Providence Renaissance ( I ocking 20 I0; Ruth 20 II

Service-learning programs based at Providence colleges and universities~ n c u b a t ~ dp o j ~ c t slike NUA and CMW that sought to address long-term inequity10 publ1c fund1ng for the arts. Cianci 's public pronouncement and infrastructura1Imp rovements also helped entice entrepreneurial and civica lly minded students tos t a ~in the city. but t ~ C : S efactors alone cannot explain how student projects gainedlcgtllmacy and slab tltty. TI e third key clement contributin g to the success ofstude nts like Ruth and Denmead. who wanted to start non-profit organiza tions, was~ h a tt h e ~cou ld find, and gain access to, all 01e relevant institutional gatekeepe rstn the ~ 1 t y ~~ u l t u r a 1e ~ o n o m ywithin a radius of ust a few miles oftb cir collegesand umverstttes. Provtdence's geographic and cultural scale made it possible forstudents to transform service projects into legitimate. local institutions.

T ~ egrowing popuJa r c o ~ s e n s u sthat Providence could be a place to stay.espectally for mostly upper-m1ddle-class Brown and RJSD g raduatcs , caUs to mindthe demonstrated investment of the city's old gua rd and policy leaders. Un liketheir counterparts in Philadelphia and Hartford, many Providence eli tes stayed putduring th


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Crealil 'f Economies 111 u ~ t l l l d 4 S t n u lC it11 s

mmitted to making \\Ork in the City as early as the 1960s and 1970s.1 Whileis foundational cohort more than merits a study of its own, one figure from the

arly days tands out - Umberto Bert Crenca, artistic director of AS220. C r e n c ~elped to lay the groundwork for much of he cultural dcveloptnent that shaped therovidence imaginary in the 1990s and early decades of the 21st century.

Pilot Li g ht in Sy nc With a Pro G row th Age nd a: Th e AS220 C oll ecti ve

n 1983, new development and civic boosterism in Providence did not mean t ~ a trts and culture were understood to be economic growth areas deserving of spec1al

status. DLtring this time, Crenca began to work with a collective oflocal artists whoere vexed by Providence s lack of access and appreciation for those w h ~w e . ~ e

ot part of the RISD machine, or who did not see themselves as _part of Canc sRenaissance vision for a Florentine artisanal economy where art1sts would workin open studios along quaint, historically- themed streets. .

The AS220 collective, as it has come to be known, penned a mamfesto.produced an un-juried show. and set up shop above the Providence Perfonning

Arts Center (PPAC) at 220 Weybosset Street (Cook 201 0). Crenca recalls anincident from the early 1990s, before AS220 was incorporated as a nonprofit andcomfortably housed in a legal space it owned, but after it bad moved from thePPAC building to Richmond Street a few blocks away :

When the City came knocking on the door and we got a letter that said weknow you are operating a public venue and you need to see us before we comesee you." It was almost phrased exactly like that: botha threat and an invitationt went in and, very strategically, I had a flannel shirt on and jeans. You know,very working class first-generation ltnlian,which l am I wasn t putting on anyairs. 1 hrew my arms on the counter at the bureau of icensing and said, Closeus down t mean there is nothing else happening. We are like a pilot light for thec1ty. If you want to put it out, put it out " (Crenca2011 ).

Crenca s performance endeared him to Cianci and A S 2 2 ~s _ u r v i v e ~its ~ f f i c i a linspection on Richmond Street, but not without some artiStiC mod1ficat1ons toits plumbing infrastructure. Crenca and Susan Clausen, a co-founder and currentproperty manager, brush-painted PVC piping to look like c ~ p p e rso they couldkeep the doors ope n to the public. Since AS220 operated m a legal grey area

2 As Lynne McCormack points out. an e n t ~ r e _ g e m : r a t i o ~of ~ i s t s l i k ~p b o t o g r a ~ h c rSalvatore "Sal" Muncini, oil painter Paula Marllesan, gallenst Berge Znb1an, storytellerLen Cabral, and. McCormack's mentor and colleague at the Department of CulturalAmurs. Bob Rivo made Pro\1deneethetr home long be lore he oft-heralded Fort Thundercollective made waves in national mediaoutlch during the 199 s (McCormack2011

cal e, Soc iality one Serendtpil\ in Pro1 id en ce 41

during its inlancy, Cianci s patronage helped keep the organitation insulated fromlegal challenges to its survival (Crcnca 20 .

. While AS220 s collective was gestating on the outskirts of a neighborhoodadJacent to downtown called the Jewelry District, Cianci s Renaissance coalitionwns fretting over how to majntain popular support for downtown infraslructuralimprovements . Aside from the successes of PPAC and The Trinity RepertoryCompany, and the survival of a smattering of clubs and bars that presented livemusic, there was litllt in the way of visible urts and culture in Providence sdowntown. I the city was crawling with anists, as Cianci was tond of saying. thenwhere were they?

n the Fall or 1992, a group of stakeholders convened by the ProvidenceFoundation, a non-profit branch ofthe Greater Providence Chamber of Commercebrought nationally renowned New Urbanists Andres Duany and Elizabeth P l a t e r ~~ y b e r k _to town. This was partly in response to the paucity of visible art makingm the c1ty center, and partly in response to concomitant fears that the RenaissanceDevelopment hadn t born fruit in terms of rising property values and increased~ c c u p a n c y .R e o a i s s ~ n c cadvocates hoped that outside expert opinion could helpJUmp start stalled pnvate investment and give them new ideas for catalyzing the

growth of downtown artist communities.

Figu_re 2.1 AS220 a fir st r ented space on Ri chmond St ree tSource: Courtesy of AS220.


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42 ( /V(It / \ l Fconnmt e 111 mt - lnd/11/lltJI Cm e

Tbe Prlwtdcm :e ftlundation published Downdl y Prm idence Mu s er Plun/i Jra Spe cutl Time after ~ c v e r a ldays or semi-public charettes at Brown . Duany andPlater-/.ybcrl-. tuld the Providence Foundation that the City 's economic healthdepended on hether artists could be brought downtown. though preservation anda unique cnse of place were also deemed critical to cultural development (Duany1992). Following the convemng at Brown. the Mayor brought a secnnd grouptogether under the leadershtp of his Chief of Administration to come up with a

practical strategy based on Duany and Plater-Zyberk s findings . This Arts andEntertainment Distnct Task Force (AEDTF) included r e n c ~as well as leader >from Trinity Rep. Johnson and Wales University and the Chamber of Commerce .Notably the AE DTF did not include Lynne McConnack or Bob Rino. who a < theproducers of the Convergence Arts Festival and stalf of the Parks Department 'sOffice of Cultural A Ta irs. had valuable insight into how artists lived and workedin the City (Schupbach 2003: 51).

The AEDTF recommended that a central part of the downtown neighborhoodbe designated as the Downcity Overlay District and governed by a new M a ~ o r-appomtcd Downcity Design Review Committee. Downcity was a vaudevilleera name for the neighborhood that the consultants and the Taskforce seemedto Utink fit snug ly with the Renaissance image of rebirth. This new committee ,

created very much from the top down, with little input from unaffiliated artist:.. inthe city, regulated new construc tion and rehabilitation in the downtown. mediatingbetween the City, developers. preservationists and the downtown businesscommunity. for the duration of Ctanci's tenure as Mayor (Werth 20 I0: 43 ). TheAEDTF spent the next three years lobbying the state legislature to pass three newJaws to give substance to the nascent arts dtstrict. These laws incentivized anisticproduction and residential development through a state tax exemption for artistsmaking their li' ing in the neighborhood. exempted sales tax on the sale of artisticwork there. and allowed for a muntcipality to discount the tax burden on the entireassessed value of a residential building , whether it was housing anists or not. Itis difficult to say whether tax incentives and re-districting brought new arttsts tothe city cente r (Schupbach 2003: 53-4). It is clear. however, that the incentive for

developing residential propert y helped expan d the availability of housing stock inDowncity. By 20 I0, census data showed Downcity's population to have increasedby 65% from 2000 (Providence Plan 20 II ) .

In 1993, about a yea r after Crenca sat on the AEDTF, AS220 moved severalblocks closer to the heart of the Downcity district. The o rganization was allowedto rent 115 Empire S treet lor 1 a month from the City until it could pull thefinancing to redevelop the space together (Deller 20 I0). AS220 called in favorswith we ll-connected bureaucrats and bankers left and rigbt , selling their projectas a force for stabil i7ation on a street known primarily as a haunt for sex workers.The organization was eventually able to complement the $300,000 it had raisedfrom a potpourri of fundnusers with a crucial $200,000 gap-funding loan fromthe City. and another $528.000 of loans from a consortium of banks mobilized by

The Prov iden ce Foundah on (Cook 2010)

Sf t7l c. luciolm und Sen ndtptf) n f r rw ltlt m e 43

In .1992. the best way to get matenal >Upport from the city was to have Cianci onyou_r stde, and thts meant buying mto the pro-development logic of he RenaissanceproJect (Le


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AS220 o ~ : c u p i c l >a limmul space between a pro-growth group of developersand property m' ners . and the artists who. in different circumstances, they w o ~ l dbe likely to disp lace . As lounding board member Geoff Adams says. O\ \ mproperty was partly about insulatmg the artist.'> involved in AS220 from the l 1 c ~ : t sof gentrification caused by other high-end downtown development:

The pattern that a ~, ~ e l lkno'' n to everybody was that artistscome in and hrcaknew ground in un urh an arts manager emerged trom an anti-commercialimpulse. embodies the ltmmality characterizing his organization. While he know sbe has performed an economic miracle with AS220. predicated as much onserendipity as on strategy and hard work, he also realizes that his status in the cityhas changed; no longer an outsider. he has a permanent place at the policy table .Despite this, Crenca is still philosophically comm itted to AS220"s foundationalegalitarian and anti-commercial principles, such as a flat pay t r u c ~ eand a ban onmusic licensed by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP)and Broadcast Music Inc. (BM I). both of which manage commercia l music rightsfor recording artists (Crenca 20 I 0) .

Ultimately it is inconsequential whether spaces for ar1ists that work byadvanc ing commercial real estate interests raJse p r o p e r t ~values i n neighborho.odswhere there is no one to displace. Rather than wring the1r hands about what mtghthappen if hey aid and a b ~ tgentrification of a non-residential e i g h b o ~ h o o d , A S 2 2 0has attempted tu make its facilities into spaces that .roster rac al conll ty ~ n dcreateequity among uitTerently pnvilcgcd populations. Smce movmg to Emptre Street.

Like S 2 2 0 ~redl velopmcnt ofThc Dreyfusontl The MercantileBlock feasible (GoldsteinP l e s ~ e r20Hl: 251.

\'calt. . immllt\ u11d Serelldlf>ll) 111 1 ml'lclenC'e 45

tht.: urguntzatton hus cri ated alliances with. and incuhau.:d, other neighborhoodbased cultural organization:. lil..c Youth in Action. l'ullcgc Visions and the nowJefunct Providence Black Repertory ( om pnny.

Preservationist Lucie Searle il> unflinching 111 her bchel that AS220 IS a booto the city and its a r t t s t ~ .During an April 2011 forum in whic h non-profit leader-.reflected on the ways that Pr ov idence ' > creative economy functions. she calle

AS220"s work as a developer vitul to the city's Renaissance project: "The mosttmportant thing IAS220] did, and we cMtinuc to do ... [is] bring stabihty, and 1creates community, which makes other people want to be [downtown]. it makespeople feel safe. it makes people want to live there , want to work there" (Ketten2011 ,

Expanding the Pr eservat ion Coa lition in O tncyv ille

While AS220 hefped transform Downcity into a more livable area during th1990s. many Providence artists lived and worked on the industrial outskirts of thcity ce nter. In 1995 a group of idealistic young RISD and Brown graduates amncar-graduates began to produce rock shows. haunted houses, boxing matches. andother zany performances in Olncyville's Valley Worsted Mill building in EaglSquare, just over a mile down the Woo11asquatucket River from Waterplace Park .Tl11s playground for protracted adolescence became known as Fort Thunder.

Since its much-lamented demise in 200 I Fort Thunder has been invoked asthe paragon of nnovative. collt:c tive and non-commercial arts practices associateW1th an iconic ''Provtdence" sound and visual aesthetic. White this particulaProvidence aesthetic is characterized by an impossibly loud, punk music hybridcalled noise rock and silk-screened rock show posters. the Fort's most iconicartistic legacies are its fantastically decorated live-work artist studios.

Making performances and messy but aesthetically appealing live-work spaceswas nothing new in 1990s Olneyville. Artis ts like those affiliated with AliasStage bad been working out of Atlantic Mills on Manton Avenue since the 1980s ,producing theater and other non-commercial performance an (McCormack 2011 ),What was new abo ut Fort Thunder was that the arttsts living and working therewere connected to RJSD , and this made their mess worthy of national attention.Publications like the New York im es and Artjorum began to laud the beautifuldetritus of what came to be called the '"Fort Thunder Collec tive" (Tan nenbaum2006: 21 ). As more people came to know about the Fort, its illegal stat us becamemore difficult for the City's licensi ng bureau to ignore. Much like AS220 in itse arly days. and Prov idence industrial utchitecture during the height of urbaredevelopment , the Fort surviwd as long as it did because of benign neglect; iwould likely never have become such a seminal institution had 11 been incuba teunder the Renaissance 'lpotlight.


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46 C 't't.J/1 ~ Econonues Post lndusmal Ci rit \

Figure 2.2 Eag le Squa re pr otestSource: Courtesy of Stephen MaLlos.

In 1999 , representatives from a New York-based co mm ercial propertydeveloper called Feldco began taking pi c tures around Eagle Square. Feldcointended to develop a suburban- style strip mall on the site. The company claimedthat to rehabilitate th e historic mills in Eagle Square wo uld be practicallyimpos s ible , and that the Providence Commons could be realized only by razingthe entire parc el of land , destroying 26 historic mill building s, including FortThunder , and displacing nearly l 00 artists (Marsh 20 II .

At a public hearing on the Feldco project in November of 2000, BrianChippendale , today one o f the Fort's most well-known alumni , invoked theProvidence Renaissance 's most notorious success story: There' s 100 potentialBarnaby Evanses sitting around fFort Thunder]. That' s a lot of potential to lose' '(Smith 2000). By comparing himself and other artists in Otneyville to Evans,the creator of WaterFire, Chippendale was calling Cianci out on neighborhooddevelopment policies that clashed with the prioritie s upheld in the city center. I fProvidence 's lead ers were really se rious about the Renaissance project, and itscommitment to artists , Cianci would have to take Olneyville seriously.

Around the same time, a group of gentrification watch dogs mobil ized out ofAS220 organized as Providence Artists United (PAU) to advocate on behalf of

The Safari Lounge, a bar that faced eviction from a building in Oowncity earlierthat year. The Safari was a beer and shot s joint where Providence rock bandspla yed in the late 1980s. the llarra za family 's only source o f income , and t etype of venue ess ential to maintaining cl a ss- diverse art ist communities in the cily

Scalt, Sodality and Senmdipity in Prmidemce 7

center. PAU placed an ad wi th the lollow10g text in the January 27. 2000 Issue o fT e Providence JJrntd

The Safari Lounge is a rare and almost miraculous embodiment of the publicly:-tated goals of the so-called Renaissance of downtown Providence. We can'thelp but see the fate of the Safari as a test of these goals. Is the Renaissancereally giving an opponunity to artists ... Or is it wiping away businesses thatgrew up independently ... to replace them with a planned economy that may noteven be viable? (Donnis 2000)

tn March. The r o v i d e n c ~Journal s till irreso lutely pro-development andpolitically al igned with Cia nci . printed an edit orial p ortra ying the fai led evic tiono f the Safari as a techni ca lity . The J ournal also framed the debat es that PAUclaimed to be about ge ntrifi ca tion in te rm s of pas s ive property value increa ses( rents will rise ) rather than class bia s ( Pro videnc e Jo urnal Staff2000). Th e PA Uresponded with an op-ed of ts own, restating its case for the illegality of the Sa farieviction and ca lling the op-ed 's recourse to the wisdom of The Safari 's owner ace lebrati on of va lues remini scen t o f those cheri shed by European feudal elites(Kuehl 2000).

The co nte st over Eagle Square was a pe rfec t place for the PA U to co ntinu eque stioning the logic o f Renaissance inve shnent while expanding their critiqueo f gentrification and displacement. rronically , in joining the environmentalist sand enlightened dev e lopers of The Fort Thunder coa lition, PAU was also alignin gitsel f with the city 's archetypica l gentrifiers , the middl e-cla ss pre servati onis tsfrom the Providence Pre servat ion Society.

PA U and Fort Thunder artist s knew that Eagle Square was o nly a viable spaceas long a s it was under the radar ; after garnering so much national atte11tion, it wasdest ined for either the wrecking ball or redevelopment. By expending their culturalcap ital to save Eagle Square , artist s hoped the y could at least help preserve the

historic mill buildings that had been the site o f so much creative ferment (Smith2000). Sad ly by supporting the preservation of industrial space in Eagle Square ,they helped create conditions that catalyzed a real estate buying spree in Olneyville .j eopa rdi z ing the availability of the low -rent , low-visibility indu strial space th eycontinued to inhabit. Their pro-preservation st a nce put Olneyville arti sts squa re lyin opposition to Olney ville Councilwoman Josep hin e DiRu zzo, and Olne yv illeproperty owne rs, who , according to Provid ence Journal wr iter Greg Smith, sawde ve lopment o f any kind in the ir neighborhood , even suburban- sty le strip malldevelopment , as a m uch need ed shot in the ann . During th e famed November2000 public hearing at City Hall where the Fort Thunder coalition rallied to SaveEagle Square ,' ' an Olneyvitle property owne r appealed to a se nse o f m isp laced

entitlement on the artists ' part : When the se kids leave. we'll still be here . To usthis is a present from God ' ' (Sm ith 2000) .Re sidents and suppo rt ers o f Eagle Squa re felt con nected to the embodiment

o f history and aesthetic iconicity represented by industrial mill s mu ch as College


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1 Jtil preservationists did with thc1r Benefit Street Colonials} Olneyvi lle propertywners hadn't anticipated that many artists would stay. and despite repeated

victit>ns over the next decade, invest in their neighborhood with both their sweat~ q u i t yand culturnl capital, like the East Side elites oftbe 1950s. s

A s mall group of privileged artists were ab le to purchase properties in the11eighborhood, like the Armington and Sims E ngine Company Buildin g. and later

he neighborin g Providen ce Steel & Iron property (future home of the Steel Yard)e ~ n Eastern Butcher Block. Many . however, acted as though lhey were therebecause they could not afford to rem such voluminous studio space ot herwi se

hey were also. as lega l scho lar Matt Jef7.Yk points out, risk-ob livious to theazards endemic to dwelling in decrepit industrial spaces (Jerzyk 2009: 415).

The buzz created by pro-preservation activism around Eagle Square eventua llyied down when Feldco was given a final ultimatum from Mayo r Cianci audelented to demands that it preserve 25 of the structurdl integrity of t he site andccommodate a planned bike path and access to the histor ic Woonasquatucketiver (Goldstein-Piesser 55-6). Baltimore-based developer Bill Struever, later

eviled by local artists for developing nearly $350 million of industrial property[n Olneyvillc. helped create the necessary leverage wi th Cianci by offering anlternative pro-preservation visio n for Eagle Square (Marsh 20 II).

The fight over Eagle Squa re ca talyzed two important preservation-drivenpolicy developments on the local and state level; the establlshment of an updated ,110n-contiguous Industrial Sites and Commercia l Building s designation ( ICBD)n Providenc e, which restricted alteration of character and destruction of historicndust rial propertie s, and the aforementioned statewide 30% tax cred it for historicpreserva tion , a critical component of the funding implemented by AS220 duringts expansion into The Dreyfus and Mercantile Block buildings almost 10 yearsater (Providence Preservahon Society 2002). These pro-preservation policiesere centra l to both artist-driven. slow-grow th development and an explosion of

:levelopment driven by outside capital. The story ofThe Monohas set Mill Project1d its non-profit neighbor, TI1e Steel Yard. demonstrate the success and continued

;halleng es that developers face as they seek to make Olneyville's m ills into safe,

4 Rene Morales,Assistant Curatorat the Miami rt Museum and a former audienceember at Fort Thunder. reminisces in the catalogue for lhe RISD Museum's Wunderground

:x.hibition: ..I loved thosecrumbling factories filled with rusty anifilcts from lhe Industrial~ v o l u t i o n. .. It was electrifying to hear lhose cavernous spaces shot through with noiseock'' (Tannenbaum 1006: I09).

S Despite the surface-level similarities between the pro-preservation coalitionobilized around EagleSquare. and the College Ifill coalition ofthe 1950sand 1960s, there1re many roims at which the two m o r n n t ~in Providence's preservation history diverge.3enefit Street wns already a reside11tial neig)lborhood. andthe College Hill coalition wns auch smaller, weulthier grouJl nf stakeholders than the Port TI1uodet group: most ol'them

.vt re nut residents ol' the street t h ~y hoped to transform.

c al tt u crallt y 1 /fTcl Se re ntltptll 111 Pm vrcit nce

legal. vibrant spa(:es where artist cummunitit:s arc :.tble to thrive in and engagebroader publics.

Arti sts as Developers in Olo eyville

ll1e Steel Yard is an industrial arts center sitting on the site or the formerProv1dence Stee l and Iron Company. two acres of remedi:tted brownfield in theheart nf Providence's industrial Valley. The organization was founded just downthe block from Eagle Square in 200 I by Nick Bauta, a RISO alumnus. scu lptorand dt:SCt:ndenl or the Canadian food magnate w Garfield Weston , and C layRocketeller. a Brown alumnus, ceramicist and the great-great-grandson of John0 Rockefeller. It offers courses in welding, blacksmithing, ceramics, jewelry,glass casting and the foundry arts and is funded by contributed income and ea rnedincome from rentals and public projects ,

The Monohasset Mill Project (M MP), The Steel Yard's for-profit neighbor. wasdeveloped next door in the former Armington and Sims Engine Company Buildin gby Rockefeller and a group of longtime Armington residents and RISD alumni.Initially, MMP developers saw their project only in terms of saving the Armingtonproperty for the artists living there. including the daughter of BiiJ Struever. Withthe help of developers and preservationists, they completed a financial plan andlearned how to navigate the challenging legal matrix of t he local. state. and nation altax incentives that would tie the for-profit develo pm ent to the nonprofit next door(Marsh 2011). Today, Monohasset provides high-end housing as well as HU -subsidi7ed artist live /work units for many people alliliated with The Steel Yard.

Rockefe ller says that the idea for the Yard'', took shape after September I lth.2001. He was inspired by witnessing New York residents come togetherpu rposefu lly, and by his own volunteer experience at The Cruci ble. a treasuredmdustrial arts institution in Oakland California;

I kept on coming back to the fact that people need to feel like they can dosomething and be useful ... and can be rooted in the process of making things.And so it started to kind of evolve, my looking at the Steel Yard .. . I startedto look at economic developmenl aspects as well, and job training things. andyou know basically trying to teach people skills or otTer people the opportunityto leu.rn skills that ... could also he appli4td toward bringing an income 111( Ketten 20 .

Rockefeller and Bauta never saw th Steel Yard as a project that would addsume thing new to Olneyville . Rather. they saw it as a facility that would supportwork that had been going on for centuries in the neighborhood. As Rockefellersays, 1was particularly interested in what IJ1c next success ful model for industrywould look like, and if it coul d be sustainabl e in a sca led-down way that focusedon local markets'' (Cameron 20 I I: 72). The Steel Yard's Executive Director,


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S I na m e l:.cvnomte.\ 111 I O.\IInd u. l r iu l Clllt .\

Drake Patten, explains the challenge o f getting lunders , bureauctat . and an:,advocates to think about how Rhode Island h ~ always had a creative economy:''There have been. and still are. a ton of creative businesses that are not art ortech businesses; we have a rich industrial heritage and we don t really n d e r ~ t a n d

how to incorporate it" (Patten 2010). The sca ling down of industry at The SteelYard ha s taken its most tangible form in the orga ni zation's extremely successful

Public Pr ojects. through which it hires local artists and artisans to design andfabricate an array of street furniture. like trashcans, tree guards and bike racks .The organization has landed 90 co n tra cts since laun ching its Public Pr oject:..inclu ding five for the Providence Downtown Improvement Di strict, a Downcit ybeautification program instituted by the Pr ovidence Foundation (Cameron2011: 73).

The Steel Yard prides itself on its slow growth approach and its successfulpartner ship s. In 20 10, the organization administered a workforce developmentprogram fund ed through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Belwe enJuly and August 20 I 0 , eight young people learned to we ld , torch cut, work withigs, and use power tools and hand tool s at The Steel Yard . While earning a

minimum wage, they practiced their fabrication skill s making frames for trashcansthat would later be sold through the orga ni zation s Publi c Projec ts program, andthen designed and fabricated an intricate fence for the Yard. Wbeo they left theprogram, trainees had a portfolio and work samples to bring to future employers.as well as professional references from supervisors and artists /metalworkers fromthe Steel Yard co m munity .

Partnering with the City of Pro vidence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism(AC +T) was crucial to the success ful implementation of The Steel Yard'sworkforce development initiative. Lynne McCo nnack , tbe Director of AC +T, saysthat the city acted as a pass through agent and s treamlined the ted ious reportingfor the federal grant so that The Steel Yard was able to launch the program in just

six weeks : t was crazy Some cities that had workforce program s, they turnedit around. But no other cities in the coun try, that didn t have a program already,turned a whole program around as quickly as we did." McCormack also notes thather work as an ombudsman for the arts helped to facilitate communication betweenthe Providence Planning Department. The Steel Yard and the EPA , who awardedthe Yard a $400,000 grant allowing it to complete its brownfield remediation workin 2010 (McConnack2011).

The Steel Yard's work with AC+T exemplifies The City of Providence s newway of doing business with arts organizations . Authentic, relationship-basedpartners hips are key. Long gone are the days o f closed-door negotiation s andarbitrarily disbursed discre tionary funding.

Scule. unultrv umJ Ser.tndt(IITI 111 Pro\ lden ce

Figure 2.3 Steel Yard Workforc e Development pa rti cipantSvrute Courtesy o f the Pro vidence Department of Art , Culture and Toumm.

The Depa rtme nt of Art , C ultur e+ To ur i sm:Advocacy a nd Vis ibili ty for the C ultur al Eco nom y

~

When Mayor David Cicilline came to City Hall in 2002. he immediately began torevamp the City s approach to supporting its c ultural sector. Firs t, he charged artspolicy consultant Ann Galligan with making recommendation s for establishing anew bureaucratic structure for art s and cultu re in the City . Galligan not only met. .. ith a core group of repre se ntati ves from resource-rich legacy institutions, likeTrinity Rep and PPA C, she also met with members of the business and fundingcommu nity. and culturally specific arts organizations. Most significantly sheconvened unaffiliated arts leaders from across the city s cultumllandscapc.

Cicilline's transparency qnd deliberation signaled a departure from the daysuf the AEDTF and top-down, closed-door cultural policy . By November o f 2003.using Galligan's recommendation s as h1s guide. Cicilline was ready to articulate anew vision for a centralized office und er his direct purview :

Through the visibihty of the a y o r ~Office. the Department of A n , Culture ~

Tcmnsm will raise the status of art anti culture m city government, signaling theirimportance ns integral component > ufcity l t . Arts and culture will be elevated


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52

tu a p o ~ i u o oof equal p a n n ~ n ; h i pin crcatmgand maplemcntangpublic pnllc) .und wall serveas a vehicle tu c.:n ate collabomti\c workingr e l ~ t i o n ~ h i p sac.:rossclly ~ ? O v c r n m c n lThe Depnnmcnt willcelehratc the soc.:aa l aud cconumicr ~ > w c rof art , as well as the tremendous potential of creative workers.u ~ e n g i n e ~If~ r m t hand dc\clopmcntan Pmvadcnce(Cicillinc2003h: Visaon).

< :1111WllOd, a lobbyist"' hv had been working for the Downcity developer CornishAssociates. became the first Director of the new Departmt:ot. Wood abo brought

in Lynne McCormack to work as AC+T's first Deputy Director. McCormack, whohad worked at Cultural Affairs in the Park s Department under Bob R i : ~ . . z o .had agrasp of institutional history as well as deep connectio ns in the arts commum ty.Her addi tion to the team helped AC+T to resolve some of the issues created byGalligan's O\ erly ambitiou cultural plan.

The plan "'as not sufficien tly funded; this meantthatlhere were few resourcesto hire staff to support existing (let alone expanded) programmin g. Taking onthe mandate of the Mayor , Wood and McCormack immediately began crea tingpartnerships with Downcit y performing arts presenters and producers to ensure

that the public did not perceive AC +T to be siphoning funds from the art producedby the City. Partnering with the performing arts presenter Pir'\tWork . helpedAC +T sustain high-quality multi-arts programming simi lar to that presentedduring The Convergence Arts Festival, a flagshtp program produced by theDepartment of Cultural An"airsand its nonprofit arm, Capito Arts, under Cia nci(McCormack 2 ,

Wood sought out Donald King, the Arttsttc Director of The ProvidenceBlack Repert ory Company (Black Rep) to co ntinue producing music simi lar tothat featured at the City's Rhythm and Blues festival. also a Cianci-era programproduced by CapitoiArts. The Black Rep was a theatre and live music venue spunoff fi-om a public program at AS220 that had recently purchased a new building in

the heart of he Downcity district Wood was confident that with King 's curatorialskills, Black Rep s production capacity. and Art, Culture + Tourism's financial andtechnical suppo rt, something like the world-renowned Montreal Ja zz Fest couldone day be achieved through AC+T's partnership on Providence Sound Session(Wood 20 I0).

In addition to these two key partnerships. AC+T maintained its Frida y mgbtconcert series in Waterplace Park, and began to f o c u ~explicitly on bringing moreperformances O the city 's neighborhoods. Acknowledging the myopia of theCianci administration when it came to developing cultural programming outsideDown city, Wood told The Providen ce Journal that. "fo r a long time, the locu s basmostly been on downtown. That' nota bad thing. especially when you're tryingto market the city to outstders . But there has to be balance'' (Van Siclen 2004) . 1t isstill important to sell tbe ctty to outsiders, both potcntiaJ home buyers who mightpurchase property and contribute property taxes to the city's coffers. and tourisiSwho, through taxes on the cityr. hott:ls. lupportthe Tourism Council. which in partsupports sularies at Art, Culture+ Tourism (Wood 2010).

S c l 1 t l l l h ~ land Seremhp l'mv1dt llt 'l ' 53

Wood and McCormack C)otabli'lhed the Nctghborhood Performing Arts1 1 1 i t i a t i v ~ :(NPA I) using money thut had been growing ror nearly 100 years in thecity's Edward Ely Trust hand fnr perfonntng a r t ~in pubhc parks . Ruther thancurate the performance s itself. AC+T signaled it willingnes s to c;hure culturalauthority by sending RFP 's to arts organi1ations and ue1ghborhoud groups.cncuuragang them to decide what type or art:. programming \\ould best suit

their loca l. neighborhood audtences. As McCormack says, her relation ship withthe Director of the Parks Department . where the Offic e of Cultural A lairs wa-.housed, was cri ticul to the :.ucccss of the program . Again . partnering wns notunly lhc best way to push things forward in Providence . it was the only way(McConnuck 20 ll ).

Today the Department of Art. Culture Tourism, run by McCormack sinceWood was elected to the Providence City Council in 2006. has a full-time staffof four. and a rotating a ~ tof interns supportmg tts daily operattons. but is still inneed of increased support. AC+T supports First Works, Providence Sound Session.the Sun 1mer Waterplace Park music series and t h ~NPAI perto nnan ces, film andtelevision production, nnd any other commercial cultura l events taking place in the

city. The department also devoted the last several years to an intem;e. participatoryplanning proces through which it has conceived a new I0-year cultu ral plan forProvidence. The plan recommends permanently mstJtutionalizing Art Cultureand Tourism by incorporattng it withm the City 's Planning Departm ent (City ofProvidence 2009).

ln addi tion to creating a framework to ensure the permanence of AC+T, theCultural Plan, developed with the participation of hundreds of stakeholders in thecity's cultural economy , incorpora tes several updated, struteg1cgoals for AC+Tand its partners. These goals include raising awareness for the cul tural secto r as awhole, developing the creauve practices of Providence youth, fostering sustainableorganizations. increasing cultural participation and bolstering neighborhood

investment in arts and culture (City of Providenc e ... 2009). 1'McCormack acknowledges that neither the cultural plan , nor AC+T will solve

alJ the problems ol'the cultural sector in Providen ce. The department is still figuringout how to balance the needs ofneigbborboods with the demands of he city 's coreart and enterta inment district. Wbat is certain about McCormack's app roach isthat like her predecessor , her management style is shaped by her identity as anartist. and her belief in the power of art and culture t o transform communities.She acknowledges that although strategic thinkin g and long-term planning havealways been central to AC+'t:'s operations, many of he tactic s that the departmentused in its infancy were incredibly risky . She say


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4 Cn oti1r l x o r m m ~in l'mt-lncltMrial l t l t ~

sk. a i all great artbts do. as it move > mto 1ts si coml decade: " If you as -. my ~ t a l lhey'll tell you rrn still oppvrtunis tic. and we >till take a lot orchances and pushhe envelope like era1y, but 1s sh11\ing" towards a more balanced. long-term1pprouch to cultural management and development (McCormack 20 II

oving Fo r ward, Looking Back

ultural development IS circuitou > and at t1mes random. What factoJs today seempredcstmed and productive within systems that support cultural change may onceave been seen as the vestiges of corrup tion , vtce and lethargy. By understandinghat the valences assigned to these factors in Providence's history have not beenstatic over time. but have shifted with the larger tides of economic and socialhange. scholars of post-industrial development can better understand and unaly1ehe small post-industrial cities and their comp lex , context-spectfic condition ..

Ry tracing a path from Providence 's early industrial history, and thenfrastn1cture that made its eflloresccnce possible. to the development ofhis((lric

preservation as an engine for econom ic de velopme nt. and finally to arts andulture as the driving forces energizing the histori c spaces preserved and the

people who inhabit them. I hope to have show n that Providence 's post-industrialultural economy is the product of both serendipity and foresight, risk-taking and

strategic plannin g. Without moments of benign neglect. such as those precipitatinghe coalescence of the College II ill preservation coalition as well as the AS220

collective and the Fort Thunder coa liti on. the official cultural apparatus housedat Ci ty Hall would never have become quite so responsive to issuel> centeredaround availability and preservation of historic space for, and accessibility to. thearts. Yet without the plannmg. agitation, and coalition-building spea rheaded byProvidence's bureaucrats and cultu ral eli tes. the germinating cultural buds bornfrom benign neglect would never have been able to bear institutional fruit likeWaterFire. AS220. and The Steel Yard.

Not all of Providence 's successes can be attributed to the ingenuity of itsresident culture makers and bureaucrats many stem first from the city's ::.mallsize and its stra tegic placem ent between larger marketplaces along the Easternseaboard. Providence's size. in particular, has facilitated the development of adense web of collegial affiliation in the cultural sec tor cemented by immat erialexchanges and platonic social ties. Additionally, the density of institutions ofhigher learning in Providence has made it possible for Providence to capitalize onand retain highly ski lled cultu1e workers who then become a part ofthis netw ork.

Providenc e's story s hows that no city cans u r v i v ~ : :

and prosper by foregroundin ga s imulated cultural front. but lhal such a front is sometimes nece ssary to c reatethe public support needed to foster institutional stability . As wt: can see in thispost-industrial cultural economy. lhe cart, preservation and infraMructurttlredevelopment initiatives. had to come beforl the horse of a robust cullUraleconomy .

"icull Soe'irJ itv cmd SerandlfU/1 111 l'mlltdi IILc 55

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Brett, R. ( 1976) , Temples ofllluswn : The Colden llgc ol1111'atl'n rm Amerir an

City (Bristol. Rl: Brett Theatrical).Brown Uni\ crsity. (2006). l a ~ e n and Just ee (Providence. Rl Urown Unm:rs1ty).Cameron. K . (20 II , ''R1smg from the ashes". ,\/etropolllu/1 ,\1ugu=uu . January

20 II , New York, 70 74.Cumevu le, L. (2011 ), Co-Director Providence Partnership for Creative Industrial

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micah salkind. “scale, sociality and serendipity in providence, rhode island’s post-industrial...

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