Fishing with ospreys

What happened to April showers?

The weather has been perfectly beautiful — and perfectly dry — ever since Retired Guy and I got back from our tropical vacation two weeks ago. So yesterday, in between bouts of playing catch-up watering the yard, we found ourselves in Bristol looking at kayaks at Northwind Sports.

Actually, we had driven to Bristol for another reason altogether, which was to pick up our Osprey license plates from the Audubon Society Environmental Education Center, where they were being distributed to the 1,200 folks like us who signed up for a first edition of these pretty plates, which cost $40, with half going to support the education efforts of Audubon and Save The Bay. The Osprey, or fishing hawk, is a native species, and like other coastal natives such as plovers, it needs human help to survive. In the case of the Osprey, the chemical DDT is thought to have been the cause of a decline that caused the bird to be protected under the Endangered Species Act three decades ago. It has since returned in increasing numbers.

Many bird-lovers don't realize that other native species of birds such as bluebirds, cardinals, swallows and chickadees are endangered by rapidly multiplying populations of the non-native invasive species House Sparrow, which take over the nests of native birds and kill their chicks. The Audubon Society educates people about how to deter aggressive invasive species like the sparrow and instead help native species of birds to survive. (Monitor bird houses to be sure sparrows aren't nesting in them, and feed only seeds such as sunflower and thistle that don't attract sparrows.)

So there we were in Bristol, with our new Osprey plates on the car and the harbor glistening behind Thames Street Landing, which is where Northwinds is. And the next thing you know, we are the owners of a pair of Heritage kayaks, which were on sale for just under $500 apiece and look like a pair of large kids' toys — or toys for large kids, which is what we expect to feel like when we're bobbing around in them.

Retired Guy is a fisherman, so his kayak has holes for his rods. Just last week, he got his fishing license for the season, so before too long, he expects to put it to use by joining the Ospreys in hunting for fish for dinner.

"Across the Cove" across the years

I've always loved the painting, "Providence from Across the Cove," by Alvan Fisher. I first saw an image of it in Florence Parker Simister's wonderful 1968 book, Streets of the City, which is out of print now but still may be found in libraries and in used books stores.

I like the fact that you can pick out landmarks in the 190-year-old painting that still exist today on Providence's College Hill and the East Side. (The actual painting is in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society.)

In the middle distance is the steeple of the First Baptist Church in America. To the right is the brick University Hall of Brown University, and to the right of that, the steeple of the First Unitarian Church.

In the foreground is the Cove itself, a tidal body of water that connected Providence's two rivers (the Woonasquatucket and the Moshassuck) to the head of Narragansett Bay. A defining feature of the Providence landscape, the Cove has all but disappeared today, filled in and covered over more or less by the area between the train station and Kennedy Plaza, and from Providence Place mall to North Main Street. (The circular Waterplace that is the centerpiece of the city's riverwalk is a nod to the historical significance of the original Cove.)

At lunchtime the other day, I thought I'd try to figure out where Fisher had viewed the scene when he made his painting nearly two centuries ago. The three buildings I could still recognize would help me locate the spot, and a small hill on the far left in the painting is probably about where the State House is.

Well, it turns out that Fisher (who put himself in the painting as one of the tiny figures in the foreground) was viewing the scene approximately from the second-floor foyer of the Providence Place mall. (If you cross over on the Skybridge from the Westin Hotel, you enter a glass-walled space from which you can look out upon the "Now" of Fisher's "Then.") The only one of the three buildings that you can still see from there is the First Baptist Church, more or less in the center. To the left, the view is interrupted by the GTech building, and to the right by the Courtyard Hotel. And of course the Cove is long gone, covered by those buildings as well as by Memorial Boulevard and its intersection with Francis Street, plus Kennedy Plaza.

The idyllic scene that is one of the oldest depictions of a Rhode Island landscape is now a busy urban streetscape. Progress has a price, but at least Fisher left us a picture of Providence as it looked once upon a time.

Then and now: Westminster Street view

I was a sophomore at Providence's Classical High School in 1967, the year that the Rhode Island Mall (then called the Midland Mall) opened in Warwick. That year is generally thought of as marking the end of retail in downtown Providence — at least, until the present "renaissance."

But it isn't really fair to say that the opening of the Warwick malls killed downtown, because it had already been failing. An effort to restore vitality to Westminster Street by turning it into a pedestrian walkway closed to cars wasn't working, even though as late as the mid-'60s, the street was still lined with stores that were far busier than those that are there today, 40 years later.

In the old postcard view on the left, you can see the planters that occupied the middle of the Westminster pedestrian mall, along with shoppers heading for stores like Woolworth and Thom McCan shoes on the left side and Kay Jewelers on the right. At that time, the two big downtown department stores were still operating — Shepard's and the Outlet — along with dozens of smaller stores like Peerless, Gladding's, Lerner and Casual Corner.
All are gone now, and the present view (right), taken from the corner of Westminster and Union Street (next to Tazza cafe), shows the planters gone, the street reopened to cars — and an absence of shoppers on a weekday afternoon. This might be because the stores that have opened in the past few years on Westminster are determinedly upscale: A wine boutique called Eno, a modern furniture store called Design Within Reach (whose?), and women's fashion stores such as Elsa Arms are typical. Other than a few stores like Oop and Bowl & Board that cater to students decorating their dorms, there's little for sale on Westminster to draw the everyday shopper. The expectation is that the hundreds of condos for sale downtown will soon fill with well-to-do people who will need to buy fine wine and Eames chairs but who won't need to run out for groceries or a pair of stockings or a tube of toothpaste.

It generally works better, though, when stores go where the people are. In 1967, the malls were built in the suburbs because that's where the people had moved. Speaking about the Warwick malls, which he co-managed, for a 1999 Providence Journal article, developer Aram Garabedian said, "The shopping center (in Warwick) followed the people; the people didn't follow the shopping center."
Forty years later, Providence is still hoping they'll be back soon.

Mini Coopers in Providence . . .

It's a small world, isn't it? I see Minis everywhere — at home:

and on vacation . . .

Providence hotels: Courtyard

Last in a 6-part series comparing downtown Providence hotels:

Of the three Marriott-brand hotels in Providence, Courtyard is the most basic, and it blends into its downtown location so completely that you almost could walk by and not realize that there's a hotel there. The building is low-slung and built of yellow brick to look like an extension of the historic train station building (now offices) overlooking Kennedy Plaza in the heart of the city.

As it was undergoing repairs and renovations, Courtyard probably wasn't looking its best on the Friday in March when Retired Guy and I did our unofficial tour of downtown hotels. A strong odor from cleaning agents that had been used on the carpets permeated the lobby and the rest of the hotel, including the $129 room we were shown.
There were some signs of wear and tear around, such as scratches in the elevator walls, but it looked as if the hotel was in the process of addressing them.

On the plus side, Courtyard's room price was $30 cheaper than the going rate that day for similar rooms in other downtown hotels. Like its rooms, the hotel's lobby is decorated in functional mid-century modern style.

Overall, Courtyard looked like a place to spend the night rather than a destination hotel.

Our Rhode Island Explorer downtown hotel survey finally done, RG and I reflected upon the six hotels we'd seen.

Certainly, there was no shortage of hotel rooms in downtown Providence that Friday night, and we could have stayed in any one of them without a reservation and probably at a considerably cheaper price than we were quoted had we chosen to negotiate. Interestingly, from the most deluxe to the most basic hotels, the room prices we found varied only by about $40. We might have chosen to stay at the Westin for $169, the Hilton for $149, Courtyard for $129, or the Hotel Providence, the Renaissance, or in a Biltmore suite — all for $159.

I remarked to RG that if I were to choose, I guess I'd either go by location and choose the Hilton, because of its accessibility to Atwells Avenue and downtown, or the Biltmore because of its vintage style. What about him?
"They all look pretty much the same to me," he said. "Let's go home!"

Providence hotels: The Hilton

Part 5 in a series comparing the six downtown Providence hotels:

Rhode Islanders are often teased for their habit of identifying locations by what used to be there, rather than what is there now. So in Rhody-speak, the Hilton hotel is where the Holiday Inn used to be.

A few years ago, a big crane removed the Holiday Inn’s familiar orange-daisy logo from the top of the blockish building that overlooks downtown from the beginning of Atwells Avenue, the city’s Italian-flavored “restaurant row.” Along with replacing the daisy with the Hilton sign, the hotel’s new owners spiffed up the interior — updating and improving the lobby, adding a Don Shula’s steak restaurant and a Starbucks, and enlarging the rooms to meet Hilton standard sizes by bumping out the windows.

The transformation was a success, and on our visit to the Providence Hilton Retired Guy and I were impressed both by the new look and by the efficiency of the staff we met.
As at all the other hotels we visited, we said that we were looking for a room that night and that we also were scouting for hotels as locations for a daughter’s possible wedding this summer.

We were given a brisk and informative tour by a manager named Scott, who showed us a very comfortable and stylish room that would be available that night for $149. He also laid out the parking arrangement, which none of the reps at the other hotels had done and which in fact we hadn’t thought to ask about. It turns out that all of the downtown hotels charge an additional fee of about $24 per night for parking. (At the Hilton, you have the option to self-park in a lot across the street for $20, and at the Westin, you can self-park in a garage for $17.)
The room had an expansive view of the west side of Providence, and by bumping out the window, the renovation had created a wide marble seat that not only looked inviting but also made the room feel larger.

The bathroom was plain but fine, and there was everything the modern traveler needs in terms of services like WiFi and TV. Scott explained that, like other hotel chains, Hilton has a tiered set of brand names aimed at different kinds of travelers from luxury to economy to business. This one was in the middle — neither the most luxurious, nor the most basic.

Wherever we fall by those corporate-level distinctions, the Hilton suited us just fine, and its location at the intersection of downtown and the Atwells dining scene is ideal for an out-of-towner who wants to get out and explore Providence. The room price was $10 to $20 less than others we’d been quoted thus far for similar rooms downtown, and I like the option to park my own car.

This being the fifth hotel we'd looked at in one afternoon, we were nearly ready to lay down the credit card and actually stay for the night. No rest for the weary, though — there was one more downtown hotel to visit.

Next: Courtyard by Marriott

Providence hotels: Hotel Providence

Part 4 of a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

Is downtown — or Downcity, as promoters like to call it — ready for a “European-style boutique hotel”?
Specifically, is Mathewson Street between Westminster and Washington Streets ready for a rare bird like the lovely Hotel Providence?
The hotel's near neighbors include help centers for city indigents, a keno and lottery ticket outlet with its front window protected by a metal grate, and Kevin’s Corner Smoke Shop, boarded up and closed.

Fragments of conversations overheard on Mathewson open a window on the city's seamy side — perhaps not what those who've pulled up to have their car valet-parked might have expected.

On the Friday in March when Retired Guy and I dropped by the Hotel Providence and asked to see a room, we saw no one in the hotel except its very helpful and eager staff. The desk clerk told us that a room was available and would cost $159, adding that if we found a better offer elsewhere downtown, he might be able to match it.

The room we saw was lovely, but its windows were unusually high, offering a view only of a blank brick wall just a few feet away. The room was small and seemed even smaller because the ceiling was so high — an odd configuration that made us feel immediately claustrophobic. Probably others of the hotel’s 80 rooms and suites don’t have exactly the same non-view and cell-like dimensions, but as it is on a dark side street surrounded by other buildings, there can’t be much better scenes to look out upon than the brick wall.

The room was, however, beautifully appointed, with a gleaming modern bathroom with rainfall-type showerhead, real ceramic cups for coffee, WiFi and a big flat-screen TV. And the hotel's lobby and entrance are Old World elegant, with marble floors, gilded mirrors, Oriental carpets and French Empire-style furniture.

One can only hope that the downtown — excuse me, Downcity — "renaissance" will quickly catch up with the Hotel Providence, and that the motley crew of street types that currently make up the Mathewson/Westminster scene will find some other place to go so that this undeniably lovely small hotel will be able to find its proper clientele.

Next: the Hilton and Courtyard by Marriott hotels

Providence hotels: The Westin

Part 3 in a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

With more than 500 rooms in a pair of faux-Gothic towers that dominate the Providence skyline, the Westin was the first “luxury” hotel to be built in the city’s modern era. Unfortunately, it suffers more than it benefits from being connected to the Providence Place mall by a skybridge that provides the most direct route between old downtown and the new mall. The skybridge (which is accessed through the hotel) is used by everyone — including noisy groups of inner-city youths — to get to and from the mall from the rest of downtown.

An escalator that was added a few years ago helps to keep the mallrats out of the Westin's grand circular columned lobby, but let us say that it is not an ideal situation even so and probably contributes to what Retired Guy and I found to be a little bit of defensiveness on the part of the Westin's staff in the course of our unofficial downtown hotel survey.

The Westin was the only hotel where we were in any way discouraged from taking photographs. The bellhop who was assigned to show us a room said that not only was taking photos inside the hotel prohibited, we couldn’t even take a photo of the outside! When I reacted with incredulity to the last statement (after all, the hotel towers are part of the Providence skyline), he stood by it and said the appearance of the hotel, both inside and out, is the property of the Westin.

Whatever. . . .

Of all the hotels downtown, the Westin’s rooms were the highest priced we found. We were shown one room for $169 and another, with a lovely view of the State House, for $189. Both rooms looked comfortable in a bland modern style, but comparable rooms in other downtown hotels were going for $159 the same night.

The Westin has a great location if what you want is easy access to both the mall and downtown, but its lobby is less inviting than others we saw, being more of a showcase for people arriving and departing than a place to relax.

Next: the Hotel Providence

What to do with Shooters

Anyone with an interest in Providence’s waterfront and parks was urged to attend a free workshop April 7 on the fate of the derelict building that used to house Shooters nightclub. This is the building originally called Bootleggers that had a brief heyday in the ‘80s.
The state’s Department of Transportation owns the land and the building, which is in a prime spot between what will be the new Route 195 and the India Point waterfront, with a view straight down Narragansett Bay.
A national group called Project for Public Spaces hosted the workshop.

APRIL 8 UPDATE: Click here to read the Providence Journal article about the workshop and some of the ideas for transforming the Providence waterfront that came out of it.

Providence hotels: The Renaissance

Part 2 in a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

In the previous post, Retired Guy and I looked at the oldest Providence hotel, the '20s-era Biltmore. Today we look at the newest: the Renaissance (a luxury brand of the Marriott chain). The hotel opened to great acclaim last summer in what had been a noble-looking white elephant: the Masonic Temple building between the State House and the Providence Place mall.

In its renovation, the Temple's Hellenic facade was preserved, but the interior is new, and the resulting hotel is stunning, inside and out. (It was also the busiest of all those we looked at, with a large group of "foreclosure prevention" experts from around the country checking out and another group checking in while Retired Guy and I waited to view a room.)

Actually, we were shown a couple of rooms, for $159 and $179. The additional $20 would have bought us a room with a stunning view of the State House dome. (Rooms on certain floors in the hotel look out on an ornamental balustrade, so they don't offer such a clear view beyond it.)

All the hotel staff we met seemed right on top of things and used to dealing with large numbers of check-ins and check-outs: You would have thought the place had been open far longer than a few months. The hotel's style is luxury contemporary, with the interesting twist that its interior incorporates colorful swirls of graffiti-style art. (Over the many decades that the Temple was abandoned, it was a notorious graffiti magnet.)
On the hotel's lower floor, with its own street entrance, is Temple-Downtown restaurant, which is one of the city's hot spots, with very good food and a lively bar scene.

All in all, we liked the Renaissance a lot, the only slight negative being its somewhat removed location: It's an easy walk from the hotel to the mall, but to get to the rest of downtown, you have to find your way across the worst intersection in the city, either by taking a circuitous path crossing three multi-lane highways or by finding your way over the skywalk through the Westin. Not surprisingly, the foreclosure-preventers that we talked to said that during their week-long visit, they'd seen nothing of Providence but the hotel and the mall, and had dined mostly in the mall restaurants.

Next: the Westin

Rating Providence hotels: The Biltmore

Having some time on our hands on a recent Saturday, Retired Guy and I checked out the six downtown Providence hotels.

Knowing that all hotels price rooms depending on a variety of factors, we decided the fairest thing would be to just go up to each desk and say we were looking for a room for that night, which was a Friday in March, and that we'd like to view what they had available. If we needed to explain why we didn't take the room, we said that we were shopping around for his daughter's upcoming wedding — an event we're planning for, even if she and her boyfriend aren't yet.

We didn't press for any deals; we just said that we were comparison shopping and didn't want to spend more than we had to.
Despite the range of types of hotels (from business-oriented to luxury), the room prices we were quoted didn't vary all that much: $109 for the Biltmore to $169 for the Westin. At the Westin and the Renaissance, $20 more would buy us a room with a better view, and at the Biltmore, $50 more would give us a "junior suite" of two rooms, which looked like a great deal to us and at $159 was right in line with the prices we found at the other hotels for single rooms. All of the hotels add a daily parking fee of about $24.

The Biltmore is the grand old lady of the six downtown Providence hotels. (All the photos shown here are the Biltmore.) Its location is the best in the city, being right on Kennedy Plaza and within walking distance of the East Side, the mall, and Federal Hill. Its '20s-era lobby, with its sparking chandelier and glass-walled elevator, is opulent with details that can't be duplicated today. The rooms we looked at were comfortable looking and showed the character of an older hotel. The only area where the Biltmore didn't match its newer, shinier competition was in the bathrooms, which were clean but plain. For $109, we could have had a perfectly fine room, but for $159, the suite would be worth more than the difference in price.

Next: the Renaissance

Best Providence breakfasts

From the pancakes with "small-batch" maple syrup at the restaurant called Temple-Downtown, to Julian Forge's creative spins on homemade hash at Julian's, find the best breakfasts in Providence in the Providence Journal today. At right: Temple dining room.

Livin' on Providence time

Don't set your watch by Providence clocks.
In recent years, downtown has seen a proliferation of clocks: clocks that make artistic statements, architectural statements . . . just not statements about the time of day.
These prominent clocks were photographed within a 15 minute period one afternoon in March:

At 1:10 p.m., the Shepard clock (shown at right) was 1 hour and 15 minutes early:



At the same time, the Johnson & Wales clock (below) read 2 hours later than the actual time:


















Fifteen minutes after that, the Train Station clock (below) was 5 hours and 35 minutes fast, the farthest off the real time. . . .














while, at the same time, the Waterplace clock was 4 hours and 15 minutes fast.


Note to visitors: In the best of times, Providence is either behind the times or ahead of its time — but in any case, it doesn't run like clockwork.