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Date

January 1985

Description

The Federal Building is just visible to the left of this picture pointed from the financial district towards the East Side. That building was built where the edge of the Providence River and its port activity used to be located. It housed customs, the federal district court, and other federal offices. The Providence Institution for Savings Building (a.k.a. Old Stone Federal Savings Bank is the building with the Corinthian portico and low dome surfaced in gold leaf adornment against verdigris. Moving to the right we can see the spire of the First Unitarian Church, considered by architect John Holden Greene to be his masterpiece. Finally, the former Old Stone Square at 121 South Main is a pure modernist structure built by Edward Larrabee Barnes shortly after he designed the former IBM tower on Madison Ave.

Notes

Bibliography: Woodward, W.M. McKenzie. PPS/AlAri Guide to Providence Architecture. Providence Preservation Society, 2003. pp. 299-300. Jordy, William H. Buildings of Rhode Island. Oxford, 2004, pp. 49-88.

Rights

This object from the Chester E. Smolski photographic slides and publications, housed by the Rhode Island College Special Collections, and any of its digital surrogates are the intellectual property of Rhode Island College. This digital object is protected by copyright and/or related rights. The digital material presented here is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This content can be used, shared, or adapted for educational and scholarly purposes. For permissions to use this item please contact digitalcommons@ric.edu. All uses must include appropriate attribution.

Creator 2 Dates

1857

Creator 2 Role

Supervising architect

Creator 3 Dates

1854

Creator 3 Role

Architects

Creator 4 Dates

1814

Creator 4 Role

Builder-Architect

Recommended Citation

Chester E. Smolski photographic slides and publications, MSS-0041, Special Collections, James P. Adams Library, Rhode Island College.

Keywords

Providence, downtown, streetscape

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