Category Archives: Blast from past

Save Newport Creamery!

Posted on August 8, 2025 by David Brussat

It has been widely noted of late and deplored that Cranston’s Newport Creamery is to be shut down. After 63 years across from the Garden City Center’s gazebo, the center’s owner, WS Development, has announced that the Cranston restaurant will … Continue reading →

Posted in Blast from past, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Wake up, Little Compton

Posted on March 8, 2024 by David Brussat

Little Compton’s town council will soon receive advice from this corner that was good when originally delivered in 2003, in my Journal column of Aug. 28 of that year as part of my “Outside Providence” series. The series looked at … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Blast from past, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How modernism got square

Posted on June 8, 2023 by David Brussat

Editor’s note: Here is a post from December 2013, almost a decade ago, shortly after the Providence Journal booted my Journal blog from its roster of staff-written web logs, which is where the word “blog” comes from. I used to … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Blast from past | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Better lights for Providence

Posted on October 17, 2022 by David Brussat

Getting into the Wayback Machine, I alight on this blog post from February 6, 2015, called “Better lights for Providence,” atop of which is a beautiful photo of Benefit Street and its lovely, faux-18th century amber lights. I thought that … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Blast from past | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Modernist GMO architecture

Posted on April 8, 2022 by David Brussat

It occurs to me that in my longstanding effort to demonize modern architecture that I could stand to remind readers that it qualifies as the architectural equivalent of genetically modified organisms – GMO architecture. I wrote of the term several … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Blast from past | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Steampunk vid of New York

Posted on March 28, 2016 by David Brussat

Came across this film, “The Old New World,” of New York and bits of Boston and Washington, D.C. (the Capitol), in about 1931, on the Kuriositas website. It is the Old New World Project run by Alexey Zakharoff. It is … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Old Video, Photography, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Archaeology at Penn Station

Posted on March 4, 2016 by David Brussat

The website Untapped Cities has apparently been sending people out (or at least receiving reports from disparate individuals and then signing them up) to find parts of the old and beloved Penn Station in the bowels of the new and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Interior Design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Glide through Angkor Wat

Posted on February 28, 2016 by David Brussat

The website Kuriositas has a five-minute film of Angkor Wat, the Hindu-turned-Buddhist temple ruins in Cambodia. Filmmaker Tyler Fairbank, based in New York, shot the film using glidecam technology. The ruins seen in “The Temples of Angkor” and originally built … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Other countries, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Two agin transforming Prov.

Posted on February 10, 2016 by David Brussat

Here are two columns I wrote long ago about the “Transforming Providence” symposium held at RISD Auditorium in November 2000. The first ran before the event, the second after the event. They represent my occasional effort to promote some sort … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Out-of-country Cianci tale

Posted on January 29, 2016 by David Brussat

Buddy Cianci. RIP. Everyone in Providence has a Buddy story, and many will be told fondly following the death of Vincent A. Cianci Jr. yesterday. My Cianci story – this one, at least – involves a trip to Malta as … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Blast from past, Other countries, Preservation, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments