Tag Archives: Pawtucket RI

Save Pawtucket’s Ott Mansion

The headline of this post is the same as when I wrote it as my weekly column for the Providence Journal in 2008. The Read-Ott Mansion was at a most dire risk of demolition then, and remains so now. Its … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Preservation, Rhode Island | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Farewell to McCoy Stadium?

We attended the farewell fireworks for McCoy Stadium last night, dubbed “The Final Inning.” Did not get there in time to secure the wrist bands that would have assured us a seat on the playing field to watch the fireworks. … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Morris Nathanson, R.I.P.

This is a sad moment for Pawtucket and the rest of Rhode Island, and a sad one for me. A tear runs down my cheek. We have lost one of the most influential and illuminating lights in the Ocean State’s … Continue reading

Posted in Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

FLW’s house in Pawtucket

Frank Lloyd Wright would be 155 years old if he were alive on this June 8 date of his birth. A hundred and fifty years ago he spent the age of five in Pawtucket, where for a year his family … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

William Blackstone’s statue

William Blackstone, or Blaxton (1595-1675), has long struck me as the mildest of colonists, perhaps not even a colonist strictly speaking. He was a recluse, and when other colonists showed up, he exited stage left. An ordained priest of the … Continue reading

Posted in Art and design, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

OopSox chill at Polar Park

By the time this has posted, the WooSox, as the former PawSox Triple-A Boston Red Sox franchise is called, will have played their home opener at the new Polar Park, in Worcester, Mass. Rhode Island baseball fans are of two … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Modern Diner, USModernist

Great good news! I just now learned that, after half a year of closure, the excellent Modern Diner, in Pawtucket, has reopened. There is, I should say, nothing modern about the Modern Diner, just a ways down Hope Street, then … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

ProvSox spike smote PawSox

If the PawSox do decamp for Worcester in two years, as seems certain but is not, there is blame enough to go around. The team owners say Rhode Island did not really want them, and they got their first taste … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Apex ain’t Pawtucket’s soul

If Apex is the soul of Pawtucket, then today’s Penn Station is the soul of New York City. Bad things have happened to the Big Apple in the last half century, and Penn Station arguably symbolizes the worst of it. … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Don’t junk up the PawSox

The politics of the proposed new stadium for the Pawtucket Red Sox – the PawSox – are beyond me, but a new financial package just proposed by its leading opponent, Nicholas Mattiello, speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments