Dan Lawlor: Old Providence Dies With The Closing Of Eddie & Son
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The closing last week of Eddie & Son Diner finalizes the death of the Old Providence--for better, for worse.
Eddie & Son is gone, as is Cuban Revolution, as is Po Gallery.
What was brilliant about Eddie & Son was its decided lack of pretension, awesome wait staff, and combo plates. The last day was sad—throughout the lunch hour, fewer and fewer food options were available—"No meatballs," "Sorry, no more eggplant," "Try the chicken parm... Oh, sorry, no more chicken parm."
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTI had a delicious chili. As the diner eased its way out, staff held back tears, customers cried, and Channel 6 came by with a news camera. The old downtown is dead.
Not a time for romance
I didn't and still don't want to romanticize the old downtown—it was uneasy and could be rough. Like many others, I remember being haggled by people desperate for cash, drunken fools bothering a friend, and seeing lots of folks down on their luck. Those aren't good memories, and truth be told, that still can happen in the "new" downtown.
Yet, that's not the whole story. There were plenty of places to eat that were affordable, and often stubbornly quirky. The old Arcade was host to at least half a dozen tasty lunch stops (now a construction site for hipper lunch stops), Buck a Book sold tall tales (and now is parking lot), and McDonald's gave folks some work and cheap food (and now is a parking lot).
Regular residents, often from unsexy neighborhoods, supported the few businesses that survived during those interim years. Local musicians, artists and hard-scrabble entrepreneurs gave downtown life after the big department stores closed. As things start to improve downtown, it would be a tragedy if the spaces that empowered and inspired local artists are knocked down for more parking lots, and food affordable (and welcoming) to most of the public disappeared.
The disappearances
For instance, the first variant of Cuban Revolution was in a delightfully cramped old brick building, where you could hear the guitarist Nino Moran play on weekends. New Japan and Talk of the Town bar filled out the first floor, and were knocked down for a hotel condo that was never built. The site is now a parking lot owned by Civic Center Parking Associates. (For the record, the second variant is closed.)
Providence in the 2000's knocked down a lot in the name of the future. That round top gas station across from the Hyatt, the old police station, Providence National bank, J G Goff's Pub, the Providence Fruit and Produce Warehouse, the poorly-maintained Parkade garage, and the Travelers Aid building downtown. The trouble is, today, all that's left are parking lots.
The growth
Some great things have happened. Westminster and its environs have dozens of little stores, bars and restaurants opening up. The Downtown Improvement District keeps the streets clean. Saki's has remodeled (and the food's still affordable). Westminster's rehab under Buff Chace has brought new stores downtown (from Sura to Symposium). AS220's work is connected to the best of place-making in Providence—finding economically sustainable ways to support non-profits, taxpaying businesses, and artists in a mixed use space. Burnside Park has had some great family-friendly additions (though the proposed $20 million rehab of Kennedy Plaza seems an odd way to spend money in a city with so much struggle).
Yet, key aspects of the arts economy have faded: The Custom House Tavern is still vacant, Perishable Theater is gone (thankfully many performance groups connected with it still live through AS220), the Agenda Magazine is defunct, several galleries are gone, 38 Studios went bust. Whose downtown is this?
A friend told me, "A city exists for the people who live and work in it, not for the people who visit."
Providence on the brink... again
Providence on the brink of decline or revival is nothing new. The city is always changing, in ways that can hurt or help regular people. Years ago, Bob Kerr was deriding the Disney World Providence that came with non-property tax paying Providence Place mall (at least for the first 20 years), and Providence Monthly investigated the city's massive underground world of strip clubs. Promised progress - in the name of attracting visitors and hip people - has resulted in numerous downtown buildings being destroyed in the last ten years. Our spunky urban center can't afford another ten years of wrecking balls for quick wealth.
Downtown now only has the Dorrance, not Eddie & Son. We are worse off for it.
Dan Lawlor writes Side of the Rhode: Who's Hot & Who's Not In RI Politics, for GoLocalProv.
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