David Brussat, Dr. Downtown: Roses and Raspberries For 2014
Monday, December 29, 2014
David Brussat, GoLocalProv Dr. Downtown
The year 2014 saw an uptick of roses from 2013, when raspberries beat roses six to four in the annual distribution by Dr. Downtown to the benefactors and malefactors of beauty in Providence. But a tie is nothing to brag about. Better luck next year.
See the slideshow below for Dr. Downtown's roses and raspberries.
Click here for David Brussat’s blog.
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Related Slideshow: David Brussat, Dr. Downtown’s Roses and Raspberries of 2014
Here are Dr. Downtown's roses and raspberries of 2014.
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Raspberry
A raspberry to outgoing Mayor Taveras for not stepping in to stop the demolition of half of Kennedy Plaza. Replacing the Art Nouveau waiting kiosks with sterile, utilitarian kiosks only shows the role of beauty in vibrant city places. But that is less than half of why the city (and RIPTA) deserve this putrid award. They have undermined a perfectly good transit hub to create a new civic square when a perfectly good civic square already exists right across the street in Burnside Park. The doctor is not impressed.
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Raspberry
A raspberry for the transit bond issue on the ballot last month. Demolishing Kennedy Plaza (see raspberry above) before the public vote on funds to build new transit hubs at Providence Station and the Garrahy Courthouse violated basic standards of management. Whether the two new hubs are built will influence the logic of renovating Kennedy Plaza. Moreover, a nonstop bus loop linking the station to the plaza would be more inexpensive, expeditious and effective than a new hub built over railroad tracks. As for the other hub, a long-promised parking garage at the courthouse would solve far more problems sooner than a bus hub. But that would put the horse before the cart, which strikes the doctor as out of step with current planning methods in Providence.
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Rose
A rose to city and state officials for arranging to renovate the South Street Station just north of Point Street Bridge on the west side of the Providence River. Amid continuing public skepticism, the deal would rescue one of the city’s most beautiful neoclassical buildings by developing a nursing school for URI and RIC and administrative offices for Brown, with a dorm and a parking garage nearby, all kitty corner from Brown’s medical school. The doctor was startled to see such a fancy maneuver performed under the aegis of the twin ineptitudes helming the state and its capital city.
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Raspberry
A raspberry to the state for the waste represented by the recently adopted RhodeMap RI plan. On the one hand, its opponents insist it is not an economic plan at all but a social policy. On the other hand, its advocates insist that with no budget and no programs, it is no more than a bunch of lofty aspirations. Dr. Downtown suspects that RhodeMap RI will earn a rose next year for gathering dust on a shelf at the State Planning Council.
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Rose
A rose to Buff Chace, for getting Providence named America’s Favorite City 2014 by Travel + Leisure magazine. Wickenden Street and Thayer Street give the city enough dred cred to attract Millennials and GenX’ers, but it was Chace’s developments along downtown’s Westminster Street that put Providence on the edgy-city map.
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Raspberry
A raspberry duplicating last year’s to Buff Chace for shutting down Tazza Caffe, the coffee place that sparked the Westminster Street renaissance. Tazza remains unoccupied. Before giving operator Michael Corso the boot, Chace let him frost the windows so you couldn’t see in or out. Great for business! Can Corso’s dislike of transparency be linked to his role in 38 Studios? The doctor can only guess, but he would rather put Chace on the couch to plumb his depths in search of his apparent dislike of occupied retail space.
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Rose
A rose to Vincent Geoffroy for continuing to develop his Providence G project in the old gas company buildings downtown. The new restaurant Garde de la Mer in the wee twee Teste Block building adds to the billiard drinking parlor, the rooftop café and the 56 luxury apartments already on tap.
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Rose
A rose to the new Dean Hotel, formerly the Sportsman’s Inn, which leaves, in the doctor’s patently forgivable opinion, only one whorehouse on Fountain Street.
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Rose
A rose to the city for instituting a new historic district overlay to give a minimal level of protection to buildings, such as Brown’s Ladd Observatory, that fall in none of the city’s eight local historic districts. (See raspberry below.)
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Raspberry
A raspberry to Brown for proposing to demolish three very nice houses on Manning Walk to make way partly for a new building for its engineering school, but mostly for more grass on Manning Walk. Barus & Holley, the engineering building that should be condemned merely for ugliness, gets off scot free. The city cannot tax Brown but it should curtail the school’s institutional authority to tear down buildings, which it has used irresponsibly. Hinckley House, at 37 Manning. and the other two should instead be listed on the city’s new historic district overlay. Let the [expletive deleted by the doctor] work the [expletive deleted by the doctor] around it.
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