Former name(s) | Exchange Place |
---|---|
Area | 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) |
Location | Downtown Providence |
Coordinates | 41°49′30″N71°24′42″W / 41.82494°N 71.41161°W |
Kennedy Plaza, formerly Exchange Place, Exchange Terrace, or City Hall Park, is a rectangular public square that occupies a central portion of Downtown Providence, Rhode Island. Since the mid 19th century, the plaza has served as a civic and transportation hub. [1]
Today, Kennedy Plaza is bounded by Exchange Street to the northeast, Fulton Street to the southeast, Dorrance Street to the southwest, and Washington Street to the northwest. The plaza's northeastern and southwestern extremities are capped by three civic structures: City Hall, the Federal Building, and the John O. Pastore Federal Building. To the southeast of the plaza is a row of skyscrapers which comprise the central structures of the city's skyline. Northeast of the plaza are Burnside Park and Union Station.
In 2003, Kennedy Plaza was described by architectural historian Wm. McKenzie Woodward as "[T]he city's most constantly reworked space ... [which] is now virtually a large al fresco bus station. ... Ultimately transcending its flaws, Kennedy Plaza is a compelling open space enhanced by and enhancing some of the city's best buildings." [2]
Kennedy Plaza has seen numerous transformations over the 19th and 20th centuries. [3] According to architectural historian William McKenzie Woodword, the site is Providence's "most constantly reworked space, and fully interpreting its history would fill a book that could be a landmark in understanding American urbanism." [2]
In the 18th century, the area that is now Kennedy Plaza was part of the Great Salt Cove—an estuary formed by the confluence of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers. Over the two decades of the 19th century, Providence's manufacturing economy experienced rapid growth, outpacing the infrastructure needed to distribute these goods to domestic markets. To address this problem, companies like the Boston and Providence Railroad and Providence and Worcester Railroad. While the Boston and Providence railroad located their Rhode Island terminus in the peripheral Fox Point neighborhood, the Providence and Worcester Railroad fought considerably to establish a rail terminal in Providence's commercial center. [4] [5] In 1846, the city granted the company permission to fill in a portion of the Great Salt Cove and erect a rail yard and terminal facing Exchange Street. Over the following two years, the Providence and Worcester Railroad erected Providence's first Union Station – a Lombard Romanesque building defined by two towering spires. The construction of the station created the area – termed Exchange Place – as the nucleus of rail transport in the city. [5]
Between 1875 and 1878, the city of Providence constructed City Hall to the immediate southwest of the station. The municipality contemporaneously erected a fire station at the opposite extremity of the plaza. [6]
In 1896 Union Station suffered a catastrophic fire. At the time of its destruction, work had already begun on the construction of a new, significantly larger Union Station to its immediate north; this station opened in 1898. The area formerly occupied by the original station was landscaped and opened as City Hall Park. [7]
In 1903, the Federal Building was constructed facing City Hall. From 1920 to 1948, the plaza was circled by trolley tracks. [3]
During WWII, the United Electric Railway and The Narragansett Electric company (owned by Marsden J. Perry) put "trackless trolleys" into service by installing electric buses in 1943. [8] Employing what was then known as a “WAIT” station in the form of a loop, U.E.R buses served North Main St to Pawtucket and through the East Side tunnel to Thayer, Waterman, Angell, Hope, and Elmgrove Streets. As federal funds became available in the late 1970s for automobile-free zones, all local bus-waiting areas were consolidated to Kennedy Plaza.
By the 1950s, the plaza became less central to city transportation needs, as the automobile became the dominant mode of transportation. [3]
The Category 3 1938 New England Hurricane flooded the entire expanse of Exchange Place when it made landfall on September 20. The storm surge hit just at the end of the workday; the water level rose from a few inches to waist deep, then to over 13 feet, with strong currents sweeping people off their feet. [9]
Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy spoke from the front steps of City Hall on Monday November 7, 1960, the day before he was elected president. [10] Kennedy spoke for 13 minutes to a crowd of about 40,000 to 50,000 people in the plaza. [10] Kennedy's speech was a campaign attack against Republican candidate Richard Nixon. [10] Emotions in the crowd were reportedly high, with many people screaming and chanting. [10] In 1964, after Kennedy's assassination the plaza was renamed Kennedy Plaza in honor of the late US President.
In 1983, mayor Vincent Cianci had the plaza redesigned as a central bus depot. City bus stops on Washington, Westminster, and Weybosset streets were consolidated at Kennedy Plaza in hope of reducing congestion and air pollution. [3]
Inspired by Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, a skating rink was added to the plaza in 1998. [3] It was designed by William D. Warner Architects & Planners. [2]
In 2002, the Intermodal Transportation Center, a $12 million bus station, was built in the center of the plaza. [3]
In Summer 2014, RIPTA began a redesign effort that changed the configuration of Kennedy Plaza, and included the relocation of current bus stop terminus points formerly located at the Plaza. The overall plan transformed the Plaza into a pedestrian oriented environment, where bus terminal locations were moved to the periphery of the Plaza and adjacent Burnside Park. RIPTA has noted an 11% increase in ridership of the Statewide system. [11]
In anticipation of the July 15, 2014 groundbreaking for the rehabilitation project, on July 12 going forward, Bus terminus locations were found along Exchange Street near One Financial Tower, North Fountain Street, Exchange Terrace along the Rhode Island Foundation Building, and on Sabin Street along the Rhode Island Convention Center, beneath the Omni Hotel Towers. RIPTA announced on December 9, 2014, that the Hub would reopen January 17, 2015. [12]
In 2016, to combat a growing reputation as a haven for drug dealing, vandalism, and prostitution, RIPTA hired a squad of unarmed private security guards to patrol Kennedy Plaza. [13]
Through 2017, Kennedy Plaza served as the modern nexus of the state's public conventional-bus and trolley-replica bus transit services operated by Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA), as well as a departure point for Peter Pan and Greyhound bus lines.
In August 2017, Mayor Jorge Elorza announced plans to transform Kennedy Plaza from its traditional role as a transportation hub into a public space which would serve as a "true civic heart" of the city, along the lines of New York's Bryant Park. [14] The plans include new traffic patterns, fewer bus stops, and new buildings with food service and bathrooms. [14] Kennedy Plaza will remain retain bus stops, but much of the bus traffic will be dispersed among new "hubs" at Providence Station and in the Jewelry District. [14] The $17-million project was expected to begin in summer 2021. [15] The plan was criticized for its expected effects on municipal transport. [16] [17] [18] In March 2021, City Hall and city planners announced an expanded $140 million plan, spread out over multiple phases over several years. [19] The newest version of the plan includes relocating the ice rink and expanding use into the summer as a splash park wading pool. [19]
Mayor Elorza's Providence Unified Vision public space project was announced in July 2021. [20] The plan includes redesigns of Kennedy Plaza and the riverfront. [20] Included in the plan are public rest rooms, walkways, riverfront improvements, green landscaping, a cafe, and performance space. [20]
On April 20, 1861, at 10:30AM the sidewalks were filled with cheering throngs, who greeted volunteers, of the first division of the First Regiment of Detached Rhode Island Militia leaving for Washington, D.C.. Colonel Ambrose Burnside, in command, had ordered the men of the first division to assemble upon Exchange Place. [21] A second detachment left from the plaza on April 25, 1861.
Crowds gathered at the Plaza when President Teddy Roosevelt spoke on the City Hall steps on August 23, 1902:
One of the features of the tremendous industrial development of the last generation has been the very great increase in private, and especially in corporate, fortunes. ... It is not true that the poor have grown poorer; but some of the rich have grown so very much richer that, where multitudes of men are herded together in a limited space, the contrast strikes the onlooker as more violent than formerly.
On the whole, our people earn more and live better than ever before, and the progress of which we are so proud could not have taken place had it not been for the up building of industrial centers, such as this in which I am speaking. But together with the good there has come a measure of evil.… Under present-day conditions it is as necessary to have corporations in the business world as it is to have organizations, unions, among wage-workers. We have a right to ask in each case only this: that good, and not harm, shall follow. [22]
- Theodore Roosevelt (Republican President) "Trust" speech from steps of Providence City Hall toward crowd assembled on Kennedy Plaza [23] [24] - 23 August 1902.
On March 7, 1914, Harry Houdini brought his show to American audiences and to Exchange Place due to the closure of European performance spaces during the World War. Over 20,000 people filled the plaza, to watch him perform his new act in "a straitjacket escape made while dangling high in the air, upside down" hanging from the fourth floor of the "Evening News" Building formerly sited at 50 Kennedy Plaza. The crowd filled the plaza expanse following Fulton Street. [25] [26] In 1917, Houdini returned to Kennedy Plaza to perform his escape act a second time, as "80,000 fedora-hatted folks who thronged the streets". [27]
On June 3, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson called for the nation to ready itself for war in Europe. In response, Providence hosted a 6+1⁄2-hour World War I Preparedness Parade in response to president Woodrow Wilson's "call for preparedness."A review stand in front of City Hall and a gigantic human mosaic formed a "living flag" on scaffolding above the front steps, lined on each side with Civil War veterans. Over 52,000 people attended. [28]
On May 11, 1919, a World War I Victory Parade was held on Washington Street and Kennedy Plaza, which marched through what was a Victory Arch in the center of the plaza. On top of the arch was a reproduction of the Hellenistic sculpture "Winged Victory of Samothrace." The inscription on the Victory Arch read: "TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO WENT FORTH AND RETURNED NOT WHOSE SOULS ARE MARCHING ON." [29]
John F. Kennedy spoke on November 7, 1960, the day before he was elected president:
On other occasions, in other years, this country has elected Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents. They do it when they make a decision that that party and that candidate will serve a great national purpose. In my judgment and the responsibility ultimately is yours, in my judgment the United States will be best served by a candidate and a party who recognizes the basic issues of our time, and that is that this country has to go back to work again. [30]
- John F. Kennedy (Democratic candidate for President) speech from steps of Providence City Hall toward crowd assembled on Kennedy Plaza [23] - 7 November 1960, Senate Speech file of the John F. Kennedy Pre-Presidential Papers, John F. Kennedy Library.
Kennedy Plaza is home to three public art works. The most prominent is the 1871 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument [31] which occupies space directly in front of Providence City Hall. Dedicated originally in 1871, it was sculpted by Randolph Rogers with the pedestal designed by architect Alfred Stone. The monument was moved during the City Hall Park/ Exchange Place transformation in 1913 to the center of the plaza, and returned to its present location in 1997. Large bronze plaques on the monument’s base list residents killed in the war. [31] Another plaque honors Rhode Island's African-American veterans. [31] A dedication on a northeastern plaque reads ”Rhode Island pays tribute to the memory of the brave men who died that their country might live.” [31] In late 2016, the Downtown Parks Conservancy of Providence started a fundraising effort to restore the monument and the infrastructure immediately around it. [32]
A clock occupies space in front of the main doors of the RIPTA Intermodal Transportation Center.
A 1911 copy of The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson stands in the center island of the RIPTA facility berths, and commemorates the American soldiers who fought in the Spanish–American War, the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine–American War. The original 1906 sculpture is located at the University of Minnesota.
Other sculptures in the Plaza include an 1887 equestrian statue of Ambrose Burnside by Launt Thompson, the Bajnotti Fountain (1899) by Enid Yandell, and, in City Hall Park, The Scout (1911) by Henri Schonhardt. [2]
Haven Brothers Diner (located next to City Hall during the evenings hours), founded in 1888, is one of the oldest restaurants on wheels in America when it was launched as a horse drawn lunch wagon. [33]
Clockwise, from the northeast:
Greater Kennedy Plaza is a partnership of private and public sector organizations that have come together to transform the downtown Providence area (including Burnside Park, The Providence Rink at the Bank of America City Center, Biltmore Park and Kennedy Plaza) into a lively public square, rich with activity. [35]
Providence station is a railroad station in Providence, Rhode Island, served by Amtrak and MBTA Commuter Rail. The station has four tracks and two island platforms for passenger service, with a fifth track passing through for Providence and Worcester Railroad freight trains. It is now the 11th busiest Amtrak station in the country, and the second-busiest on the MBTA Commuter Rail system outside of Boston.
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Union Station describes two distinct, defunct train stations in Providence, Rhode Island. Parts of the latter one were renovated and the building contains offices and restaurants.
The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) provides public transportation, primarily buses, in the state of Rhode Island. The main hub of the RIPTA system is Kennedy Plaza, a large bus terminal in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. Average daily ridership as of the second quarter of 2023 is 41,300. The agency operates 59 fixed-route bus routes and 7 demand-responsive routes, together serving 37 out of 39 Rhode Island municipalities.
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The East Side Trolley Tunnel, also known as the East Side Transit Tunnel or the College Hill Tunnel, is a bi-directional tunnel in Providence, Rhode Island, originally built for trolley use in 1914, and now used for public transit buses. The East Side Trolley Tunnel could be considered the first bus rapid transit link in North America, because of its exclusive and continuous bus use since 1948.
Burnside Park is a small park situated in Downtown Providence, Rhode Island, adjacent to Kennedy Plaza. The park is named for Ambrose Burnside, a general in the American Civil War from Rhode Island. An equestrian statue of Ambrose Burnside was erected in the late 19th century and sits in the center of the park.
The Providence metropolitan area is a region extending into eight counties in two states. Its core is in the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and it is the 38th largest metropolitan area in the United States. The largest city in the Providence MSA is Providence, Rhode Island, with an estimated population of 1,622,520, exceeding that of Rhode Island by slightly over 60%. The area covers almost all of Rhode Island. Thirty-eight of the 39 municipalities in the state are included; only Westerly is not. The Providence Metropolitan Statistical Area also extends into southern Massachusetts with an average population density of 2300 per mi2.
Downtown is the central economic, political, and cultural district of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is bounded on the east by Canal Street and the Providence River, to the north by Smith Street, to the west by Interstate 95, and to the south by Henderson Street. The highway serves as a physical barrier between the city's commercial core and neighborhoods of Federal Hill, West End, and Upper South Providence. Most of the downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Downtown Providence Historic District.
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Providence City Hall is the center of the municipal government in Providence, Rhode Island. It is located at the southwest end of Kennedy Plaza at 25 Dorrance Street in Providence. The building was constructed between 1875 and 1878, and designed by Samuel J. F. Thayer in the Second Empire style. In 1975, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also a contributing structure to the broader Downtown Providence Historic District.
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, it is one of the oldest cities in New England, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He named the area in honor of "God's merciful Providence" which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers. The city developed as a busy port, as it is situated at the mouth of the Providence River at the head of Narragansett Bay.
The Federal Building is a historic post office, courthouse and custom house on Kennedy Plaza in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. It is a courthouse for the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. It was built in 1908 by Clarke & Howe of limestone and steel and has a courtyard in the center.
Occupy Providence began on Saturday October 15, 2011. According to the Boston Globe, well over 1,000 demonstrators, including children and adults of various ages, peacefully marched through the capital city before setting up camp at Burnside Park in downtown Providence, RI and turning the park into a 24 hour protest. The march made its way through the streets of downtown Providence, pausing outside such institutions as Bank of America, Providence Place Mall, and the Rhode Island State House.
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Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, also known as the Ambrose Burnside Monument, is a monumental equestrian statue in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The statue, located in the city's Burnside Park, was designed by sculptor Launt Thompson and depicts Ambrose Burnside, an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War who later served as the governor of Rhode Island. Ambrose had died in 1881 and the project to erect a statue in his honor began shortly afterwards. It was dedicated on July 4, 1887 in a large ceremony that included several notable guests of honor, such as General William Tecumseh Sherman, Colonel Robert Hale Ives Goddard, and the governors of both Connecticut and Rhode Island. The monument was originally located in Exchange Place, but it was moved to its current location in the early 1900s. As part of the move, the pedestal was replaced with one designed by William R. Walker.
Mayor Jorge O. Elorza unveiled a plan for transforming Kennedy Plaza into "a true civic heart for our city," something less like a commuter hub and more like New York City's Bryant Park.