The Agenda

!http://images.agendanation.org/issues/web/PrvTomShort.jpg(Providence Tomorrow Draft Plan Announcement)!

The Public Comment Period on the Providence Tomorrow Draft Comprehensive Plan has been *extended until May 1*. The public hearing previously scheduled for April 11 has been moved to May 2.

Monday, February 26, 2007

4:00 Historic District Commission, 400 Westminster Street (4th floor)

6:30 School Board, 797 Westminster Street

Special meeting where the Board will vote to decide whether to close the West Broadway Elementary School.

After the November 13 meeting of the Design Review committee, The Agenda followed up with further questions to get a better understanding of the public comment. Friedrich St. Florian and Friedrich St. Florian, who issued public comment at the meeting, spoke with us about their perspectives. Karen Jessup provided her public letter, and Friedrich St. Florian offered his understanding as an architect in Providence.

The Fogarty Building was designed by Castellucci, Galli, & Planka, an architecture firm that has been in Rhode Island for 54 years. The building’s first floor stands almost six feet above street level, and truly, it does look like a structure made out of elbows.

The Design Review Committee (DRC) met on November 13 to address two requests for demolition permits by the Procaccianti Group: one for the Fogarty Building (111 Fountain Street) and one for the Old Police and Fire Building in LaSalle Square. Though neither project hinges on the other, both are in Downtown Providence and came before the DRC at the same time. About 25 individuals attended the public hearing.

The Art Deco-style Police and Fire Building is sixty years old, while the Brutalist-style Fogarty Building is thirty-eight years old. In 2000, the Providence Police and Fire Departments moved from the old building at LaSalle Square to the new Public Safety Complex (325 Washington Street, alongside Route 95). In 2002, the Fogarty Building’s last occupant, the Providence Academy of International Studies (PAIS), left due to a leaking roof and mold accumulation, which posed potential respiratory problems for students and staff.

PROVIDENCE, September 10, 2006—For Sale: 12,500 square feet of Prime Studio Space – Only $175,000 – Easy financing! Affordable artist studio space – priced to sell!

Formerly for rent at $15* per sq. ft., you can now buy it for $175K! Located in an historic mill building in Eagle Square, this space has high ceilings, giant windows, yada-yada. Conveniently located within walking distance of Shaw’s Supermarket and the burial ground of Fort Thunder.

Oops – sorry – this property has already been sold! You are out of luck. Good luck finding space elsewhere.

It's New! It's Yours!

by Jean Cozzens

During the month of March 2006, at the Fox Point Branch of the Providence Public Library, we built a giant cardboard city as a collaboration between a whole bunch of people, ranging in age from two through grandmother age. The outcome of the experiment was entirely unknown: introduce a bunch of scrap cardboard, hot glue, “conventional” glue, scissors and X-acto knives and duct tape, and boxes and boxes of fabric, junk, and random materials from the Recycling Center into a branch library that regularly serves as the vital after school hangout spot for kids from the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School down the street—with one local artist/designer as mediator, and three willing librarians as facilitators and cheering squad.

City Council Protests, Is Dissolved

by John Taraborelli