The Agenda

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Fogarty be protected?
I am very much aware of the fact that all of Downtown is protected. One of the assets of Providence is that we have old buildings that have not been taken down, and we also have entire blocks of the city that are still intact, which is very, very important.
Having said that, we are at the point where the city is growing again, and building again, and there is this issue about which are the buildings that deserve protection and which do not necessarily deserve protection.

To the Downcity Review Commission:

Thank you for the opportunity to make this statement. My name is Karen Jessup, and I have lived in Providence since 1970. I have taught preservation planning and urban revitalization in undergraduate and graduate programs in the US and the UK. I am also Chair of the Board of Advisors for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization chartered by Congress in 1949. The National Trust currently has over 240,000 members.

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Police and Fire Building be protected?
My background is real estate development, which is what I have done for the past 25 years, so I am going to make a real big picture to start out. I grew up in Southern Rhode Island on a farm. I love the open space and I love where I grew up. I feel that all of the landscape variety that we have in this state, because we are so small, is very precious. One of the surest ways to preserve places like South County or any of our rural areas, is to make sure our cities are attractive. Putting this in context, part of what ensures the richness and diversity of our state is having healthy urban areas.

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Fogarty be protected?
I am not so concerned about the replacement of buildings that do not give a sense of community, or address the street, or provide what I think is a positive direction for urban development. The Fogarty Building has a raised profile that separates it from traffic on the street level. If a new building could address the issues of scale, texture, and how it responds to the buildings around it, then I think it would be appropriate to get rid of.

An Ecology of Journalism

Questions for Grantham Prize/Metcalf Institute from Frank Mullin and Ashley Mercado at The Agenda. November 15, 2006.
Answered by Sunshine Menezes, Ph.D.; Executive Director of the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, based at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.

Can you talk about the importance of the relationship between scientific researchers and environmental journalists in clarifying a message to the public?
As an oceanographer by training, I know first-hand how difficult it is for many scientists to communicate their research in a clear, understandable fashion. Although the scientific community has placed an increased priority on effective communication of its research in recent years, many scientists still struggle with this.

Winter 2006

The Agenda issue 21: Winter 2006 is now available at a fine dive near you, and (mostly), right here at AgendaNation.net. More content will be added in the coming days and weeks, so check back regularly.

We do what we can with what we have. We have worked ourselves though a phase known as “periodical puberty” – which is a classifiable transition period specific to publications noted in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Media Disorders (DSM-IV). The Art Director has hair under her arms, Modus began to shavus, and we’ve been hiding under a rock waiting for the acne to clear up.

Post-Election Autopsy

Armed with plenty of correction fluid (available in tall shiny red cans for $2 and up at fine dives everywhere), Agenda editors reveled as Democratic asses kicked GOP butt, sending the pachyderms packing. Team Blue gained six Governorships, 29 House seats, and six Senate seats across the nation.

The Emperor's New Clothes: Journal building's envisioned signage. Photos| Frank Mullin

The ProJo buried their pompously titled “Editorial mysteries” at the bottom of the page in the middle of the last section (Page 80 of 84) of the least-read daily edition, of Saturday 11 November. The article—which the Phoenix had to shame them into running (three days earlier pointing to the not-so-cleverly concealed online version) fails to answer an important question: Why, after a lengthy history of often vociferous opposition to gambling, did the Paper of Record take a tire-squealing 180 in support of the Harrah’s Narragansett Indian Casino?

National dialogue indicates we are at the brink of a new population migration. People are moving back into the cities, investors are seeking to capitalize on property values, and those that have been living and working in urban centers are watching the growth and development augment the city’s landscape, for better or for worse. Art has been an effective tool to draw attention to these issues , while it has simultaneously spearheaded a creative economy.

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.

They Are Not Us, They Are Them

by Douglas Rushkoff (excerpted with permission from Disinfo.Con DVD, available February 2007)

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who believe there are two kinds of people and people who don’t believe there are two kinds of people.

I used to be the kind of person who believed there were two kinds of people. There was “them” and there was “us”—the others. And, boy, we work pretty hard to make sure people know we’re the others.

October 31, 2006

Dear Mayor Cicilline,

Thank you for recognizing Firehouse 13 as vital to Providence’s creative economy in The Providence Journal’s article “The Politics of Art” (Van Siclen 10/22/06). This article only begins to touch on the complexity of issues that artists and art organizations are experiencing in this city. I write to you today to call attention to the crisis of emerging artist-run developments and organizations 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.

Mayor Meets Match

Letters appear, at first glance, to have become less relevant these days. Technological devices take care of the stamp, envelope, and messy handwriting with a few clicks of a mouse. Yet, letters require the time, thought, and effort that few emails or phone calls can boast. With that said, the ease of communication today increases the significance of a letter. We are now looking at a time where people, organizations, and publications will take notice of a mailed communiquè, and thankfully we live in a city where our mayor will respond—and so will our publications.