Providence Regained: 1973-1982

In the past few years Providence has been the subject of several newspaper and magazine articles that echo one persistent theme. The July 1979 issue of Town & Country, a high-society magazine, contained a twelve- page article entitled "Providence Regained<" describing the city's renaissance in glowing terms. The Brown Alumni Monthly, not given to superlatives when dealing with the "townies," followed with a piece called "Divine Providence," about a city "born again." a newspaper article in the influential New York Times (April 7, 1980) described Providence as "blossoming" and "an island of urbanity unusual for a city of its size." The same conclusion had been reached by the Buffalo Courier-Express in a front-page essay of August 22, 1979. Chester E. Smolski of Rhode Island College, an expert in urban studies sometimes critical of Providence and its government, nonetheless dubbed it "New England's Best- Kept Secret" and " a vital business center." The Christian Science Monitor agreed. In an extended feature essay it glowingly described Providence as a "sparkling embodiment of urban revival." And unlike the acclaim voiced during Providence's earlier age of optimism, these accolades were not self-praise or political hyperbole but the assessment of impartial observers.

Such a positive picture is due to the developments of the past decade. From the beginning of 1973 onward, despite occasional reversals such as the folding of Shepard's (1974), the temporary shutdown of the Biltmore (1975), the departure of Uniroyal (1975), the exodus of Davol (1977), the impact of the Blizzard of "78, the severe fiscal crisis of 1981, and the closing of the Outlet (1982), the city has been on an upward course.

The January 17, 1973, dedication of the Civic Center, called by the Journal "Doorley's Dream," began the revival. Just four months later Rhode Island Hospital opened a $28 million Ambulatory Patient Center, its largest facility to date. Before year's end the Trinity Square Repertory Company made its debut in the completely renovated Majestic Theater, renamed the Lederer. In the following June the state's largest office building, Rhode Island Hospital Trust Tower, was completed. Clearly the city was gaining economic momentum.

In the political year 1974 other major changes occurred. Democratic Mayor Joe Doorley and his party chairman Larry McGarry began to feud, and the found himself unendorsed in his bid for reelection. In the city's most bitter primary ever, Doorley won a four-way race for the nomination, only to see McGarry throw his support to a young, aggressive Italo-American Republican in the general election. That move and the candidacies of two independents with Democratic followings proved to be the undoing of Doorley and the city's Democratic organization. In a tight race (26,832 to 26,123), Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., prevailed to become Providence's youngest mayor and the first of Italian- American ancestry. The energetic Cianci, knowing he had to perform to survive in Democratic city, accelerated the tempo of revival.

From 1975 until 1982, when Providence celebrated 150 years of city government, $606 million of Community Development money, plus funds from other federal, state, and city sources, had been pumped into Downtown and the neighborhoods. To this had been added many more millions from the private sector. The results of this public-private partnership have been dramatic.

In the central city, historic buildings have been restored; Westminster Mall was reconstructed; the Union Station received a face-lift; the Biltmore reopened, more splendid than ever' the Biltmore reopened, more splendid than ever; a new state judicial complex was built; the South Main Street commercial strip was revitalized; City Hall has been substantially restored; the Ocean State Theater for the Performing Arts evolved from the run-down Loew's Theater; Market Square and LaSalle Square were refurbished: a federal office building is under construction; ground has been broken for an auto-restricted zone in Kennedy Plaza; the construction of two major office buildings (Gilbane-Fleet and Dimeo- Old Stone) is in progress; several smaller but substantial structures have been completed, including Gateway and Empire Plaza; and an old industrial complex has been transformed into a modern marketplace and office center called Davol Square.

In the neighborhoods, fifteen community centers have been opened, more than twenty parks established or restored, thousands of home improvements completed, and several commercial strips substantially refurbished, the most notable of which is Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill. By 1980 property values were rising in every neighborhood of the city, and the municipal Department of Planning and Urban Development designated more than 80 percent of the residential land in Providence as "stable." Only South Providence and sections of Elmwood, the West End, and Mount Hope seemed resistant to improvement, and in Upper South Providence the planned expansion of Rhode Island Hospital and the proposed relocation of Women of Infants Hospital offered hope for the infusion of more than $50 million of investment capital into that desolate area.

At the port, directed by Eugene Neary, gross revenues climbed above the $1 million mark, a new marine terminal opened, and the introduction of containerized shipping in 1979 offered great prospects for continued growth.

At Roger Williams Park, the improvement was even more dramatic. Superintendent James Diamond and Cianci obtained over $8 million in federal funds for park improvements. Since 1975 the city has refurbished the Temple to Music, the Museum of Natural History, the Dalrymple Boathouse, the Betsey Williams Cottage, the Casino, and the bandstand. The zoo, which in the early 1970s was in danger of being closed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been modernized and expanded. Today it is rated by the Humane Society of the United States as "the best in New England" and a Class 1 zoo nationally. A decade ago few musical or arts events were held in Roger Williams Park. In 1982 the city expected to hold some 500 events there, which will attract about half a million people.

By 1982 Providence could boast of a full range of educational and cultural activities. Not only was it home to highly regarded Brown University; it was also the seat of four other colleges and housed the extension divisions of two others. In addition, it possessed a fine philharmonic orchestra, a nationally renowned art museum (RISD), a dynamic preservation society (PPS), a prestigious winning repertory theater (Trinity), an opera company, a chamber music orchestra and one of the oldest community theater groups in the nation (the Barker Players). Not bad for a city computed by the 1980 federal census as only the ninety-eighth largest in the country!

Nonetheless, Providence is far from flawless. For starters, blighted areas remain: the tax base has not quite stabilized; organized crime is potent; litter and graffiti are too much in evidence; energy costs are high; industrial wastes pollute the waterways; much of the private housing stock is old; much of newspaper town; it lacks a professional sports team; its politics are chaotic; job opportunities within the city are limited; and many residents still harbor a negative attitude about Providence.

A statistical profile of the city, as it nears the 350th anniversary of its founding, reveals the following characteristics: Demographically, its population of 156,804 is down markedly from 1970, when it stood at 179,116, and from its all-time peak of 26i7,918, reached in the state census of 1925. Of its present inhabitants, a little over 30,000, or one in five, would be classified by the confusing term "minority," though that ratio is much higher within the younger age groups. Blacks number approximately 18,000; Hispanics, over 9,000, and the figure is increasing steadily; and the newest immigrants, Southeast Asian refugees (especially Hmong), exceed 4,000 and are also growing in numbers.

Among other ethnics, Italian-Americans--the largest group at least 1960 --are clearly dominant, and the stability of their neighborhoods, thanks in part to Community Development efforts, thanks in part to community Development efforts, should preserve their numerical ascendancy for should preserve their numerical ascendancy for years to come. A new category in the 1980 federal census--ancestry--reveals that 103,296 city residents were of single ancestry. The percentage breakdown of this group shows Italians at 29.6, French Canadians at 4.8 For those of mixed heritage, Irish-Italian marital unions were the most common, despite the battles of these two groups in the political arena.

Their favorable demographic position has enabled the Providence Italian community to produce several political potentates in the past generation. Most notable is Joseph Bevilacqua of Silver Lake, a commanding and forceful leader who rose from state representative to Speaker of House to chief justice of the state supreme court by 1976. Another distinguished product of Providence politics is Anthony A. Giannini, presiding justice of the superior court since 1979, who began his career as executive secretary to Governor John A. Notte, J. (1961-63), also a city native. And the city and state Democratic party chairmen in 1982 were Providence Italians from the tumultuous Fourth Ward of which one pundit has said, "If Machiavelli were reincarnated, he would come back as a Ward Four politician."

The city's economic profile in the aftermath of the 1980 census revealed one startling fact: for the first time in a century and a half, manufacturing employment was not the leading category of business activity. Of those 102,000 workers covered by employment security, manufacturing employment was not the leading category of business activity. Of those 102,000 workers covered by employment security, manufacturing accounted for 31.3 percent of the jobs, while positions in service industries totaled 34.3 percent. Other important sectors were wholesale and retail trade (16.2 percent )and financial, insurance, and real estate firms (11.8 percent).

In the area of manufacturing, jewelry and silverware employed 45.7 percent of the work force, while fabricated metals (10.2 percent) and printing (10.2 percent) were second and third. Once dominant, textiles was a distant seventh at 3.2 percent. The largest industrial firms were Gorham, Speidel, Federal Products, and Imperial Knife.

Of the service industries, two were clearly ascendant. Health service, led by Rhode Island Hospital, the city's largest employer, accounted for 38.3 percent of the jobs in that sector of the economy. Education was a substantial runner-up with 20.7 percent of the service industry's work force. The city's median family income in 1980 was $14,948.

These economic statistics show that Providence was becoming more of a governmental, health services, educational, and financial center than ever before. Much of the funding and leadership for this evolution came from the banks themselves. By the end of 1982, Fleet National had assets of approximately $4 billion; Old Stone and Hospital Trust exceeded $2 billion in resources; and Citizens Band had passed the $ billion mark. Both Fleet and Old Stone had more office buildings under construction as this book went to press.

In this era Providence lost its last professional sports team when the Rhode Island Reds folded in 1977. The fortunes of the "fabulous" basketball Friars also dimmed, but that was as nothing compared to the tragedy Providence College suffered on December 13, 1977. On that evening a disastrous fire, begun in a Christmas display, rushed through the upper story of Aquinas Hall, a women's dormitory. The disaster eventually took ten lives, the highest toll claimed by any fire in the city's history.

All of these events and developments, the good and the tragic were covered by the Providence Journal-Bulletin, the city's only daily newspaper of general circulation since the demise of the News-Tribune and its successors in 1937-38. The influence of the Journal and its radio affiliates WEAN and WPJB- FM on Providence thought and opinion is perhaps greater now than at any previous time.

On the governmental side of city life, Mayor Cianci secured reelection in 1978 despite a determined challenge from Frank Darigan by decisively carrying the city's three heavily Italian Democratic wards (Wards 4, 7, and 13). Darigan, intelligent and highly principled, lost votes because of his seeming aloofness, but his greatest liability was the fact that his potential Irish constituency had departed from the city's South Side to Cranston, Warwick, and beyond years before his mayoral bid. Darigan took another crack at Cianci in 1982 and fell short for the same reason. In that hectic campaign, Cianci, running as an independent, narrowly beat Democrat Darigan while Republican Frederick Lippitt, an East Side Brahmin descended from two former governors, finished a distant third.

Meanwhile , two other South Providence Irishmen, Joe Walsh and Matt Smith, traveled a different road in their quest for political power. The personable and efficient Walsh went with his Irish neighbors to Warwick, where he captured that mayoralty as a possible springboard to higher office. Smith moved to the stable and politically safe Reservoir section of Providence, ran for the state House of Representatives, and used his speakership. a Walsh-Smith alliance could produce the states next Democratic dynasty.

In Providence city government, Cianci's second administration (1979-83) prompted more physical growth, but it also produced a major fiscal crisis. Mainly a catalyst for change and a promoter during his early years of office, Cianci and his chief aides paid too little attention to the administrative side of government. This neglect, coupled with a sever national inflation and two politically inspired no-tax-increase budgets, placed the city in a grave fiscal crisis in 1981. The deluge came in the form of an $11.43 tax rate increase plus a supplementary tax for the 1980-81 fiscal year. Providence bond ratings plummeted, and taxpayers cried for the mayor's scalp. By mid-1982, however, a financial review commission, a vigilant City Council, a more fiscally responsible Cianci, the transfer of garbage collection and street-sweeping to private contractors, the sale of surplus city property, the state take-over of the sewer system, and, especially the added tax money paid by the city's property owners combined to put Providence back on course.

In January 1983 the city was scheduled to implement fully a home-rule charter approved by the voters in 1980. That promising document increases the administrative powers of the mayor and fiscal powers of a revamped fifteen- member council, reforms personnel procedures, and encourages greater citizen participation in the governmental process.

These innovations in business, culture, and government, coupled with revitalization projects in the neighborhoods and Downtown, sparked a new civic spirit as the eighties got underway--an optimism and a pride best captured by the local booster who coined this current slogan: "Providence, you're looking good!"