The early decades of the century, however, were marked not by an endless upward spiral but by an economic reversal of gears, except for the brief reprieve that World War 1's demand for goods gave to the city's economy. Underneath the boosterism and civic pride, Providence was an aging, physically saturated municipality.

By the mid-twenties textiles, especially cottons, declined in the face of a strong Southern challenge. Providence and its older textile mills could not compete with the non-union labor, low energy costs, reduced transportation charges, tax incentives, and modern facilities available to the cotton industry in Southern cities and towns. Local manufacturers of textile machinery also felt the impact of the exodus to Dixie. Even before the Great Crash of 1929 Providence's unemployment figures began their fretful rise, and the MIT experts who conducted the Metropolitan Providence Industrial Survey from 1926 to 1928 noted that the city had "no extensive areas...for industrial development."

The local economy's bright spot was jewelry manufacturing, whose continued growth took up some of the slack created by the textile industry's slow death. But here the low wages and unskilled jobs were more a boon to the manufacturers than to those immigrants who were paid on a piecework basis for their long hours in unhealthy sweatshops.

Those immigrants gave Providence a League of Nations look . The older ethnics were augmented by a massive influx of southern Italians, who established "Little Italy's" in Federal Hill, Silver Lake, and the North End. Portuguese migration reached its peak as Continentals joined Azoreans and Cape Verdeans in populating Fox Point. The Fabre Line, which in 1911 made Providence its American terminus, facilitated the migration of both Italians and Portuguese to the city. Other new ethnics in smaller numbers also chose Providence as their New World destination. Jews settled heavily in South Providence, in Smith Hill, and around Randall Square; Polish took up residence in Olneyville, the Valley industrial area, and the lower North End; Greeks, Lithuanians, and Armenians made their first home on Smith Hill, the most ethnically diverse of all the city's neighborhoods; and some Syrians and Lebanese settled amidst old Irish and new Italians on Federal Hill, where they established St. George's Maronite Church in 1911.

But Providence was not a melting pot despite its many ethnics, for each group (at least for a generation or two) retained its own cultural identity. Perhaps it could be said that the city was more like a mosaic of diverse peoples- -or even a stew, with everybody in one pot contributing to the whole, but with each ingredient maintaining its own flavor and identity.

During this period politics, especially the ethnic variety, became the city's great passion. Unbelievably, Yankee Republicans still controlled Providence, not by numbers or brainpower but by the intervention of a rural-dominated General Assembly in local affairs, and especially by a well-designed constitutional system which limited the vote in city council elections to those who paid a property tax. A 1925 study indicated that of the Providence electorate who voted for mayor, nearly 60 percent--principally ethnics at the lower socio- economic levels--were ineligible to cast a ballot for their councilmen.

The importance of that voting restriction becomes evident when one realizes that prior to 1941 the city had a strong council-weak mayor form of government. From 1900 onward the ceremonial chief executive was nearly always a Democrat, but the two-chamber council, controlled by Yankee Republicans, in turn controlled city finances and most of the patronage. Small wonder that Democrats battled ceaselessly to remove the property-tax requirement. When they finally succeeded in 1928 (via the Twentieth Amendment to the state constitution), the council came permanently under Democratic political machine.

Providence's impact on state government was hampered by a malapportioned senate that gave control to rural Republican towns. In 1925, at its all-time population peak of 267,918, Providence was entitled to one senator in the General Assembly, while West Greenwich, population 407, also had a senator of its own. In 1928 Providence pressure helped pass the Nineteenth Amendment to the state constitution, allowing the city one senator for each 25,000 electors (not people), but it took the United States Supreme Court decisions of the 1960s to give Providence the clout in the state senate that its population warranted.

During this era Providence gained its modern skyline. To the Banigan Building (1896) were added the Union Trust (1902), the Turk's Head (1913), the twin-towered Hospital Trust (1919), the Biltmore (1922), and the imposing Industrial Trust Building (1928)--still the city's tallest skyscraper.

Other aspects of physical growth included the development of the outlying neighborhood, especially the East Side, beyond Hope Street to the Seekonk. While Roger Williams Park became more beautiful and more frequented by the city's inhabitants, such additional green spots were created as Pleasant Valley Parkway (1909), Hopkins Park (1909), Neutaconkanut Park (1903), and Triggs Memorial Park (1928), which was developed into a municipal golf course and named in honor of the park superintendent who acquired in honor of the park superintendent who acquired it for the city. The state-run Metropolitan Park commission added such facilities to Providence's growing system as Merino Flats, Mashapaug Pond Reservation, and the short-lived Edgewood Beach.

A notable administrative innovation was the organization of the City Plan Commission in 1914, forty-one years after such action had been recommended by city engineer Charles E. Paine. Under the leadership of Henry A. Barker, Theodore Francis Green, Mayor Joseph H. Gainer (1913-27) and architect and historian John Hutchins Cady, the group proposed several bold plans for Providence, including the relocation of the railroad station and the removal of the elevated tracks, or "Chinese Wall," that separated Downtown from the State House. Unfortunately, most of its recommendations, extending even to education, public health, and industrial development, went unheeded. So also did the 1926 Whitten Thorofare Plan, an imaginative proposal to relieve traffic congestion throughout the metropolitan area. On the positive side, Providence enacted its first comprehensive zoning ordinance on the commission's recommendation in 1923.

In the realm of transportation, the impact of the auto was overwhelming. The horseless carriage evolved from a curiosity, a luxury, and a plaything of the wealthy in 1900 to an affordable, ubiquitous necessity by 1929, in large measure due to Henry Ford's productive genius. To accommodate this change, endless building, paving, and widening of streets occurred, increasing both jobs and taxes.

The New Haven Railroad of J.P. Morgan and Charles S. Mellen opened the century by establishing a monopoly over local rail, steamboat, steetcar, and interurban transit. In its heyday the New Haven was strong enough to bloc a potential rival--the Grand Trunk Railroad--from making Providence the Atlantic terminus of a railroad network that could tap the trade of Canada. The secure when the prime promoter of the project, Grand Trunk's President Charles M. Hays, went to the bottom with the Titanic in 1912. Mellen was later indicted by a federal grand jury (but not convicted for his role in pressuring the Grand Trunk to halt its road construction into Providence. In 1914 the federal government caught up with the runaway New Haven, forcing it to relinquish control of Rhode Island's urban and interurban lines.

For waterborne traffic, major harbor improvements were undertaken just prior to World War I, including the construction of a modern state pier at the foot of Public Street (1913) 3,000-foot quay (now 4,750 feet) at Field's Point (1916).

Though the local economy in the 1920s began to show signs of illness for which there seemed no available cure, those whose sickness was physical were provided with ample modern treatment centers. Rhode Island Hospital, the granddaddy of health care facilities, continually expanded and improved, building its Jane Brown wing in 1922 and training school for nurses in 1927. A Catholic diocesan hospital, St. Joseph's on Broad Street (established in 1892), developed a reputation for competent health care and underwent extensive modernization in 1929-30. Roger Williams General Hospital (established in 1878 as a homeopathic facility moved to newer and much larger quarters on Chalkstone Avenue in 1925 and built a school of nursing soon after. Just north of Roger Williams, Lying-In Hospital (established in 1884) built a large facility for the care and treatment of women and infants. It moved to this site (its third home) in 1926, the same year in which a small Jewish-sponsored hospital, called Miriam, opened at 31 Parade Street in the city's West End.

The city kept pace with these private institutions by opening a public hospital on Eaton Street in 1910 for the treatment of communicable diseases. An internationally famous epidemiologist, Dr. Charles V. Chapin, ran both the city's hospital and its widely acclaimed public health program.

For diversion the people of Providence in this era turned to sports and shows. Minor league baseball teams--always dubbed the Grays--were formed occasionally and even won championships. Most notable were the International League titleists of 1914, which included Babe Ruth, and the Eastern League champs of 1926, which featured as player-coach Hall of Famer Rube Marquard. In professional football Providence boasted its Steam Roller eleven, the National Football League kingpins in 1928. In college football Brown fielded several nationally ranked teams, including the famous Iron Men of 1926 and the 1915 squad that played in the very first Rose Bowl on January 1, 1916.

In the 1920s a cross-town athletic rivalry developed between venerable Brown and the new Catholic men's college founded by Bishop Matthew Harkins. On June 7, 1924, the Bruins and Providence College played the longest collegiate baseball game on record, a twenty-inning contest in which future Pawtucket mayor Charlie Reynolds went the route in the Friars' 1 to 0 victory. Four years later, as a foreshadowing of glories to come, PC's basketball team earned the top ranking among New England colleges with a record of 17 and 3.

A great crowd pleaser was bicycle racing, which reached its peak audience and popularity at the North Main Street Cycledrome. Champion wheelman Vincent "Poosha" Madonna was a local celebrity in the twenties, especially among Italian-Americans, while Providence Jews had as their idol a scrappy and durable boxer named Maurice Billingkoff, who did battle as "Young Montreal." Billingkoff's later fights were staged in a new indoor arena, the Rhode Island Auditorium, which opened at 1111 North Main Street in 1925.

In this era Providence was a great show town, and vaudeville, burlesque, summer stock, and movies rivaled sports for the attention of the populace. The major entertainment houses--all built during this time--were the elegant, all- purpose Albee (1919) on Westminster Street; Fay's Theater (1912), a popular vaudeville spot on Union Street; the Strand (1915) on Washington Street; the Majestic (1917) at Washington and Empire; and Loew's State Theater (1928), a splendidly appointed movie house built at the corner of Weybosset and Richmond streets. In addition to these, there were a half-dozen smaller, less glamorous entertainment houses in the central city.

The Downtown, which by night attracted large numbers of theatergoers, lured even greater numbers of people by day, who came to shop in its impressive array of retail stores. Diamond's, Cherry and Webb, the Boston Store, Gladding's, and the Outlet became household words. And what Providence couple of the era never met under the Shepard's clock?

Of these six big department stores, Shepard's and the Outlet were the giants, and their spirited rivalry spilled over from retailing to radio. On June 2, 1922, Shepard's inaugurated Providence's first radio station (WEAN); three months later, on the embryo of what would become an Outlet broadcasting empire.

In general, these were buoyant, optimistic decades in Providence. Even the call to war in 1917 evoked a cheerful, patriotic response. A Providence boy, George M. Cohan, wrote and sang the unofficial theme song of the American Expeditionary Force-o-a jaunty inspirational tune called "Over There," which later won a gold medal from Congress for its author.

But as all good things must end, so also must overly optimistic perceptions come to grips with reality. For Providence that reality was the economic depression which burst upon the nation in late October 1929. As the stock market plummeted to unparalleled depths, so also did Providence's optimism in its potential for a continuously prosperous future. The bubble had burst; a new era was at hand.

The first report of the reorganized City Plan Commission, issued in 1945, correctly predicted the fate of Providence for the following three decades: "Urban areas are changing in character from one thickly populated central city," observed the commission, "to a group of satellite cities around a central city." The physical saturation of the older metropolises and the ravages of age upon them, coupled with the advent of the auto, was making the exodus to suburbia a national phenomenon. Nowhere was the trend more prominent than in Providence. In the census of 1950 the city had a population of 248,674; by 1970 that figure had dwindled to 179,11i6--the largest proportionate out-migration (28 percent) of any major city in the United States. South Providence, West Elmwood, and West River were the heavy losers as the city's Irish-American population fell below that of Italo-Americans in the midst of this hegira to the suburbs. This demographic decline of itself was not a calamity, however, because Providence, very small in land area compared with other cities, was one of the country's most densely populated municipalities.

The new freeways and expressways that contributed to this decline also facilitated movement in and around (and especially out of) the central city, relieved street congestion, and drove an opening wedge through tightly packed and often substandard residential districts. Industrial parks at West River and Mashapaug Pond eventually replaced run-down housing with modern plants; urban renewal projects such as the Classical-Central complex and Lippitt Hill eradicated a few slum areas and, in the case of Randall Square and Weybosset Hill, turned eyesores into showplaces.

The expansion of health care institutions, churches, government, and colleges (especially Brown) into their surrounding neighborhoods while often beneficial, also took its toll on residential housing stock and reduced the city's tax base by placing more of its land on the exempt rolls.

John Hutchins Cady, Providence's foremost architectural historian and the former chairman of its City Plan Commission, observed in the early 1950s that "Providence was entering a period of transition." It was primarily that and not, essentially, an era of decline. One might also call it a period of gestation--a time of labor necessary to bring forth new life.

The moves of the mayors of the era to mitigate the effects of out-migration were impressive. A litany of those efforts reads as follows: a reorganization of the City Plan Commission (1944); the first master plan for the redevelopment of residential areas (1946); the adoption of a master plan for thoroughfares (1946); the establishment of the Providence Redevelopment Agency(1948); a complete revision of the zoning laws (1951); a minimum housing standards code (1956); the College Hill study (1959); the final Downtown revitalization report (1960); the master plan of 1964, under which the city still operates; the master plan for traffic circulation (1966);l the establishment of the Department of Planning and Urban Development (1967); and the creation of the Civic Center Authority (1969). These remedies were augmented by a series of five-year capital improvement programs, by the private effort launched by the Providence Preservation Society (1956),and by the work of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission (1968), led by Antoinette Downing. Clearly the city fathers did not passively accept their fate.

Nonetheless, the city suffered losses. Of the big five industries of the Gilded Age, Corliss was long gone, but in the immediate postwar years the other four remained. Then American Screw departed for Willimantic (19490), Nicholson File for Indian (1959), and Brown and Sharpe for North Kingstown (1964. Only Gorham remained, in addition, the local textile industry--both cottons and woolens--collapsed. Many smaller manufacturing firms also departed to occupy modern, spacious suburban plants. On the positive side, development at the city's two new industrial parks--West River and Mashapaug, proceeded slowly but steadily, and a number of commercial buildings were erected in neighborhood business areas.

Important Downtown construction was light and sporadic, consisting of People's Savings Bank (1948) on Kennedy Plaza; the Providence Washington Insurance Company headquarters (1949) opposite the First Baptist Church; W.T. Grant's department store on Westminster Street (1949); a major addition to the Providence Public Library (1954); and the fourth Howard Building (1957-59). Then after a decade-long hiatus, the Old Stone Bank tower at 40 Westminster Street was erected, Providence's first skyscraper built in over forty years. It became the corporate headquarters of Royal Little's Textron, the state's first and largest conglomerate.

During this era, however, there were more departures than debuts in Providence's Downtown. By the late 1960s retail department stores reeled under the competition from suburban malls, and the center city's movie houses succumbed to competition from drive-ins and suburban cinemas. Not only the smaller, less finely appointed shows, or "scratch houses," folded (except for the prurient Paris, "Providence's gayest spot"); so too did the major theaters. Fay's closed in 1951, to be eventually replaced by the Biltmore Parking Garage, and the Metropolitan, on the site of the present Beneficent House, ended its varied operations in 1954. The elegant Albee, later demolished for a parking lot \, sputtered and then expired in 1970. The Majestic, purchased by the Trinity Repertory company in 1970, was converted to a playhouse. By 1972 only Loew's and the Strand remained, with the latter resorting to X-rated movies to pay its bills.

One substitute for the movies was the new medium of television. The first station--WJAR-TV, Channel 10--began its operation on July 10, 1949, with an NBC and ABC affiliation. A second--WPRO-TV (later WPRI), Channel 12-- commenced its telecasts on March 27, 1955, as a member of the CBs network. A state educational station, Channel 36, based at Rhode Island College, began programming on June 5, 1967. On radio disc jockeys Chuck Stevens and Carl Henry were the rage in the fifties, and Salty Brine and talk-show host Jack Comley became household words during the following decade.

For team sports entertainment, the only professional show in town was the American Hockey League's Rhode Island Reds, whose home ice was the Auditorium. But from 1959 onward it was the Providence College basketball Friars of Joe Mullaney and Dave Gavitt that captivated local sports fans.

Boxing was also big. Rocky Marciano of nearby Brockton fought here twenty-eight times en route to the world heavy weight championship; Providence's "Chubby" Gomes won the world junior lightweight title, and fellow Fox Pointer George Araujo attained the rank of number one lightweight contender. South Providence's Wild Willie Greene, a free-swinging middleweight and Burt Reynolds look-alike, also attracted national attention for his fistic prowess.

In the interscholastic league LaSalle Academy's teams dominated play on both the city and state levels for most of the era, while in the sandlots baseball peaked in the early fifties and then rapidly declined along with many of the city's neighborhoods. By the sixties a new sandlot craze, Providence's most noted softball team, Local 57 of Gano Street, was a frequent contender for the national fast-pitch championship.

In the area of mass transportation, the New Haven Railroad and its ill- fated successor, the Penn Central, fell on economic hard times, forcing them to curtail both freight and passenger service to the city. On the rails, only the Providence-Worcester road remained sound. The urban transit system passed from the United Electric Railway (UER) to the United Transit company (UTC) in 1952, but neither firm could profitably withstand the challenge of the two-auto family or the exodus to suburbia. On July 1, 1966, a governmentally-subsidized agency, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, was forced to assume operations from the inefficient and nearly bankrupt UTC. By that time only gas and diesel buses constituted the mass transit fleet. The last electric trolley had run over the rails of the city on My 14, 1948, and the final trackless trolley left service on June 24, 1955.

This was the era of urban expressway and interstate highway construction, from the opening of the first leg of the Olneyville (Roberts) Expressway in 1952 to the completion of routes I-95 and I-195 through Providence by the mid-1960s. The Providence River Bridge (1956), Washington Bridge (1968), and the new Red Bridge over the Seekonk (1969) were the era's major spans.

The city's role as a center for health services and higher education continued to expand. The 353-bed Veterans' Hospital was opened in 1949; Miriam Hospital moved from cramped, obsolete quarters on Parade Street into a new facility (which it soon enlarged) on Summit Street, over-looking North Main in 1952. Two older hospitals, Rhode Island and St. Joseph's, continued to grow and modernize. In 1955 Rhode Island Hospital opened a new ten-story main building, and ten years later, St. Joseph's completed an eight-story addition which it dedicated to Bishop William E. Stang, one of the Hospital's founders.

Developments in higher education were equally dramatic. Ever- burgeoning Brown dedicated its Bio-Medical Building in 1969, the forerunner of its medical school; Rhode Island College of Education relocated to Mount Pleasant in 1958 and became Rhode Island College, offering degrees in the sciences and liberal arts two years later; the University of Rhode Island gradually developed its college of continuing education in a building on the old RICE campus at Gaspee and Promenade Streets: and Johnson and Wales gained college status, acquired the Plantations Club building on Abbott Park Place in 1962, and embarked upon a period of rapid growth.

Conversely, other colleges sought more spacious suburban campuses. Providence-Barrington Bible College (established in 1900) left Capitol Hill in the early 1960s, shortening its name to fit its new site. Roger Williams (established in 1948) grew from a two-year college based at Providence YMCA to a four-year institution and then moved to Bristol in 1969. Two years later Bryant departed its sprawling East Side campus for a beautiful site in Smithfield. A state junior college (RIJC( was opened in September 1964 and took up residence in the former Brown and Sharpe complex on Promenade Street, but in 1972 it, too, left Providence, opening its new Knight campus in Warwick. On the secondary level, the city completed a new Classical-Central educational complex in 1968, dedicated to former school superintendent James L. Hanley, who served as top administrator of the Providence School Department for twenty-seven years (1937-64).

One of the major building programs undertaken by the city in the 1940s and 1950s was public housing. These low-income "projects" included Chad Brown (1942; 312 units), Roger Williams (1943; 744 units), Valley View, a city- owned facility (1949;l 256 units), Admiral Terrace (1951; 278 units), Codding Court (1951; 119 units), Hartford Park (1953; 748 units), and Manton Heights (1953; 330 units). From the 1960s onward the emphasis shifted to facilities for the elderly, with Sunset Manor (1960), Dexter Manor (1962) and Bradford House (1966; now Sister Dominica Manor) being the earliest examples of this increasingly important housing development.

The era's two wars--in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1964-73)--exerted little impact on the city compared with the all-out efforts of 1917-18 and 1941-45. There were no parades and no heroes' welcomes for the veterans of these bitter "police actions." In fact, the latter stages of the Vietnam conflict witnessed organized local protests against our continued involvement in Southeast Asia.

The major battles on the home front occurred during a series of "long hot summers" from 1965 through 1970, when war dissent and civil rights protest produced repeated outbreaks of violence and vandalism, especially on the city's South Side. Fortunately, Providence was spared the fatalities and the extreme violence and property damage that afflicted many other American cities. The hard-rock and pot craze also produced several disturbances, the most notable being a near-riot following the Sly and the Family Stone concert at Rhode Island Auditorium on October 19, 1969, in which twenty-five persons were hurt and fifty more arrested.

In contrast, politics was generally placid during this era of Democratic ascendancy, as a strong Irish-led party organization kept the peace. Favorite son John O. Pastore of Federal Hill went from the governorship (1945-50) to become one of the most powerful and influential United States senators, while Dennis J. Roberts rose from the mayoralty (1941-51) to the governorship (1951- 59) to the position of "insider" during the Kennedy administration. Roberts' former secretary, Walter H. Reynolds, served ably but blandly as chief executive from 1951 to 1965. During the latter years of his tenure several young Democrats aspired to succeed him, provoking the first major party struggle in more than three decades. Reynolds beat back the 1962 primary challenge of Frank Rao, Jr., and abdicated in 1964, supporting Edward Burke to succeed him. Fifth Ward Councilman Joe Doorley and his political sidekick Larry McGarry of Ward 10 had other ideas. In a spirited three-way 1964 Democratic primary, Doorley defeated Rao and Burke and went on to gain the throne. McGarry, who had been fired from his high-level public works job by City Chairman and Public Works Director Charlie McElroy for opposing the Roberts- Reynolds faction, got his revenge. In the Doorley regime he took both of the posts that McElroy had held tenaciously for more than two decades. To the victors always went the spoils in the absence of a municipal merit system in Providence.

The city's increasing black population (15,875 in 1970) gained belated recognition in November 1969, when endorsed Democratic candidate Philip F. Addison, Jr., was chosen in a special Third Ward election as the first black to sit on the Providence City Council. During all of these Democratic Triumphs and travails, the local Republican party (except for Wards 1 and 2) was sometimes feeble and sometimes moribund.

As the seventies dawned, the future of Providence appeared to be taking shape. Service industries were increasing, while manufacturing and retail trade were dramatically down. Institutional growth was strong, and the characteristics of the population--more elderly, more low-income people, more minorities, and far fewer middle-class whites--posed a grave threat to the city's tax base.

To the perceptive person, the future of Providence seemed to be as the financial, educational, health services, transportation, governmental, and cultural matrix of the Rhode Island city-state. If Providence was to fulfill this role, however, its intact neighborhoods would have to be stabilized and it would have to receive massive federal and state aid. Wearied by its cataclysmic transition, the city looked for help and for leadership to regain its former vigor and optimism.

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!"