Massachusetts approved some money to run a planning study on restoring passenger rail service from Providence to Worcester this past summer. I doubt that will happen though. I don't think RIDOT would bite, and Mass has so many other rail expansion plans that would happen first.

At one point I think you could have taken a trolley from Newport to Boston too.

Considering where they got their money from I don't think they should be commemorated. As I say elsewhere in this thread, the DeWolfs already took their own names off of some of their properties because it was sullied after their fortunes soured in the 19th century, including their most prominent holding in Linden Mansion (formerly DeWolf Mansion). Slapping their name on a structure is in essence commemorating their historic footprint. It's irresponsible to slap somebody's name on something to effectively celebrate their legacy without interrogating what that legacy really was. Brown University has been dealing with the same thing.

Its up to the descendants of these families how they want to handle it, but if they want to celebrate their ancestry they should do so aware of the fact that their historical importance was heavily funded by Cuban sugar plantations and West African slaving ships. I'm sure they're good people and would be receptive to considering that. It's a shitty thing to reckon with so I'm sympathetic.

The DeWolfs owned and operated plantations in the Caribbean and had ties to southern slavers as well. Their reach went beyond Bristol towards founding mills in places like Coventry. This economic power let them propel people like James DeWolf to be a US Senator from RI. James in particular was one of the families more problematic figures because he had a murder indictment and fled the country a few times to avoid prosecution (including violating federal laws banning the importation of slaves). James's grand-nephew, George, was another slave trader and plantation owner but by this generation the family had gotten so powerful that the entire town relied on them financially. So when George's investments went south, he defaulted and basically screwed the entire community before bailing for Cuba like his ancestors to hide from his investors.

The irony here is that the family already changed the names of their assets and holdings following this financial controversy to get their name off of them. I think the tavern exists with that name to highlight the family's historical prominence in the town and state, but I agree that this history was paid for by both the freedom and also lives of hundreds of slaves, and the family wasn't exactly upstanding. They're a more clearly corrupt case than say the Brown brothers, where one was a slave trader (John) and the other (Moses) tried to at least use that money for good due to his moral opposition to slavery.

The legacy of the family is often celebrated like a sort of "cosmopolitan rogue" kind of deal that is "defacto Rhode Island" from the revolutionary era. They get celebrated for being rich, having political power, entertaining elites, and serving as privateers or generals in the wars of the late 18th and early 19th century but their means of financing those activities through chattel slavery often becomes a footnote and is easy to forget.

I agree with you in terms of mechanics and COVID, but if thats the case then I’m honestly not bothered by it. Rhode Island has very few areas classified as rural and that isn’t going to change.

Ironically if this rural shift is true, in a way it conflicts with the resolution for high housing costs. If the demand was for single family homes in more sprawled areas then the typical solutions of upzoning and creating “smart growth” districts are basically dead in those places. But, creating more single family homes isn’t a great solution either.

Its not much but it is a reversal. Going from decent growth to minor decline is still important, even in a brief time frame. Providence grew by about 7% in the past 10 years.

Ah but you see big garages are what you need to make these work, thats why Wickford and Warwick do so well!

/s

Quite a bit, but not nearly as much as SA since that thing is a glorified parking lot.

It and TF Green are just miserable stations.

From what Ive read they opted to build an entirely new, modern station at South Attleboro rather than do a patch repair on the catwalk. Id imagine Pawtucket C/F is part of the reason because many of the homes closest to SA are in RI.

RI has lots of nice parks and open spaces, its just very difficult to access them from downtown unless you own a car. The best options are all of the parks accessible by the off-street bike paths, but Roger Williams is really the pinnacle. The issue is that the larger open spaces (not like India Point or RW) like Snake Den and Lincoln Woods are mostly accessible by car.

I think its a matter of needing more thoughtful state planning. Boston was planned out over centuries to have the Emerald Necklace, which is more like Roger Williams Park, but then filled in with smaller neighborhood parks and the conversion of a planned highway into the Southwest Corridor. This is in some ways like Providence, but a major difference is that you can use transit to get to much larger open spaces like Arnold Arboreteum and Franklin Park. If you're patient you can even use the commuter train to get further out to somewhere like Wachusett. It's not perfect, because the Blue Hills basically needs a car and the river is more disconnected than Providence, but it's convenient.

Except this isnt on PVD, its on the idiots at the state level who refuse to reform zoning laws or address the housing crisis by building up missing middle housing or transit oriented development around the absolutely barren stations in NK and Warwick. Its on the guys at the state who picked this developer and project. Instead we get these moonshot projects where we go for a 46 story tower built by somebody with zero experience in executing projects of this scale. This is the equivalent of the DOT picking a guy who lays concrete for patios to pave I-95.

Im good with more housing, but this state handles development in such a ludicrously stupid fashion that its no wonder its lagging behind. Whats their solution for TF Green Airport Stations terrible ridership? To spend even more money on giving it an Amtrak link instead of helping or pushing Warwick harder to develop around it. They fucked up Quonset, they dragged their feet with the other I-195 parcels, and now their magnum opus will be somebodys vanity project with a tenuous chance of being built.

This is dumber than Tidewater Landing, which I support, because its desperate.

For me it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Just flat out. Its as tall as it is so it can say that its the tallest. If you look at this developers projects a lot of them are renovations of existing buildings in the 4-5 story range in New York, and were not talking about a huge portfolio here. Here’s their website:

https://faneorg.com/index.html

As I recall their financing is also a bit up in the air, probably thanks the the slowdown in the housing market, increased interest rates, and the inexperience of the developer at executing something like this.

They seem most equipped to build a 5 over 1, not a 46 story tower. This is just stupid, and I’m looking at this thing thinking that even if they manage to get it built I cant see its vacancy rate being low or it penciling out.

They did half the bridge, now theyre doing the other half

Can’t wait for this to go until 2026. By then Im sure they’ll find something else on 95.

Central Falls is small and poor, but its incredibly densely populated and his timing is key. He’s been in politics since he was 24 and was mayor after the failed receivership effort from the state. He kept public services open in a city where the state had decided to basically get rid of the city council and relegate the mayor to a glorified advisor before his mayorship.

Does he have the prestigious degrees? No. Dude went through CF schools. Was his tenure clean? Not the best. But I give a guy credit for being willing to get involved young and see his work through.

Exactly, though I think they should have put the station in Apponaug with that roundabout project they did. Then they could have tried running a Silver Line style bus from the station to the airport.

The article even mentions that the MBTA and DOT are discussing the feasibility of the service these stations are getting with such low ridership. That is not a good sign. Given how Massachusetts is trying to upzone around commuter rail stops I’d bet they’re less inclined to service RI if RI doesn’t do the same.

They sort of bury the lede here that amidst all of this talk of “it’ll get better if we build more housing” is that the state is looking at a $274 million Amtrak hookup at TF Green, which I think is a worse station. $44 million for Wickford isn’t a lot of money compared to some of these highway projects, and neither is Pawtucket Station. But dumping that much into Warwick? The fuck?

Man don’t forget TF Green. That station is only good if you’re trying to get to the airport.

This is the crystal meth form of concentrated townie energy

Its been unable to attract a tenant due to a chicken and egg situation where the current owner has no interest in renovating the structure to attract said tenant. The owner has basically been stringing the state and city along using the prominence and cultural significance of the building as a bargaining chip to force them to subsidize the renovations.