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PANEL 11

Plan and elevation of four blocks from Benefit Street to North Main Street, between North Court and Church Streets. Substandard housing has been condemned and replaced with new infill, and historic fabric has been rehabilitated.

LAURIE VOLK

&

TODD ZIMMERMAN

"Warner essentially enhanced the power of urbanism on these blocks. He wisely left the classical urban form of the Old State House intact and subtly emphasized the contrast with the vernacular urbanism of the blocks to its immediate north with romantic gardens and terraces. For example, the parking lot behind the Old Court Bed and Breakfast—which, according to legend, was home to a motorcycle club at the time—would have become a landscaped courtyard. He did not ignore the necessity of parking; for example, proposing spaces under a landscaped deck accessed from an alley between Bowen and Cady Streets to take advantage of the dramatic grade change. See the Panel 1 perspective drawing which shows a contemporary example of tail-finned Detroit iron navigating the covered parking.

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Even the nine modernist buildings proposed to replace the “substandard housing” on North Main Street address the street in the same respectful manner as their historic counterparts on the blocks to the north. One wonders what the impact of these Mid-Century buildings would have been facing, as they do, the Roger Williams National Memorial—better or worse than the inoffensive historicist structures that were built instead?"

DAVID BRUSSAT

"Panel 11 represents the plan of a broader area already depicted in Panel 1, the perspective view seen from a balcony in back of infill housing on North Main Street. Again, my sense of what is going on here resembles my comments in regard to several earlier panels, and would be repetitive."

MARISA ANGELL BROWN

"You would be hard-pressed to find an urban renewal proposal of the 1950s or early 1960s that so lovingly renders the line-up of historic homes on Benefit and parts of North Main Street with Bowen, Cady, North Court and South Court Streets running from left to right of the drawing.  The proposed new homes on North Main Street, as in Panel 9, mirror the massing of the existing homes nearby; they would have faced out over what is now the Roger Williams National Memorial.  In several places, Warner proposes interior walkway/courts, the one at bottom left partly covered with a pergola, most likely to introduce bits of semi-private public space that could have been used for neighborhood games and get-togethers.  The drawn-in gardens behind the existing homes are a sweet touch, the small vegetable plots recalling America’s agrarian past."

COLGATE SEARLE

"Panel 11 utilizes new planning strategies for this time in America.

 

  • Parking within the interior of the block.

  • Pedestrian walkways moving through the block.

  • Restoration of as much of the existing building fabric as possible.

  • New infill that reflects scale and streetscape pattern.

 

Outcome:

The interior parking, and pedestrian public walkways through the block, were not constructed. Along North Main Street a series of new townhouses and relocated historic structures solidified the western edge of the blocks as depicted on the panel.

 

The ideas presented in Panel 11 did influence the urban landscape at the north end of Benefit Street between Olney and Jenckes, Pratt and Benefit Streets.

 

  • Burrs Lane has an internal shared parking lot.

  • The houses along the north side of Halsey Street were rescued and relocated to close off the south side of the block.

  • There is one house internal to the block that has its entrance walk with steps leading from Benefit Street.

  • The block between Halsey and Jenckes Streets share a common interior block garden.

 

All these strategies were envisioned in Panel 11. And the urban landscape is a testament to Bill Warner: insight and creative weaving of old and new within the Benefit Street historic fabric."

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