Rhode Island’s industrial past. Many helped establish best practices that would connect adaptive re-use, sustainable development, and entrepreneurship in a post-industrial economy. Other grants convened stakeholders with different agendas to begin the search for common ground on difficult place making concerns across the state. What were the best development options for Quonset? How could Newport better address public participation in community development? What strategies could help rural Rhode Island retain traditional community values in the face of suburban development? What did it really mean to create the Scituate Reservoir in the 1920s as a large-scale civic damming project that secured drinking water for 60 percent of the state but also displaced a thousand inhabitants in a miles-wide zone of now-flooded villages, farms, and mills? What should be the RI attitude toward land seizure by eminent domain? Though thoughtful and successfully completed, many grant projects were not met by action. For example, in 1975 the Council helped fund Community Focus, a remarkable academic/ community collaborative study of economic and community redevelopment options for Central Falls. Among its many recommendations, this 1975 project proposed that the best option for the tiny 1.27 square mile city was to have it merge with Pawtucket, its neighboring city with a shared history. However, this road was not taken and now, almost forty years later, Central Falls is bankrupt and a merger with Pawtucket is back on the table. In contrast, Interface: Providence set in motion significant citizen activism. By 1978, the decision was made to move the railroads and uncover parts of the historic Great Salt Cove, opening up 79 acres of center city land for redevelopment. Whose land was this, and what process would govern its development? Throughout the 1980s, the Council expanded its role supporting public humanities engagement with the evolving plans for reimagining the capital city. The Providence Trust Doctrine and the Providence Cove brought public attention to the far-reaching development implications of uncovering the cove waters, while also highlighting the need for public debate to set priori-
ties and insist on accountability. This grant was one of the reasons the Council convened a series of community conversations with city and state officials, including Turning Back to the Water: A Public Policy of the First Waters, and also The Providence Waterfront Study: Public Workshops. The RI Council continued to collaborate with the Providence Foundation on funding urban redevelopment pilot programs, including the revitalization of India Point’s waterfront park. For many, the notion of a pop-up urban festival at this location was a novelty, but it was an experiment that worked. Over time, community groups formed to develop other uses in the park, including a new playground and a community boating facility. Today, India Point Park is the citywide gathering place for the Providence Fourth of July fireworks. Small seed grants can have a large impact. How might history inform current development options? Rhode Island faces many important decisions about preservation and adaptive re-use, such as the future of the Industrial Trust building in Providence, and re-development, such as the use of the lands opened up by the relocation of Route 195. There will always be ongoing questions in a democracy, and the public humanities provide a platform for debate, as we saw in the 2012 grant, Creative Placemaking: Providence, the Creative Capital – Fact or Fiction? Future dialogues may be as memorable as the four-day great debate between Williams and the Quakers. And one from which you still have to turn around and row back up Narragansett Bay to get home, even at 70. —
Nancy Austin is a public historian based in Newport, Rhode Island. Her studio, Austin Alchemy, initiates experimental art projects that bridge historical scholarship, place-based installations, an expanded notion of cultural tourism as an opportunity for public discourse, and the critical exploration of new location based technology. Nancy Austin received her Ph.D. from Brown University and has taught the history of art, architecture, and industrial design at RISD, Yale, and WPI. Contact: NancyAustinPhD@gmail.com
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