Saturday, August 07, 2021
Almost all of the world's great cities are on water. Providence is no exception. Throughout history commercial centers have grown up around breaks in transportation: at waterfalls, where a river meets the sea, where a bay is no longer navigable, and so on. Providence's strategic place at the head of Narragansett Bay as is significant now as it always was.
Providence may be a city on the water, but how many of us know the harbor itself? With the exception of the occasional cruise, a trip on the Newport ferry, or weekend boaters or a few fishermen, most of us spend no time connecting with our working waterfront. Our understanding of the real business of the port is informed by glimpses of the handful of tugboats at India Point, the occasional tanker unloading oil in East Providence, or a container ship lading at the ProvPort on Terminal Road.
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While out of sight, or merely taken for granted, this city's harbor is of vital interest to Providence's commercial health and growth. Clearly having a first class port is essential to Providence, but is it all that it can and should be? While the issue of the entire waterfront is extremely complicated, its future clearly is an issue that should be seriously addressed by mayoral and gubernatorial candidates. (The U.S. Senate's trillion-dollar infrastructure bill includes financing for ports, so we should at least expect our leaders to be considering strategic planning for the port.)
Except for ProvPort (formerly the City of Providence Municipal Wharf, and now curiously a 501(c03 non-profit), home to a trio of giant wind turbines, as well gas storage, scrap metal exports, and road salt distribution, among other gritty ventures, the coastline of the harbor comprises a mishmash of complicated real estate. Long ago, the city gave 100-year leases to some coastal industries, making port development something of a non-starter. Beyond gas storage, a lot of property along Allens Avenue is underutilized open space, seemingly contributing little to the viability of the port.
Providence developed as a port during the Revolution when the British fleet occupied Newport, one of the best harbors in the American Colonies. Although the railroad-based capital city economically eclipsed it, Newport remains a magnificent deep-water port, capable of accommodating the largest cruise ships. On the other hand, the Quonset Point Container Port at Davisville acts as a feeder to larger operations in Boston, New York, and Norfolk
All of which points to a somewhat schizophrenic identity for Providence's port.
As Providence polishes its reputation as one of the coolest cities in the country, tourism could benefit by greater numbers of seaborne visitors. While the 40-foot depth of our channels precludes the gigantic ships that can swamp Newport and threatened to destroy Venice, medium-sized vessels could certainly call here. What about constructing a landing point, somewhere along the East Providence shore or farther down the bay, from whence tourists could be taken by small craft or light rail into town? What about traffic-avoiding water taxis shortening trips from, say, Cranston to Riverside or downtown to Edgewood?
As beneficial as tourism is to Rhode Island, our economy demands a larger, perhaps more efficient port. There have been occasional schemes to deal with much of the fallow open space. As Mayor Cicilline declared in 2007 when announcing a plan to develop land just south of Conley's Wharf, "Our fortunes have always depended on our relationship with the water. The better we have aligned our economy with the natural advantages provided by our waterfront, the more prosperous the city has been." Yet this proposal was for condominiums, arts spaces, and restaurants, all without the distasteful odor of industry. Killed by the financial crash the following year, the space was, ironically, developed as a scrap metal distribution center.
As much as we might want something more scenic along the shore, the port area is hardly the place, say, for Brown residence halls. At a time when more and more of the world's shipping is waterborne, our harbor needs beefing up. This means more berths (we have six now), more railways, and more traffic. While little of this could be called pretty, if smartly developed, the port could be fashioned as potent symbol of Rhode Island's industrial might and mercantile prowess.
Any further development of the Port of Providence will need better transportation modules, especially roads and a rail center. PHOTO: Will Morgan
Perhaps the entire upper Narragansett Bay should be brought together under aegis of some port authority, modeled on Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, which despite its ungainly name is arguably New England's best airport. An architectural column can only offer observations, but we all need to work to transform our somewhat sleepy port into a real commercial powerhouse.
Port of Providence: a great natural treasure that is also major engine of our economy. PHOTO: Will Morgan
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