Photo of the Day: Fountain, DePasquale Square, Providence RI

Because I was on a city bus tour, I didn’t have any time to fully experience DePasquale Square back in October 2015. But I was enchanted enough by the Old World ambiance of this site to photograph this picturesque Italian-American enclave of the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence, RI. 

This quatrefoil fountain is surrounded by an outdoor seating area, painted buildings, and seagulls. If I ever get back and I have enough time, I’ll certainly make it a point to stop at one of the restaurants in this unique spot that recalls classic Italian piazzas.

Photo of the Day: Dill Center for the Performing Arts, Brown University, Providence RI

This time of year, high school seniors will be deciding where they will be going to college. In fact, for Ivy League schools, that big decision was already last month—or, for those who might have chosen the early decision option, closer to the start of the year. 

In any case, Brown University is probably going to be on a number of students’ wish lists. That’s been the case since the 1980s especially, when it began getting high ratings in the Fiske Guide to Colleges. 

Back in the day, I graduated from one of its rivals in the Ivy League—Columbia—and I’ve had no reason to regret it. But I have been curious about what Brown looks like, and in October 2015, while visiting Providence, RI, I had the opportunity to visit the school. It was as lovely as I heard about.

One of the campus buildings that caught my eye was the one I photograph and included here, the Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts—partly because I’m interested in the theater, partly because it’s a striking piece of architecture. As Lyman Hall, it was the university’s first gymnasium. But in the 1970s, then again in 2008, it was renovated, as part of the school’s ongoing improvement of its performing arts facilities.

Photo of the Day: Providence River, Rhode Island

”Never in his life had he seen a river before – this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver – glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted, as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at least to the insatiable sea. “—Scottish writer Kenneth Graham (1859-1932), The Wind in the Willows (1908)

I can think of few cities that owe their revival so strongly to a waterway-based revival as Providence, R.I. I took the attached picture in October 2015, when I was visiting the city for a few days.

Photo of the Day: ‘Gettysburg Gun,’ Rhode Island State House

Two years ago this fall, on a short visit to Providence, R.I., I came upon one of the neatest little jewels in New England: the Rhode Island State House. I didn’t expect to find such a grand, stylish capitol in the smallest state in the Union—though I would have if I’d known beforehand that it was designed by the prestigious New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White in 1891-94.

But the surprises started coming at me as soon as I entered the building. On my left, in the North Portico of a structure meant for the peaceful debate and management of opposing ideas, was an imposing representation of what could happen when civility and compromise are no longer the order of the day: a brass cannon taken from the turning point of America’s bloodiest, most fratricidal war.

The cannon, known as "The Napoleon" during its lifetime, was last fired 154 years ago today, at the Battle of Gettysburg, and consequently is better remembered today as the "Gettysburg Gun." You can better understand why it was never used again when you notice the large cannonball stuck in its muzzle. 

The cannon went out of service at the worst possible time: early in the afternoon, Rhode Island’s Battery B unit was gearing ready for its midday meal when Robert E. Lee ordered the largest artillery bombardment witnessed in the Western Hemisphere to that time, meant to weaken and confuse Union lines prior to “Pickett’s Charge.”

The fourth gun of Battery B had sustained minor damage from two prior hits when another shell exploded. Two soldiers tending to the gun were killed, and a dent to the muzzle from the explosion necessitated that the gun be moved to the rear.

Early on, Gettysburg assumed such legendary proportions that anything associated with the battle became objects of curiosity, even reverence. So it proved to be with Battery B’s cannon, which remained on exhibit in Washington for around a decade after the battle, when it was finally moved back to Rhode Island. 

To my knowledge, it has left the State House on two occasions since then: in August 1962, when it was taken away for 24 hours to remove two and a half pounds of aging, highly dangerous black gunpowder that had been discovered, and in 1988, when it was brought back to the battlefield for the 125^th anniversary of its last use.

The sight of the “Gettysburg Gun” filled me with wonder when I saw it. Since then, this relic has only accrued a meaning I could never have imagined at the time.

Like the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg, the turmoil surrounding Rhode Island’s Gettyburg Gun was the product of confusion, error, and a system that unexpectedly underperformed. Its outcome demonstrated that a democratic republic is also a near-run thing, a fragile point to be defended even when matters seem most hopeless, dependent on multiple people of judgment and heroism ready to rush to contain the damage from a breach.

Photo of the Day: Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, Providence RI

Last October, on a short vacation in Providence, I was struck, from across Main Street, by the sight of this building, and decided to take a picture and identify the structure. As I drew closer, I was stunned to find the following notice on the door: “The Cathedral parish has suspended services and the Cathedral building is not currently open.”

In researching this blog post, I discovered that the building needed major repairs and that the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island did not believe the parish’s dwindling congregation could sustain the expense. Still, I suspect that so much more was involved with the decision to close.

I’m not Episcopalian, but as a Catholic, I know that the decision to shutter this kind of institution can be traumatic. People are correct that at the heart of a church are people, not buildings. 

But by the same token, a house of worship is not simply a building, even one of architectural or historic influence (as this one, with a cornerstone laid in 1810, surely is). For its parishioners, it’s a symbol of their history—where they or members of their families were baptized, took communion, absorbed the lessons of their faith, wed, or were buried. Something in the heart dies when this kind of institution is no longer used.

A couple of months before I visited Providence, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island announced that the cathedral would undergo a new use, becoming purportedly the first museum to explore Northern involvement in the African slave trade. It is a deeply and painfully personal matter for the diocese, which acknowledged its own complicity in perhaps the central tragedy of American history.

I hope this reuse will move the spirit of those who will behold this stunning building when it reopens under new auspices. But, in contrast to what was here before, the spirits of visitors will be moved to lament rather than to experience joy.