Commercial Buildings

Union Trust Company Building, Providence, RI

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The Union Trust Company Building, at the corner of Westminster and Dorrance Streets in Providence, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2016:

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The Union Trust Company was a Providence-based bank that dated back to 1851, when it was founded as the Bank of America. Unrelated to the present-day bank of the same name, it was renamed the Union Trust Company in 1894, and a new corporate headquarters was soon in the works. Reflecting both the prominence of the bank, as well as the aspirations of the rapidly-growing city of Providence, the elegant 12-story skyscraper was completed in 1902.

The most significant change to the building came in 1920, when it was expanded along the Westminster Street side, nearly doubling its depth. Otherwise, its exterior has seen few changes. As for the Union Trust Company, it remained here until it was merged into the Industrial National Bank in 1957. In the years that followed, the ground floor continued to be used as a branch office for the bank, but today this elegant bank area is now a restaurant, The Dorrance. The rest of the building was used as offices for many years, but the upper floors of the historic building are now in the process of being converted into apartments.

Market Square, Providence, RI

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Market Square, as seen from across the Providence River in 1865. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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Market Square in 2016:

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Located at the foot of College Hill on the east side of the Providence River, Market Square was for many years an important commercial and political center of the city. The oldest building in the first photo is Market House on the right side. Like other colonial buildings such as Boston’s Faneuil Hall, the Market House functioned as a market on the first floor, but had upper floors that were used for public meetings. It opened in 1775, just in time to witness the start of the American Revolution, which included an anti-British protest where colonists burned tea outside the building. Later in the war, French soldiers were housed in the building in 1781, prior to their participation in the decisive Battle of Yorktown later in the year.

Providence was incorporated as a city in 1832, and that same year the newly-formed city government moved into the Market House. The building soon became too small for the needs of the growing city, but it took years before a suitable site for a new City Hall was finally chosen. In 1878, the present City Hall opened on the other side of the river at Exchange Place, and the Market House was put to new use as an office building.

Today, the Market House is the only building left from the first photo. The 19th century commercial blocks on the left were demolished by the first half of the 20th century to build the Rhode Island School of Design Auditorium, and the buildings in the center were also subsequently demolished. The entire scene around Market Square is now part of the Rhode Island School of Design, including the Market House itself. The historic building was transferred to the school in 1948, and is now in use for classroom space, although very little has changed in its exterior appearance over the past 150 years.

Westminster Arcade, Providence, RI

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The south side of the Westminster Arcade on Weybosset Street in Providence, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2016:

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The exterior of this imposing granite Greek Revival building bears no resemblance to its modern descendants, but the Westminster Arcade was one of the nation’s first indoor shopping malls. Completed in 1828, it is just 74 feet wide but spans the entire length of the block between Weybosset and Westminster Streets. On the inside, three floors of shops run the length of the building on either side, with a large central area in between them, topped with skylights. In this sense, the interior is strikingly similar to the modern shopping mall, as seen in this 1958 view from the Historic American Buildings Survey:

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Over the years, the Arcade has been renovated several times, but has retained its commercial role for nearly 200 years. It survived demolition in 1944, and was restored in 1980, a few years after being named a National Historic Landmark. However, by this point downtown commercial centers across the country were struggling with competition from suburban malls and shopping centers, and the Arcade was no exception. It experienced high tenant turnover, and the upper floors were particularly difficult to attract businesses.

The Arcade finally closed in 2008, but another renovation was soon in the works. The building reopened five years later, with a new mixed-use design that featured shops on the first floor and micro apartments on the two upper floors. These apartments, most of which range from 225 to 300 square feet, are particularly useful for students and recent graduates of the many colleges and universities in Providence. Despite the many renovations over the years, though, essentially nothing has changed with the columned facades on either end of the building, and even the interior has, despite changing storefronts into apartments, maintained its original 19th century appearance.

Westminster Street from Eddy Street, Providence, RI

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Looking west on Westminster Street from Eddy Street in 1865. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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Westminster Street in 2016:

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Taken over 150 years apart, these two views both show Westminster Street as a busy commercial center in downtown Providence. The camera’s exposure time for the first photo was too long to capture the pedestrians and vehicles passing by, but their blurred streaks give the impression of a bustling, fast-paced scene. Today, the scene is crowded with vehicles of a different kind, and almost nothing is left from the first photo. Most of the buildings here today date back to the 19th century, but they were built a decade or two after the first photo was taken. Because of this, the 1865 photo gives a glimpse of the street as it appeared before it was completely altered by developments of the 1870s and 1880s.

The first photo was taken the same year that the Civil War ended, and in the postwar years Providence experienced a dramatic population increase. For most of the 19th century, the city’s population had been doubling roughly every 20 years. This trend continued after the war, with the city growing from just over 50,000 in 1860 to over 100,000 in 1880, and then to over 200,000 by the first decade of the 20th century. In the process, street scenes like the one here on Westminster Street were changed, with the plain early 19th century buildings giving way to larger, more elegant ones of the Victorian era.

The most prominent building in the first photo is the First Universalist Church, on the right side at the corner of Union Street. It was built in 1825, designed by Providence architect John Holden Greene to replace the previous church on the same site, which had burned down earlier in the year. The congregation was still meeting here 40 years later when the first photo was taken, but in 1872 they moved to their current building on Washington Street. Soon after, the old church was demolished and replaced with one of the commercial blocks on the right side of the 2016 photo.

Today, none of the commercial buildings from the first photo survive. The oldest one is the red brick building at 239 Westminster Street, visible in the upper right center of the photo. Although it was altered later in the 19th century, the oldest part of the building dates to 1866. On the other side of the street, visible directly behind the lamppost, is the Burgess Building. Completed in 1870, this is the oldest one in the present-day scene that remains relatively unaltered. None of these are old enough to have appeared in the first photo, though. The only building of any kind that is still standing from the 1865 scene is Grace Church, visible a few blocks away on the right side of the street. This Gothic Revival church was designed prominent architect Richard Upjohn and completed in 1846, and although it is mostly blocked from view in the present-day scene, the top of its spire can still be seen in the distance.

Crawford Street Bridge, Providence, RI

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Looking across the Providence River toward downtown Providence, with the Crawford Street Bridge in the foreground, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2016:

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This is probably one of the rare instances when the “now” photo of a city actually looks better than the “then” photo. The first shows a growing city with a mix of new and old buildings, with a skyline that is marred by overhead wires in the foreground. The Providence River was little more than an open sewer, carrying human waste as well as industrial pollution from factories further upstream. By the early 20th century, the river was largely covered by the Crawford Street Bridge, whose southern end is visible in this photo. It eventually earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s widest bridge, extending upstream for about 1,150 feet, or nearly a quarter mile. This bridge largely hid the river from view in downtown Providence, which was probably all well and good considering that the smell of sewage in the river reportedly caused some people – perhaps Victorian women in tightly-laced corsets – to faint from it.

Most of the buildings in the first photo date to the mid-19th century, but perhaps the newest at the time was the Banigan Building, the tall building on the right side of the photo. It was built in 1896 as the city’s first skyscraper, and was owned by and named for businessman Joseph Banigan. Born to a poor family in Ireland in 1839, Banigan and his family came to the United States in the 1840s during the Potato Famine. Here, he became the archetypical rags-to-riches 19th century industrialist, eventually owning a successful rubber company along with other business interests, including this building.

The Banigan Building is still standing in the present-day scene, and it is joined by several other historic buildings. Just to the left of it is the old Customshouse, which was completed in 1857. It was obviously there when the first photo was taken, but was hidden by other buildings at the time. Two taller historic skyscrapers stand just beyond the Customshouse. Immediately behind it is the Turk’s Head Building, which was the tallest skyscraper in the city when completed in 1913, and to the left is the Bank of America Building. This Art Deco skyscraper was completed in 1928, and at 428 feet high it has been the tallest building in Rhode Island ever since.

Aside from the skyline, the most significant change to this scene has been the Providence River itself. The massive Crawford Street Bridge, its world record notwithstanding, was demolished in the late 1980s, reintroducing the city to the long-hidden river as part of an urban revitalization project. Today, the river is spanned by a series of smaller, more ornate bridges. The river itself is much cleaner than it was a century ago, and now offers gondola rides along with being the focal point of Providence’s regular WaterFire events.

Westminster Street, Providence, RI

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Looking southwest on Westminster Street from the bridge over the Providence River, in 1865. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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The scene in 2016:

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One of the main commercial streets in downtown Providence is Westminster Street, which begins here at the College Street Bridge and continues southwest through downtown Providence and toward the Federal Hill neighborhood. When the first photo was taken, this area consisted primarily of low-rise brick commercial buildings, some of which dated as far back as the early 19th century. The oldest was probably the Union Bank Building on the left, which dated back to 1816. Just to the right of it is Merchants Bank Building, completed in 1857, and on the other side of Westminster Street is part of the large Washington Building, which was built in 1843. Also partially visible in this scene is the 1857 Customhouse, whose dome can be seen in the distance on the far left.

Today, this streetscape has completely changed. Only the Merchants Bank Building remains, now seeming oddly out of place. It has actually gained an additional floor in the intervening years, but despite this it is still completely dwarfed by modern skyscrapers, being literally overshadowed by its neighbor to the left. The Union Bank Building is long gone, as is the Washington Building, which died a slow death in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was partially demolished around 1889 to build a Romanesque building for the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company. Both this new structure and the remainders of the old one were demolished by 1919, when a new, much larger building was completed for the company on the same site. This building is still standing, dominating the right side of the 2016 photo, but it is now owned by the Rhode Island School of Design as part of their campus. The only other survivor from the first photo is the Customhouse building. It is hidden behind modern buildings, but is still standing on Weybosset Street and is in use as a courthouse.