In 2002, J. Hogue of Providence saw Fort Thunder at Eagle Square – a warehouse in a pre-Civil War textile factory in Olneyville that had become a hub for artists and musicians – transform before his eyes. As developers acquired the surrounding complex and other large industrial mills, some buildings were preserved, while others were demolished and lost forever. The changing face of the city in the new millennium catalyzed his drive to photograph and document these buildings and others like them on his website, ArtInRuins.com, where he’s cataloged more than 400 properties.
Today, many of these historic buildings in Providence have been preserved and repurposed into residential, commercial, or mixed-use spaces, with many housing beloved local restaurants, blending the city’s architectural heritage with vibrant modern uses. Kristen Adamo, president and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, says these spaces are part of what makes the city unique. “In a restaurant like New Rivers or Pot au Feu, the story is just as compelling as the meal.”
Before it was home to noteworthy restaurants, Steeple Street was a lynchpin of Providence’s industrial past. The Congdon & Carpenter Building and the George & Smith Owen Building were built between 1827 and 1847, and 3 Steeple Street is considered the city’s oldest surviving industrial building on record. Today, tapas bar Palo serves Andalusian dishes there, and many locals remember when it was Fat Belly’s.
Just steps away, 7-9 Steeple Street was a jewelry manufacturing factory warehouse in the mid-19th century. From 1980 to 1989, 7 Steeple was the original home of Al Forno, and today, it’s home to James Beard-recognized New Rivers, a staple since 1990. When renovated before opening, Providence architect Ed Wojcik kept and restored the original wood windows where possible, refinished the existing hardwood floors, reproduced metal shutters based on historic photographs, and designed the front to match proportions from the historic storefront. There used to be a billboard at 9 Steeple Street that was used for Buddy Cianci’s re-election campaign in 1990 that was defaced by famed artist Shepard Fairey – whose “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” stickers can be found around the globe – then a RISD student.
In the heart of College Hill, the Pilgrim Mills building at 101 North Main Street was one of the earlier mill conversion projects in Providence, undergoing a complete interior gut renovation in the late 1990s. “It was derelict for a long time, or so it seemed to be, anyway, from the photos I’ve been able to gather, and there was extensive work to save it,” says Hogue. “That was part of the first wave of thinking about redoing buildings in the downtown area, as catalyzed by the work that had yet to really get started for WaterFire, for the whole park situation.”
Today, the front half of the building is the only part that remains of the original, but Ron Coffey – the managing director at Encore Hospitality, which runs Mill’s Tavern on the main level – takes the role of stewarding Pilgrim Mills seriously. “Our team is very mindful of its history, and proud to be an occupant in a long line of tenants in this 120-year-old building,” he says. “Over the years, the idea to modernize has been considered, from making the dining room more contemporary in style to shifting from our signature wood-burning grill to a more efficient gas grill. Thankfully, those changes never happened, and we are fortunate that our guests and our staff embrace the classic hardwood floors and exposed brick and pipes that we love in the restaurant.”
When fifth-generation contractor Phil Martelly peeled back the layers at The Red Door at 49 Peck Street (formerly Thee Red Fez for two decades) during the bar’s renovation, he knew right away the building was from another era. “I’ve been in the construction industry most of my life, and that place easily dates to the 1800s because of the timbers that were used, and I gutted the place down to the studs. The body of the floors in between, the roof framing, and the actual guts of the building are original.” Martelly, who owns the property with Chris Martelly and Matt Dawson, calls the building a “a strange little property,”
A commemorative plaque at The Red Door tells the story of how the building sustained damage after the Great Hurricane of 1938, when Narragansett Bay submerged Providence under a storm tide of nearly 20 feet. For a period of time, the building also served as a commercial printing company. “I just knew the bones were good,” says Martelly, who left as much of the original components intact as he could.
The Teste Block at the corner of Weybosset and Dorrance streets, designed by architect Charles P. Hartshorn, was built in 1860 and is considered a rare find at four stories high and eyebrow-raising 15 feet wide. It was the second most narrow building in the city, eclipsed only by the 12.5-wide George C. Arnold building at 100 Washington Street (home to Friskie Fries), until hospitality management and development company, G Hospitality, expanded the building in the back.
“The street grid was changing, and so these funny little narrow bits of land would open up and someone would still put a building on it, or they were just different investors trying to make money from commercial rentals 100 years ago,” says Hogue. Among the oldest commercial buildings downtown, the Teste building was once home to an apothecary, a money-to-loan business and for the better part of a century, and the Philip Wolfe Haberdasher – which inspired the name of G Hospitality’s ground-floor restaurant, Sarto, Italian for “tailor.”
Also in the G Hospitality suite is The Rooftop at the Providence G in the abutting Providence Gas Company building, and the nearby G Pub, built in 1923 as The Narragansett Hotel parking garage. “We absolutely love downtown Providence and think that it’s just a gem of a city both for its tangible and intangible values and infrastructure,” says Colin Geoffroy, president at G Hospitality. “Marrying the history with modern needs is really important to us. Providence has such amazing architecture and the adaptive reuse of it I think is really important, and is going to be increasingly important. Maintaining that and helping expand upon it is one of the important parts of helping downtown continue to develop and evolve.”
The Alice Building, which occupies 236-250 Westminster Street, is a seven-story building constructed in 1898 and is considered the first vertical retail center in the US (and America’s first indoor shopping mall, the Arcade, is just down the street). It was renovated in the 1990s by Cornish Associates, igniting the Downcity Arts and Entertainment District. “[The Alice Building] was one of the big anchors that Cornish did downtown to kind of prove that there was a viable market for residential property there,” explains Hogue. Popular Parisian-inspired cafe Ellie’s relocated to the Alice Building in early September, next door to Cielito Mexican Kitchen, the new sister
restaurant of James Beard Award semifinalist Tuxpan Taqueria in Central Falls.
It’s hard to miss the Exchange Bank Building at the corner of Westminster and Exchange streets, which the Providence Preservation Society calls “the earliest known remnant of the mid-19th-century nascence of today’s Downtown” in its Guide to Providence Architecture. The four-story building constructed by the National Exchange Bank in 1845 is a mash-up of architectural styles: part Greek Revival, part Queen Anne style with protruding oriel windows. The bottom floor has been home to Bellini by the Cipriani family since The Beatrice Hotel opened in 2021, which also has a private rooftop lounge cocktail club.
Pot au Feu at 44 Custom House Street is part of the Wilcox Building, built in 1875 for jeweler Dutee Wilcox. “It is by far one of the prettiest and most ornate facades ever built in the city,” says the restaurant’s owner and local historian, Bob Burke. “On the Weybosset Street side, it’s all carved stone, and when you look at the upper floors, you’ll see that it’s festooned with birds and flora and all kinds of things carved into it, which is amazing.” On the Custom House Street side, where the restaurant is located, ornate cast iron pillars were sand-casted in lieu of stone carved to save money. “History proved that the facade for the Pot au Feu was actually far more ornate and unique. There’s only a couple of cast iron facades in the city,” explains Burke. He goes on to describe the reinforced flooring, built to ensure safes of gold and silver wouldn’t crash through.
Established in 1972, Pot au Feu’s past can be found throughout the French bistro, with exposed brick walls throughout and the original stones carved to make the foundation nearly 150 years ago on full display, and if you look closely, chisel marks on the walls.
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