In light of the new proposal for Kennedy Plaza and my response to it in a post yesterday, here is a column I wrote in 1992, looking forward to 1997. I reblogged it in 2014 after the last KP redesign proposal, and I am reblogging it again today. It has a bit on merging Burnside Park and KP.
Architecture Here and There
View of Kennedy Plaza from the “Narragansett Plaza.” (marriott.com)
Here is the 1992 column mentioned in today’s post “Let’s ruin Kennedy Plaza” in which I suggest merging the plaza with Burnside Park to form a Central Park for Providence. I also placed the bus hub under “Kennedy Park.” On the whole this attempt to forecast the success of what was still being planned in 1992 is mawkish and unconvincing from the perspective of 2014. I cannot suppress my belief, however, that if Providence had continued to build revivalist architecture it had built in the 1990s rather than shifting to modernism as it has, the city would have done a much better job reflecting the success predicted in this postcard. And now they’re destroying Kennedy Plaza, too.
Postcard from Providence, 1997March 4, 1992
FLEW INTO GREEN at about noon, grabbed a cab to Providence, and checked into the Biltmore (the…
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