From Dave Brigham:
I apologize in advance for this, but I often feel the need to explain my headline choices:
I'll admit that before posting that video, I couldn't recall what a paw paw is. I may have known when I was a kid and had occasion to sing the song. It's a fruit.
Anyway...let's dig into Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the fourth-largest city in the smallest state in the Union. This marks only the second time I've explored any municipality of Lil' Rhody. In September 2017, I wrote about a mini-vacation my family took in Newport (see September 28, 2017, "No Yachts, No Mansions").
I covered a lot of territory back in late June, so I'm splitting this review into two parts.
But first, a note about pronunciation. I've been saying "Paw-tucket" forever, but someone I met recently who lives on the South Coast of Massachusetts corrected me. "It's "Pah-tucket," he told me. Fair enough.
I like to park near town or city halls when I explore a place. Sometimes there's free parking, and usually such a building is located in the center of the action. So, after finding my spot in the lot on Roosevelt Avenue, I headed west for a short distance along Exchange Street. I was quite taken by the mural on the side of the Graham Building.
Built sometime between 1926 and 1929, the building was likely erected by the owner of H.L. Graham & Sons, a plumbing contractor, according to the National Register of Historic Places registration form for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District.
As for the mural, it was completed by Rene Gomez for the Mental Health Stigma Campaign. "'I suffer from ADHD and I struggle with it every day. I also have an autistic son and it’s also something touching, meaningful to my heart,'" Gomez said in this NewsNation article. "'Being Hispanic, I had to put a Hispanic message up there,'" he continued. "'I grew up in a household where it wasn’t OK to cry and talk about my feelings, and that’s a stigma I would like to break.'”
"The murals also feature sign language and it’s LGBTQ-friendly because, to Gomez, it doesn’t matter who you are — mental health is mental health," the article continues. The mural program is in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Latino Arts.
Next, I cut down Montgomery Street, after getting a peek at a ghost sign.
The Times newspaper was founded in Pawtucket in 1885 as The Evening Times. "Five years later, David O. Black bought the paper, and became the first of four generations to keep it in his family," per Wikipedia. "Black commissioned a new building for the newspaper at 23 Exchange street (sic)." The building was completed in 1896, and was the home of the paper until 2019.
"In October 2023, [current owner] Triboro Massachusetts News Media announced that The Times would be merging with sister paper The Call of Woonsocket to become The Blackstone Valley Call & Times, a Monday–Saturday newspaper," Wikipedia continues.
The old newspaper headquarters, which was designed by architects William R. Walker & Son, has been vacant since 2023, I believe.
Facing the rear of the old Times building, at the corner of Summer and North Union streets, is the former Henry Arnold Livery Stable, which in more recent years was home to Feldman Furniture. Below is a ghost sign facing southeast along Summer Street (I will feature another ghost sign from this building in a follow-up post).
(Ghost sign for Sealy Mattress on side of old Feldman Furniture building.)
"Henry F. Arnold was the proprietor of the Broad Street stables in 1891, when he first appears in city directories; an advertisement boasts '37 fine livery horses, and almost every description of carriage,' available 24 hours a day," per the Art in Ruins web site, quoting from the National Register nomination for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District. For this post, and the one to follow, I relied as heavily on Art in Ruins as I do on MACRIS when writing about Massachusetts towns and cities.
"In 1892 Arnold...moved the stables to this new building...with 176 horse stalls on the ground floor and two floors of carriage storage above. The stables were accessed from North Union Street, while the three storefronts on Summer Street were occupied by various small, mostly auto-related businesses. In 1921, H.M. Arnold & Son Co. converted this building to a vehicular garage, and maintained that business until 1940. In 1945 Feldman’s Furniture Co. moved in, with retail space on Summer Street and storage on North Union...."
Check out that web site for a photo of the great Feldman's sign that used to grace this building. When I was in the city, there appeared to be construction under way at this site, likely for condos.
Next I headed north-northwest on Summer Street, where I immediately spotted another great mural on the side of 28 Summer Street.
This work features Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Enslaved as a child, Wheatley was emancipated by the Wheatley family of Boston shortly after her book was published in 1773. I have referred to Wheatley before, in a post about Boston's Chinatown neighborhood where a plaque honors her memory.
This mural was painted by Lee Adam Beard, an artist who goes by Soems. This mural and two that I will showcase below, as well as others in the downtown, all feature farmous Black people from history, per this article on the Valley Breeze web site. Developer Leslie Moore spearheaded the project on various buildings she owns.
Just up the street, at 3 Exchange Street, is a wildly colorful depiction of a peacock.
The mural on the side of the Beswick Building was created by local artist Charles Clear, according to this Valley Breeze article. As for the Beswick, it was completed in 1891 "for Frances Beswick, widow of a saloon keeper and brewer who lived on the opposite comer of Exchange and Summer Streets in the early 1890s," according to this Art In Ruins article.
The building has suffered two fires in its lifetime and has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Developers have announced plans to renovate the place. I'm not sure of the status of that project.
Next, I made my way southeast on Main Street, where I was pleasantly surprised by two more Soems works of art.
This mural features William Grant Still, a composer born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. He composed nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works, per Wikipedia. This work is located on the side of the Still on Main, a group of shops with the motto, "Eat. Shop. Vibe."
The building is known historically as the W.T. Grant Building. Grant's was a department store chain founded in Lynn, Mass., in 1906. The chain was in business until 1976. In more recent years, the building was home to the Mill River Arcade, Preachers on a Mission and The Grant, a live entertainment venue.
Just up the street is The Green on Main, an events and retail space that Leslie Moore opened in 2022.
"The Green on Main, located in the Artéé Fabrics & Home building at 230 Main St....is intended to resemble a downtown park, complete with tables for eating or playing board games such as chess, and comfortable hanging chairs," per this Valley Breeze article. There are vendors and food offerings in the space, which is intended as a place for businesses that can't maintain regular hours, while adding life to Main Street, the article continues.
I'm not sure how many tenants are located in what is known historically as the Toole Building, which rose in 1892. Two floors were added in 1922
The mural at the left side of the entrance, another one by Soems, pays tribute to Victor Green, a postal employee who, with assistance from his wife Alma, started the Green Book in Harlem in 1936. "[C]alled alternately The Negro Motorist Green Book, The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, and The Travelers’ Green Book over its 30-year existence," the guide was one of "the most successful and long-lived" methods of helping African-American travelers during the Jim Crow era know where they could safely eat, shop and lodge, according to the National Park Service.
The NPS web site quotes Dino Thompson, a native of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about the importance of the Green Book: "...[it] didn’t tell you if a place had a good steak, or good seafood, or had a soft bed...it told you where you would be safe; it told you where you’d be welcome and not made to go around the kitchen and order something to go...The rest [of the guide books out there] are just fluff...To my mind, it’s still the only necessary travel guide that’s ever been printed."
Frankly, I'm surprised the Trump administration has allowed this information to remain on the NPS web site.
From there, I wound my way south on East Avenue, and then west on Church Street. There, I made a less than great image of the Slater Cotton Mill apartments (let's blame it on the sun angle dissuading me from getting a better shot).
Built between 1880 and 1889 for the Slater Cotton Company, this massive mill building by 1892 contained 1,475 looms and employed 600 workers, according to this Art in Ruins write-up. The company "apparently fared poorly in the first decade of the 20th century," that blog post continues. "By October 1908, it had fallen so deeply in debt that it was reorganized as a new corporation, the Slater Manufacturing Company. At this time, its functions were broadened to include manufacturing of silk cloth."
The company continued to struggle and by 1918 it had sold its various operations and become a real estate holding company, renting space to other manufacturers. In succeeding years, the building was used by ER Hutchinson Co., which made jewelry displays. I'm not sure whether other companies also occupied the old mill before 2007, when a developer acquired the property and converted it to apartments.
Across Church Street, at 450 Main Street, is another old mill building, which I assume was once part of the Slater complex.
This building, which dates to *ahem* 1900, is currently home to the city's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among other outfits.
From there I continued north on Pine Street, across Main, where I made a photo of Atlantic Furniture, which is located in yet another old mill building.
Known historically as the James S. Brown Machine Shop, this brick building runs for 400 feet along Pine Street between Main and Bayley streets. The mill dates to the 1840s and was built for Brown, who was a metal worker who toiled for a company called Pitcher and Gay, per Art in Ruins.
"Even before the construction of the 1848 factory, James Brown had a substantial and well-deserved reputation as a machinist and inventor," the Art in Ruins article continues. "In 1831 he invented a machine for cutting bevel gearing; in 1838 he patented a machine for boring the tubes of speeder flyers from solid iron; and in 1842, he patented a lathe for creating irregular metal forms. In the new shop on Church Hill, Brown built a variety of textile machinery, including mules and speeders, and cordage machinery; by the mid-nineteenth century, the factory employed three hundred hands."
A jewelry manufacturer occupied this building in more recent years before the furniture company took over a long time ago.
Across Pine Street running perpendicular is another mill building that's almost as large as Brown's machine shop. Built in the late 19th/early 20th century, 248 Pine Street is a 35,000 square-foot old factory that, on the day of my exploration over the summer, was on the market.
Originally home to H.A. Briggs & Co., this facility was used, among other things, to process cotton waste.
What is cotton waste? Well, the Old Structures Engineering blog, in discussing this very building, has an answer: it "apparently means scraps (left over from making various cotton products) that are being reused, with cleaning being a common use. In other words, rags, maybe fancy rags."
More recently, this place was home to Summit Manufacturing Corp.
On the corner of Pine and Bayley streets is Don Armando Meat Market.
Zoom in to see the little square cow near the door. The company has been in business for quite a few years, I believe.
At the corner of Bayley and Commerce streets I spied a sign for the Rhodium Room, operated by RI Spirits, a distillery that makes products using the Rhodium name.
Also located in this cluster of buildings is Isle Brewers Guild and The Guild, each of which offers contract beer brewing.
I continued north on Commerce Street, and snapped a photo of an old mill, a smokestack and a new development along Goff Avenue.
The complex is known as 125 Lofts, a community of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The development is located in the former Union Wadding Company complex (also seen in the image below).
"The Union Wadding complex used to be the site of nineteen one- to four-story brick buildings with a prominent round-section chimney sited next to a late 19th-century boiler house," per my new friend, Art in Ruins. Check out that link, as it features tons of great photos. Makes me wish I'd walked around this area a bit more before moving on.
Anyway, back to Union Wadding: "The cotton wadding and waste business was prone to fire; several fires between the earliest development of the site in 1847 and 1870 destroyed most of the original factory buildings. A major fire in October 2010 — unrelated to the manufacture of cotton wadding but under suspicious circumstances — claimed ten buildings at the west end of the complex. The surviving Union Wadding buildings represent building campaigns carried out between 1870 and ca. 1930."
The company went into receivership in 2004 and subsequently went out of business.
I headed east on Goff Avenue, then north on Broad Street, having no idea about the urbex fantasy world I was about to encounter.
Accessible via Broad Street, between Clay and Barton streets (the latter of which is blocked off), the Pawtucket-Central Falls railroad station was completed in 1916 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The station, which straddles Pawtucket and neighboring Central Falls, was in use for barely 40 years. As regular readers of this blog know, I don't really do urbex. But obviously plenty of other people have explored this place.
"In 1959, the station building itself was in disrepair and was closed," according to Wikipedia. "Thereafter passengers accessed the platforms via stairways from Barton Street. The station was served by New Haven Railroad trains, then later by MBTA Commuter Rail, until Rhode Island stopped funding service past Attleboro on February 20, 1981. The station building was considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, but this was deferred due to concerns about its structural integrity. During the Northeast Corridor Electrification Project in the 1990s, the station tracks were relocated to increase clearances for the Acela Express to tilt when going around the curve."
I've ridden Amtrak trains through here many times over the years, but never realized that I was riding underneath this old station. But when I traveled to New York City in early October, I paid attention, pointing it out to my son as we rolled on by.
In January 2023, a new station opened a short distance west from the old one, just past the 125 Lofts development I highlighted above.
Next I walked east on Clay Street until I hit Roosevelt Avenue. I was now fully in Central Falls. I think. Google Maps tells me I was; the web site for Mel-Co-Ed, Inc. says the company is located in Pawtucket. I believe that, like the train station, this building is split by the border.
In this very pleasant industrial building, Mel-Co-Ed produces pendants, pins, bracelets, necklaces, cufflinks, tie clips, hang tags, medallions, and more, per its web site. The operation was founded in 1948 in Warwick, Rhode Island, and moved to this location in 1964. A third generation of one of the founders now runs the company.
I ventured just one building north -- definitely in Central Falls now -- to make a photo of K&W Webbing Co.
"K & W Webbing is a family-owned U.S. manufacturer...with over 100 years of combined hands-on experience in textile manufacturing and engineering design," per the company's web site. The company's "facilty includes a complete dyeing and finishing plant and equipment for the application of special treatments. Our experience in the production of webbing and tapes assures you of the highest quality at the lowest price consistent with that quality."
I crossed back into Pawtucket, where in short order I stumbled across a statue that's stirred some controversy.
Known as Toleration or Tolerance, this metal sculpture was created by artist Peruko Ccopacatty and installed in August 2021. Located at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Exchange Street, overlooking the Blackstone River, the work depicts Rev. William Blackstone. He was an early settler of Boston who moved to what is now Rhode Island in 1635. He is considered the little state's first permanent English settler.
His surname adorns not only the river this statue abuts, but also the Blackstone Valley, the town of Blackstone in Massachusetts and the Blackstone Canal, among other places.
"The statue, as is the case with many public art projects is not without controversy and Blackstone’s past was called into question as inappropriate to be recognized due to historical issues with Native Americans at the time of the founding and development of Pawtucket," per this RI News Today post.
This, despite the fact that "[l]ittle is known about Blackstone’s direct interactions with Native Americans," according to this article from the Valley Breeze.
I don't know much about Blackstone, but I'll say this, the statue certainly stands out.
Make sure to check back in two weeks for the second part of my Pawtucket report, featuring old mill buildings, a beautiful armory, a lonely carriage house, a historic riverside mill, an amazing diner and much more!
