Lawrence moves out of its funk

The old Ayer Mill building on the Merrimack River in Lawrence

 From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Old cities can be brought back, if not to their boom times,  at least to more stability and even a modicum of prosperity. An example to watch is Lawrence, Mass., an old mill town on the Merrimack River. Even with the effects of the pandemic, the city is much better off than it was a decade ago, when Boston Magazine called it “City of the Damned” – a center of rising crime and poverty. (I spent some time there back in the fall of 1968, when I was teaching high school  next door, in North Andover, Mass. It was a downer then but it still had a fair number of mills operating and was far from the disaster it became by 1990.)

A group called the Lawrence Partnership has been a key to the city’s economic and social revival. This includes a bunch of business and other community leaders formed in 2014 to “stimulate economic development and improve the quality of life” in Lawrence.  This group has helped strengthen the city’s finances, cut crime, improve education and lure new business. COVID has made things more difficult, of course, but the city’s leaders are pressing on.

Lessons for cities in southeastern New England? Hit this link to learn more.

In the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, Massachusetts National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets surround a parade of strikers.

In Lawrence, the bizarre High Service Water Tower (1895), also called Tower Hill Water Tower, named an American Water Landmark in 1979 by the American Water Works Association

Too rich for Providence?

Providence Place

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal 24.com

‘Nordstrom’s announcement that it will close its store in Providence Place, in the Rhode Island capital’s downtown, didn’t surprise me. I was always skeptical that a large high-end department store could succeed in Providence; I’m surprised that it has lasted this long. There aren’t all that many very affluent people around here, and some of them do their expensive shopping in relatively near – and very big – Boston and New York. Boscov’s, which will take Nordstrom’s place, is mid-to-down-market.

Further, the rise of the Internet has posed a huge threat to large department stores in general, except for very down-market chains such as Dollar General.

As I’ve written before, what will survive and, in some places prosper, are some smaller specialty stores with close connections with affluent neighborhoods – e.g., Wayland Square, in Providence, and Main and Water streets in East Greenwich – or in destination/resort towns such as Newport.

Nordstrom’s exit is a blow to Providence Place, and more are likely to come. But the huge building does have something big going for it: It is a very attractive and solid complex made of good materials and all or part of it could be retrofitted for other purposes, such as education, health clubs (with swimming pools!), state and/or city offices and even a hotel or two. It’s not your typical big-box-based suburban mall.

Maybe a company called Scape, which runs student housing in the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland, should look at Providence Place. The Boston Globe reports that the company says, in The Globe’s words, “that it will spend $1 billion over the next few years to develop privately run student housing in Boston, and it will also locate its North American headquarters in the city.’’

The Globe continues: “It’s a move that could help meet the huge demand for college housing in Boston, where an estimated 36,000 undergraduate and graduate students live in off-campus apartments, and establish a new model for student housing here — independent of any particular school and less taxing on universities’ already-tight budgets.’’ Lots of college kids in Providence, too.

To read The Globe’s story, please hit this link.

Let it be high if beautiful

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

The Fane Organization wants to put up a 46-story skyscraper in downtown Providence. Some folks are outraged at its height. Not me. I wouldn’t mind if it were 90 stories if it had a superb design. Wouldn’t it be fine if people a ways down on Narragansett Bay could look north and see a  gorgeous, glittering tower on  the horizon announcing that there’s a real city there!          

But unfortunately, based on what’s been shown so far, it’s likely that something banal, like a condo tower in Fort Lee, N.J., will go up