Broad Street Stories, a placemaking project commissioned by Providence, has announced plans to install three art installations on Broad Street in South Providence this June. The installations will aim to honor Broad Street’s long history and represent community perspectives, according to the website.
Fabrication is expected to begin in the coming weeks, and the installations are slated to remain on Broad Street for five years.
“As the Creative Capital, Providence has long embraced art as a core component of its unique identity,” wrote Michaela Antunes, a spokesperson for the City of Providence, in an email to The Herald. “The Smiley Administration is especially invested in public art as a driver for community connection and place-keeping, civic pride and economic development.”
Broad Street Stories is centered on participatory planning, which aims to include community input in decisions related to local development. The three installations are a part of the city’s Broad Street Initiatives: a set of public meetings to foster a “community-led vision for the future of Broad Street,” according to the website.
“Broad Street has always been an important corridor for neighborhood and civic life,” Antunes wrote. “This is an opportunity to honor the neighborhood’s dynamic history and celebrate its community pride.”
The project began in winter 2023 when the city partnered with local nonprofit DownCity Design, and later with Rhode Island Latino Arts. The city “piloted public engagement” through a poster project to ensure that three art installations would represent community members’ input, Antunes wrote.
For the pilot project, posters illustrating the neighborhood’s history were hung on light posts lining Broad Street between Trinity Square and Roger Williams Park, according to the website.
Following the pilot project, the organization “reached out to businesses and individuals who either live or work or own businesses on Broad Street and asked them what they would want to see there,” said Marta Martínez, a community connector for Broad Street Stories and the executive director and founder of Rhode Island Latino Arts.
The Grace Church Cemetery. Courtesy of Rhode Island Latino Arts
After consulting community members, three “historically significant” sites were selected to host the installations, Antunes wrote.
The first site used to house the state’s first bodega, Fefa’s Market, which has since been demolished. The two other sites — the Broad Street Synagogue and the Grace Church Cemetery — hold religious significance for many community members. The temple, now vacant, was once a cultural hub for the Jewish community. The cemetery holds the graves of people who used to live in the neighborhood, dating back to the 1800s.
The design team is due to visit the sites in the coming weeks and draft their initial concepts in accordance with the data gathered by Martínez.
The Broad Street Synagogue. Courtesy of Rhode Island Latino Arts
