|A statue of Roger Williams looks out over Providence. Photos by
Tim Lehnert Providence, Rhode Island's Benefit Street: An
Architectural Showcase by Tim Lehnert Back in the 1950s, the
City of Providence had a plan to raze part of historic Benefit
Street and redevelop it, but the city didn't have the funds.
"Providence was too poor at the time for that," says the Rhode
Island Historical Society’s Betty Pettine. Sometimes the best
urban renewal is that which doesn’t happen at all. Benefit
Street is rich in residential, institutional and religious
architecture of the Colonial and Victorian eras. Stretching 1.2
miles on Providence’s East Side, Benefit functions as an outdoor
museum comprising both grand buildings and simple houses.
Downtown Providence lies just to the west, and the campus of
Brown University a few blocks to the east. Home to the
Establishment Benefit Street came into its own in the 1780s,
almost 150 years after Providence’s founding by Roger Williams,
who had been expelled from nearby Massachuset