State House Grounds

Introduction

Overlooking downtown Providence from a terraced plateau, the historic Rhode Island State House and its park-like grounds occupy an elevated site on Smith Hill. The monumental Beaux-Arts structure was designed by the famed architecture firm McKim, Mead & White, with construction completed in 1904. A proposal is currently under way to build an “intermodal transportation center,” potentially to include mixed-use commercial buildings, on the historic lawn of the State House and possibly on the acreage of State House Park, adjacent to the lawn. Although special regulations governing the public land around the State House, including the park, unequivocally forbid any building on open ground, the State of Rhode Island is currently reviewing a response to a “request for qualifications” that would bring the proposed transportation center one step closer to being built.

Bird's-eye View from Industrial Trust Building, Providence, R.I.

History

In 1894, the area of Smith Hill, in Providence, was officially chosen as the site of the Rhode Island State House. The choice had been heavily endorsed by the Public Park Association of Providence, chiefly because any building there “could be readily seen from all parts of the city,” as an 1882 pamphlet produced by the Association proclaimed. Land in the area was also relatively cheap because Smith Hill was then separated from the downtown area by railroad tracks and railyards. The initial six acres of what would become a sixteen-acre site were acquired in 1895. Having won a competition to design the State House, McKim, Mead & White, one of the nation’s leading firms, was awarded the contract, and building began later that same year.

Aerial photograph of the State House grounds, looking north, circa 1920, courtesy of Providence Public Library

A report by the Historic American Buildings Survey states that “a plan by Manning Brothers of Boston was accepted and implemented in time for the delivery of the [State House], its terrace approaches and grounds completed, to the state on June 11, 1904.” The extent of the work completed by the Manning Brothers firm, run by well-known landscape architect Warren H. Manning and his brother, Woodward, is, however, uncertain. In photographs from circa 1907 and 1910, there are trees dotting the otherwise open lawn, and a low, evergreen hedge running the perimeter of the grounds. In 1913, landscape architect John R. Brinley, of the firm Brinley & Holbrook, submitted a “General Planting Plan” for the grounds of the State House, but the extent to which it was implemented is also unknown. Aerial photography circa 1920 shows evenly spaced rows of trees planted along the eastern slope of the lawn, between the footpath that echoed the line of Francis Street, to the west, and Gaspee Street, which formed the eastern boundary of the grounds. By the early 1960s, trees had been planted in allées framing three walkways leading from the southern façade of the State House to Francis Street.

The most radical changes to the landscape came in the 1980s, when a train station, replacing one located farther south, was built on the southeastern border of the State House lawn. The railroad tracks were shifted, Gaspee Street was realigned, and the southern stretch of Francis Street was straightened to create an axial approach to the State House’s southern facade. Three-quarters of an acre were ceded from the State House lawn in the process. To mitigate the loss of acreage, State House Park, just west of the new train station, was created to “serve as an extension of the lawn and positively enhance the esthetic vista from the State House.” In 1981, the Capital Center Special Development District was established, in part, to “create visual and physical linkages between downtown Providence and Smith Hill.” Notably, the new train station, built in 1986, was kept to a single story in height so that it would not compete visually with McKim, Meade & White’s masterpiece, which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.