From Author:
Urban League, Hospital, other plans discussed at South Providence Neighborhood Association meeting Providence’s South Side is going to see significant redevelopment in the coming months and years. With active projects at the Davey Lopes Recreation Center, Flynn Elementary School site, and Crossroad’s Pine Street and Summer Street apartments, in addition to ambitious planning that is…
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Providence’s City Hall building is in desperate need of a refresh. The iconic slate roof of 25 Dorrance Street hasn’t seen a thorough repair in decades, and some of the cast iron bones of the roof date back to the building’s construction in 1878. This wear and tear is beginning to show inside and out,…
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Prepared by Traci PicardAugust 30, 2024 Author’s Note: The narrative provided below is preliminary as research on Shakespeare’s Head is ongoing. Who was John Carter? John Carter was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1745 to John Carter and Elizabeth Spriggs. He apprenticed as a printer under Benjamin Franklin. Carter moved to Providence c. 1766 and…
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Note: This originally appeared in the Providence Post, PPS’s weekly newsletter. This edition of the Providence Post is devoted to the history and life of Shakespeare’s Head, one of Providence’s oldest surviving colonial buildings, which the Providence Preservation Society owned from 2015 to 2025 (the building’s sale to the Civis Foundation was finalized last week)….
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Timeline Index: Information in this timeline was compiled with reference to John Hutchins Cady’s “The Story of Shakespeare’s Head” (1949), PPS’s building history of Shakespeare’s Head (ca 1960s), the Providence Journal Archives, PPS’s own files, and Traci Picard’s Shakespeare’s Head Research Report (2024). Prior to colonial settlement in the 1630s and the establishment of the…
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“Beginning in the early 1990’s and through the 2000’s, the landscape architect Lalla Searle took on the revitalization of Shakespeare’s Head Garden as a project that deeply resonated with her love of plants, their history and especially their capacity to bring joy to so many. Through a series of phased projects in the 1990s, the…
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The Story of Shakespeare’s Head An Address by John Hutchins Cady at John Brown House, Providence, January 13, 1949 Among the diminishing number of pre-Revoluntionary buildings in Providence which have survived to the present day are nine of particular historic and architectural consequence. These include two public buildings — the Colony House and the Market House;…
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A New Social History and Research Project Planned for the 1772 Building on College Hill May 29, 2025 – On May 28, the historic Shakespeare’s Head building, located at 21 Meeting Street in the College Hill Historic District, was sold to Civis Foundation for operation by the Center for Reflective History, a new nonprofit organization established…
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