Adrian Hall Way skatepark, initially slated to be squeezed by Trinity Rep’s renovation, now to be expanded in collaboration with skateboarders, Trinity, and Parks Department

The Adrian Hall Way skatepark is just small enough that if you’re not in the know — or paying attention — you could miss it.

The triangle-shaped park, officially known as Trinity Mews but now called the Trinity Skate Spot, is sandwiched between a parking garage and Trinity Repertory Company. The park is just shy of 7,000 square feet, and has been an unofficial skating haven since at least the 1990s. In 2018 it was remodeled to include new skating features. But it was originally built to be an outdoor theater space for Trinity Repertory Company that was owned by the City.

Beginning almost two years ago, the future of this sliver of space became the center of an intense debate between skateboarders and the Trinity Repertory Company.

Trinity is undergoing an extensive, $35-million renovation to its building at 201 Washington Street, originally designed by William R. Walker & Son. The Emery Majestic building, home to the Chace and Dowling theatres, features an iconic, glazed-terra-cotta facade and was constructed in 1917.

Now called the Lederer Theater Center, the facilities haven’t been updated for decades, according to Trinity’s Executive Director Katie Liberman. “The most significant part of this project is about ensuring that people can have full access to all the spaces,” Liberman said. This entails a 12,000 square foot addition, designed by Boston-based architecture firm Flansburgh, that will include a new elevator. Presently, sections of the top floors are only reachable by stairs, which would change with the modern addition.

Current building code requires their new elevator to be double the size of their current one. “Surrounding that new elevator will be an addition to the building of about 12,000 square feet, which will have five stories of programming,” including lobby space and offices, Liberman said.

“We had some discussion about whether we [should] just leave the building altogether and build something new in a different location, which in some ways feels easier, but we feel so tied, both iconically and personally, to this particular site,” Liberman explained.

About a year ago, the Providence City Plan Commission (CPC) approved the abandonment of the alley so that Trinity could build the modern addition and ADA-accessible elevator without bumping into auto traffic. 

But then skaters pushed back, fearing that the addition would encroach upon the recreational space — at one point, the proposal would have put a manhole in the center of the skate park, and skaters were concerned about bumping into pedestrians with the narrowed walkway. Skateboarders had also spent years designing and outfitting the space to fit their community’s needs.

“It’s shrinking the space, intensifying the use, and it feels like a zero for the alleyway that is completely unrealistic, spatially unrealistic, and is a recipe for conflict we’re trying to avoid,” Will Cornwall, skateboarder and a founder of the non-profit Friends of Adrian Hall, told the Providence Journal last May. “It creates a bottleneck for pedestrians.”

After months of contentious debate and collaboration mediated by Providence’s Department of Parks, Trinity and the skateboarders finalized a compromise this past April — and plans for a bigger and better Adrian Hall Way skatepark and pedestrian walkway alongside a more accessible and updated theater are in the works. 

Competing Interests in a Small Space: Reaching the Compromise

When City Council voted to abandon Adrian Hall Way on April 3, six Council members spoke about the process and how this compromise was reached.

“This was a very long, interesting, collaboratively, at times pretty tense process on getting to the point where we are,” said Ward 6 Councilor Miguel Sanchez, “As a member of the Public’s Work Committee, I’m very happy to report that we got to a point that allows Trinity to continue and for Friends of Adrian Hall Way to have a skatepark that will fulfill the needs of the skateboard community here in Providence.”

Ward 15 Councilor Oscar Vargas, Ward 1 Councilor John Goncalves, and Ward 7 Councilor Ana Vargas also rose in support. Ward 2 Councilor Helen Anthony thanked Parks Director Wendy Nilsson for her work to accommodate competing priorities on this project.

“It seems that this process has impacted all councilors,” Ward 4 Councilor Justin Roias said with a laugh as he also expressed his thanks. The scale of City Council and community involvement was remarkable for such a small space.

Sam Greenwood, the landscape architect on the project with the City, helped to mediate the competing interests for the sliver of land. “We had, I would like to say, at least three or four meetings with all parties represented,” Greenwood explained.

Cornwall explained that at first, some of the younger skateboarders had to learn how to interface with local government. “This funny thing happened, where, at the early meetings, everybody was like, ‘Well, we don’t know anything about the process,’” he said. “Talk to your aunts and your uncles, your cousins, and let’s figure out who it is that we actually know. And little by little, it became kind of like, immediately apparent that our community group is one step from everybody that we need to know.”

“It was more about bringing everybody else in the line, into the process, just sitting everybody down and being like, ‘Alright, guys, I can’t lift this on my own,’” Cornwall said. “Everybody has to collectively lift their voices.”

So the skateboarders worked hard to lobby their representatives — garnering citywide attention on the park, despite the small space being in Ward 1.

“Both Trinity and the skateboard community were gaining something that was going to be part of a greater whole,” Wendy Nilsson, director of the Parks Department, said. “In order to do that, I think, we had to look at the plans, eke out as much space as we could [and] really listen in terms of what was going to be safe.”

“I think the thing that really helped to sort of turn it around was the discussion where the skate park community came to the table with some really concrete ideas on how to do it,” she added.

Liberman noted that Nilsson and Greenwood’s mediation was crucial to reaching a compromise. “In our collaboration with the Parks Department, and in conversation with City Council and the skaters and the Mayor’s office, we’ve come to an agreement that will transform that alley into something new.” 

“We have come to an agreed upon design that includes an expanded footprint for the skate park, a pedestrian walkway that will still connect Washington and Fountain streets that will be walkable and accessible for all, as well as a small sort of plaza on the Washington Street side with added plantings and benches and places for people to be outdoors and to create a real public park space for gathering and activation in Providence’s downtown,” she continued.

The Friends of Adrian Hall Instagram account posted on April 3 that “under this plan, the existing skatepark will be preserved in its entirety, the recreational area will be grown in a more meaningful way, and the theater addition egress has been changed to allow for safer use by all members of the public.”

Greenwood explained that some features on Washington, near the entrance to Trinity, will be multifaceted — so perhaps on one side, they are decorative, and the skateboarders can grind on the other. He said he was excited about what the park will become. “It’s going to be next to what I believe will be a pretty stunning addition, this kind of glass box [next to a] beautiful historic theater.” Greenwood added that they are striving to make the park welcoming to everyone —  skateboarders, theater-goers and beyond. 

But this isn’t the first time that this alleyway has been the topic of an arduous review process. From its original formation as an ad-hoc stage area to an officially constructed theater space, and then to a makeshift skaters’ haven into a designated spot with features for skateboarding, this park has been responsive to the uses Providence residents have carved out for it from its conception.

The History of the Park and Creation of Trinity Mews

When a segment of what was then Aborn Street was closed for a week of outdoor theater in May 1975, it was meant to be a temporary arrangement

The Providence Journal reported on May 6, 1975, that as part of the City Celebration — a party organized by Mayor Buddy Cianci’s administration — an outdoor theater space was to be constructed. “Adrian Hall of the Trinity Square Repertory Company and his organization have been talking for several summers about offering open-air entertainment and a space for people to gather at lunch time to hear performing groups, or just to listen to speakers who have something to say. Now they have found the support and encouragement they needed and have closed off Aborn Street to construct a stage and seating area,” The Journal reported.

Trinity’s then tech director, Shaun Curran, coordinated carpenters to construct “a five-foot-high, 24-by-12-foot stage on the sidewalk, putting up the plywood panels” that would feature paintings, The Journal reported on May 8, 1975. Most of the materials were donated, and the installation was intended to be temporary: “On Monday, Trinity Mews will turn back into Aborn Street again. All things must pass,” the May 8 Providence Journal article continued.

On May 19, the ProJo reported that the effort was a smashing success. “‘We proved that it is simply a marvelous meeting place,’ Hall said! [sic] noting that between 300 and 500 people had shown up every lunch hour last week.”

A week and a half later, The Journal reported that the city would sponsor Trinity Mews to run two or three shows a week for the entire summer, free-of-charge for audience attendees. And it was a hit — people thought the effort was good for Downtown.

“Davis Blyss, who came downtown with her daughter specifically to see the performance (and enjoy a hot dog), said that Mayor Cianci was to be commended for putting up the funds,” The Providence Journal reported on July 8, 1975. “It should be done more often. It’s great to revitalize downtown Providence,” Blyss told The Journal.

But the initial run for Trinity Mews ended in January 1976, when City Council demanded that Aborn Street be reopened to cars — but Cianci hoped to see Aborn Street become a permanent pedestrian mall. “I really think the city needs the Mews,” the Mayor told The Journal on Jan. 7, 1976.

The city solicitor at the time, Louis A. Mascia, had demanded that Trinity remove the barricades blocking the street, since their permit to do so had expired in November 1975. City Council approval was needed to permanently close the street.

Councilor Edward W. Xavier and “other Council Democrats have warned that the Republican mayor is using the Office of Community Development as a means of governing without Council review.”

Then the plans to officially carve out and abandon Aborn Street were held up for about five years. The biggest hang-up for the Providence Redevelopment Agency and the City Solicitor was traffic concerns.

The City’s Traffic Engineer Frank Tibaldi weighed in, saying that auto traffic needed to continue to flow through Aborn. “City planners still hope to build a ‘Trinity Mews’ of reduced size, and are now working on revised plans,” The Journal reported on March 19, 1979. 

The plans were changed, and in the spring of 1981, construction began. “The $165,000 project will be financed by money remaining from the $4.9 million federal grant received in 1977 to rebuild Westminster Mall and adjoining streets,” the ProJo reported April 13, 1981. The Mews were paved with red brick, and the project was designed by Malcolm Gear Designers.

Finally in May 1982, the park was dedicated, The Providence Journal reported on May 16, 1982.

For a few years, it seems the Mews were a regularly used performance space — but relatively quickly, skateboarders began to frequent the area.

A Providence Journal story from Aug. 6, 1990, detailed Providence’s skateboarding ban:

“Justin Bigos of Warwick puts one foot on his skateboard, then pushes off with the other.

He heads for a ramp made from an overturned plastic garbage can at the other end of Trinity Mews, a concrete stage and plaza next to the Majestic Center Parking Garage on Washington Street.

Thunk, thunk. He and his skateboard are on top of the container, then over it and swinging around. But he and his four skateboarding friends are not supposed to be here.

A Providence ordinance bars skateboarding on streets, sidewalks, highways and pedestrian malls such as the Mews, said Richard S. Tamburini, deputy chief of police.”

Though skateboarding was technically banned on the streets of Providence, that didn’t stop these skaters at Trinity Mews. Bigos and four friends spoke with The Journal in 1990, explaining that “skateboarders, they said, are angry. Wearing the unofficial uniform of skateboarders — baggy shorts, solid-colored T-shirts and baseball hats — they told of having skateboards confiscated and confrontations with police. ‘We could go pick pockets, but we’d probably get into more trouble for skating,’ said Greg Chihoski, 14, of Warwick. His friends nodded in agreement.”

Skateboarding only became legal in Providence three decades later in 2020, with the Council folding skateboarding into the bicycle traffic code. This change came after one of Cornwall’s friends was injured in a collision with a car while skateboarding. “As the settlement progressed, they wouldn’t give him as much money, because he was in some way at fault,” because this skateboarding ban was still on the books, Cornwall said. It was one of the first ordinances to be passed virtually during the pandemic.

In 1997, the alley was renamed Adrian Hall Way in honor of the former director of Trinity Rep, who retired from that work in 1989 after 26 years. The dedication ceremony was on Hall’s 70th birthday, The Journal reported Nov. 26, 1997.

But when you visit the park today, some of those original theater features are gone. Stairs have been turned into concrete slopes, and the former stage is lined with steel for easier gliding on a skateboard. 

“From like 1990 onward, we would pull plywood out of the [theatre] set dumpsters and make these embankments like this,” Cornwall said, gesturing to the concrete that now covers what had been stairs. “So these features are an offshoot of that, like a nicer version of that ad hoc thing that we were making out of trash.”

“With more traditional skate parks, all the features are kind of derivative from either swimming pools or from water management infrastructure, like open channels,” Cornwall explained. “But then there’s kind of this whole other branch of it that is more from how urban renewal architecture played out.” 

Trinity Mews was constructed more like a city plaza, paved with brick rather than smooth concrete, and it became a renowned skatepark for its unique structure. During the 2018 renovation of the park, the skaters ran with this inspiration. Cornwall himself helped lay down some of the pavers added to the park at that time, using this original brick in the additional structures.

“Levi’s was doing a marketing campaign where they’re giving different communities funding to build something that they would then come and film like content,” Cornwall said. “So that was 2015 and that was November or October, and then the Parks Department pitched it as an architectural intervention, which was super successful. And so we then kind of embarked on this longer journey of the more comprehensive renovation, which is everything at this point.”

Although many of the hard edges at this point are covered in that smooth steel, Cornwall said he still prefers the raw concrete. “It’s just a really satisfying crunch,” he said, smiling.

“We’ve created, I think, eight different skate parks or features since I’ve been here in 10 years, and we’ve done all of them in partnership with the skating community,” Nilsson explained. Greenwood has overseen work on the Neutaconkanut Park and Hill Skatepark and the Manton Avenue Skate Park.

Cornwall emphasized that the community education and relationship building that came out of the Adrian Hall Way process was essential. “I was a builder [and] came out from the construction approach, and I was just obsessed over the design and the construction over it,” he said. Over the last 10 years, he’s realized “it’s all built on relationships and organizations and community.”

“The outcome is good, but also just the fact that, like on the other side of it, there’s a couple dozen people that have a better understanding of how the city works and how they can engage with it moving forward” is important, he said. “Because over the course of their lifetime, there’s going to be stuff that’s a lot more important than this.”

Greenwood emphasized that more community buy-in for skateparks and parks of all kinds is important. “Despite how arduous or drawn out the process was, it’s great to have supporters of the parks, and a lot of our neighborhood parks have these ‘friends’ groups, but not all of them do,” he said. “And when there is a friends group, that park tends to be a better park.”

By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org