Architecture Here and There

Illustrations: Above, the easternmost three of the seven bays of the Arnold Building, in downtown Providence, after the recent fire. Below: A photo of the building taken after it was completed in 1923. Bottom: A closeup of Theresa's shop

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THE ARNOLD BUILDING, which suffered a fire on Sept. 14, is the little building that could.

Could? Could be razed?

No, could be saved.

The George C. Arnold Building, erected in 1923 on Washington St. in downtown Providence, was not damaged so badly that it can't be repaired. The owner, Pat Cortellessa, has insurance. Even before the fire, he was fixing up the building, including its rear wall, whose cracks could have formed in 1998, after Paolino Properties razed the abutting building, home to Alexander's, a Greek restaurant.

Paolino Properties had razed Alexander's to increase the size of the adjacent parking lot. In 2002, it applied to add above the lot a parking deck with a classical façade. This was rejected (unwisely, I argued at the time) by the Downcity Design Review Committee, which requires new garages to have retail frontage on downtown's "A" (best) streets.

A couple of years later, perhaps intending to sell the land to Paolino Properties, Cortellessa applied to tear down the Arnold Building but his application was rejected. Through it all, the three-story building -- which at twelve-and-a-half feet deep from front to back is the shallowest building downtown -- has housed a tatterdemalion collection of shops: lately, the old-timer Downtown Liquors at the Clemence Street corner, a psychic ("Spiritual Readings by Theresa," above a crystal ball), the defunct Honorbilt men's wear shop (whose mannequins' clothing appeared not to have been changed since the 1970s) and the late, lamented Kevin's Smoke Shop, at the Mathewson Street corner, which was replaced by a small convenience shop and take-out until the fire.

Except for its upper-story apartments, the Arnold Building is a throwback to the downtown of movie theaters and department stores. In between were building after building such as the Arnold (though not as small), with upper-story offices for doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, watch- and jewelry-repair shops, property brokers, dance studios, even small manufacturing operations; and on the ground floors were the many shops and eateries, modest or fine, that catered to the thousands employed in the Financial District's big banks, insurance companies and other corporate, civic and institutional buildings, and thousands more who used to "go downcity" on weekends to shop at the department stores and patronize the cinemas well into the 1960s.

The Arnold Building was typical, and typically elegant in the modest way that historical preservationists describe as "contributing." Such buildings fill the spaces between a city's architectural jewels. In many cities, vast stretches of these "filler" buildings have been replaced by parking lots.

The Arnold has a "7-bay pier-and-spandrel system on upper stories with Chicago windows and decorative metal spandrels; decorative boxed copper cornice supported by consoles," states a 1981 survey of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission. Its shabby gentility of ornamentation is easily missed, perhaps because the shops on that block cater to a down-at-the-heels society that always distracts the eye.

In short, the Arnold Building is a museum with revolving exhibits, evolving mainly in a downward spiral that has tracked the decline of most American cities -- even as the downtown of Providence tries to lift itself up, with considerable success.

Today, the Arnold Building sits at a juncture that, even aside from its historical importance, gives it far greater aesthetic importance than a building of its modest size and look would normally boast. It preserves an almost wholly intact architectural fabric on the south side of Washington Street, from City Hall to Empire Street. Were the Arnold to vanish, the gap in the streetscape would seem much larger because of the Paolino parking lot to its rear and the Journal parking lot right across the street.

Cities with the highest percentage of downtown land used as parking lots are the most derelict cities. Those with the smallest percentage of land used as parking are the most vibrant and prosperous. Think Detroit and Hartford versus New York and Paris. Buildings surrounded by parking lots tend to have down-market tenants. The more that a downtown's buildings have been replaced by parking lots, the easier it is to find parking -- and the harder it is to find a reason to park. Parking lots are assassins of downtown. Replacing buildings with parking lots is not a development strategy but a recipe for civic decline. Instead, parking lots should be replaced with buildings. If a city is active, people will manage to visit. Developers will thrive and -- lo and behold! -- they will manage to afford creative types of structured parking that will not destroy the city.

In short, don't kill Providence to save it.

Let us hope that developers, planners and civic leaders in Providence will keep this in mind when considering the future of the Arnold Building.

David Brussat is a member of The Journal's editorial board (dbrussat@projo.com). His blog at projo.com is called Architecture Here and There.

 Tags  architecture Arnold Building Paolino Properties parking Providence RI

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