Architecture Here and There

Illustrations: Above, the Grove Street School just after illegal demolition was halted in 2007. Below, the school before demolition; the school seen from Broadway; the stop-work order; the school with its tarp; inside the school; Michael Tarro; the Rhode Island State House. (Several photos courtesy of ArtinRuins.com)

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When writing about architecture and preservation in Providence, a sense of the absurd comes in handy. Take the Grove Street School, built in 1901 for children of the mostly Italian families in the Federal Hill neighborhood.

Five generations were educated at Grove Street, a red-brick school of six rooms with separate arched entries for girls and boys, as was common back in the day. In 1974, the school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its graceful Italianate design by the local architecture firm of Angell & Swift may be seen from a block away on Broadway, parallel to Grove, through the parking lot of the Tarro & Sons Funeral Home.

In the late 1970s, with school enrollments falling in the city, the Grove Street School was decommissioned as a public school. In 1982 it was sold for $10,000 to the undertakers across the street, who told the city that they wanted more parking and promised to demolish the school. The promise remained unfulfilled for the rest of the century. Meanwhile, the historic Broadway neighborhood underwent a revival that transformed the school from a white elephant into a potential golden goose.

For more than 25 years, however, the school sat there, achieving a sort of elegant dilapidation, a case of demolition by neglect. Only in the middle of the past decade, after refusing offers to buy the building for far more than they paid for it, do the Tarros seem to have suddenly reconceived the idea of tearing the school down.

On Feb. 3, 2007, after botching their applicaton for a demolition permit, the Tarros and their demo contractor ignored a city stop-work order tacked onto the school's door and began to bulldoze the school's southeast corner -- the girl's entrance. Neighbors called the police, who enforced the order on the contractor, but not before serious damage was done.

Since then, the school has waited, its crumpled corner sheathed in blue plastic wrap, as the Tarros have lost battle after battle in a legal fight with the city, the West Broadway Neighborhood Association and the Providence Preservation Society, which seek to save the building. Testifying to the building's structural virtuosity is that it has survived a quarter century of malign neglect followed by a bulldozer attack, a fire, efforts by its owners to bang away at its interior supports, and exposure to weather.

Even after the Tarros' illegal attempt to demolish the school, it still attracts potential buyers. Structural engineer Wilbur Yoder has testified to its structural soundness. Spurwink/RI's offer to buy the school as a home for the disabled is still on the table. Charles Hagenah Architects has outlined an attractive proposal for 15 condos pending the economy's revival.

Which brings us to the Big Bad Wolf.

Leading the attempt to huff and puff and tear the school down has been Michael A. Tarro, son of undertaker Richard Tarro, who bought it in 1982 but died in 2001. A lawyer whose offices are a few doors down from the mortuary, Tarro, 47, has been an assistant solicitor for Providence since 1999. Now, after failed campaigns in 1994 and 1996, he is -- absurdity of absurdities! -- the new representative of Federal Hill in the General Assembly. He is a textbook example of the fox guarding the chicken coop.

Can the Little Red School House survive the newly fortified power arrayed against it? The question would not make sense if Federal Hill's new representative had any sense of his duty to his constituents. What the neighborhood needs is leadership in helping a beautiful and historic district reach its potential as a place to live and do business. Demolishing the venerable school for yet more parking suggests that in the Tarrovian political imagination, duty to his family business trumps duty to his constituents. Michael Tarro seems to see his office as a resumption of his family's hold on a seat held in the past by his late father and grandfather. Their most interesting constituent was probably the Mafia kingpin Raymond Patriarca. Uncle Ronald was the city tax collector under the Cianci and Paolino administrations. So it goes . . .

Seats in legislatures the world over are held by many people for a variety of reasons, some of them honorable. Some legislators of lineage act so as to exalt the idea of family, dynasty and legacy in politics. Others do not. Representative Tarro holds the fate of the Grove Street School in his hands, and with it the hope that he will seek to improve his district and the lives of all his constituents, not just those named Tarro.

The end of the tale and the moral of the story remain to be written.

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

 Tags  David Brussat Federal Hill Grove Street School Michael A. Tarro Providence Preservation Society Providence RI West Broadway Neighborhood Association

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Frank M. said:

TYPO: Change the year in the photo caption from 1977 to 2007.

Link | January 16, 2011 2:50 PM
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