Wonderful Providence

Providence is the capital of the state of Rhode Island in the U.S.

The Rhode Island State Capitol is a city landmark. It was built of white marble and has the world's fourth-largest self-supporting dome. It was built in the neo-Classical style.

Federal Hill rises to the west of Downcity and is the heart of the Italian-American community.

The Botanical Center at Roger Williams Park has lovely indoor and outdoor gardens. The Botanical Center is the largest public indoor display garden in New England and among the top attractions in Providence. There are two greenhouses and the Conservatory and the Mediterranean Room have more than 150 different species and cultivars of plants among them cacti, agave, palms, and aloe.

The large outdoor gardens feature a lovely winter garden and a wooded hillside garden with various trees and shrubs. There is an amazing rose maze, a pine Dell and a perennial garden. The park also offers many horticultural and environmental programs and classes for the public who are interested in botanical studies.

Waterplace Park and Riverwalk border the Woonasquatucket River that winds through Downcity, Providence. The city celebrates this river several times during the fall, spring, and summer when more than 100 bonfires are lit on large iron pans in the center of the river and kept blazing all evening as people stroll along the brick riverside walkways and footbridges.

The Museum of Natural History and Planetarium offers visitors more than 250,000 objects that relate to the natural world. There is a lot of information in the document and photographic archives. One of the highlights is the world-class collection of plant fossils from Coal Age Rhode Island some of which are over 350 million years old.

The Culinary Arts Museum is a teaching museum at Johnson & Wales University and is devoted to the preservation and interpretation of the culinary arts and hospitality heritage. The museum has over 250,000 items among them vintage restaurant menus and over 60,000 cookbooks. There are permanent and temporary exhibits that take visitors on a culinary journey from the Roman Empire to 20th Century New England. Visitors have the pleasure of tasting, testing, and sipping along the way.

The Providence Performing Arts Center or PPAC is a world-class theater. It offers contemporary entertainment and Broadway shows. It opened in 1928 and is the second-largest theater of its kind in the U.S. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also supports community outreach programs for emerging artists and children and annual fundraising events.

Benefit Street was once the social, cultural, artistic, civic, and intellectual heart of Providence in the Colonial and early Federal periods. Today it is the most famous street in Rhode Island. Here you can see Victorian buildings and lovely gardens and feel like you have stepped back in time.

Lovecraft House was originally located at 66 College Street and then moved to 65 Prospect Street. It was the home of Howard Phillips Lovecraft a horror fiction writer. He was born in Providence and lived most of his life here. He used this house as a model for the home of his character Robert Blake in the story “The Haunter of the Dark”. Lovecraft also wrote his autobiography here “Some Notes on a Nonentity”. Unfortunately, the house has a plaque reading “Samuel B. Mumford House” but nothing about Lovecraft.

It is close to Prospect Terrace Park, a small park which the author loved to visit and it features a giant statue of the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams.

The Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design features historical and contemporary textiles and dress collections with over 26,000 objects from ancient Egyptian clothing fragments and Elizabethan needlework to 20th-century American designers and Japanese Noh Theater robes. There are other collections as well and in the Ancient Art section, you’ll find a mummy and a coffin. Many well-known artists are featured in the Painting and Sculpture collection.

John Brown House was the house of a prosperous colonial merchant. It sits high on a hill overlooking the wharves at India Point, from which ships came and went during the China trade. The house is filled with the Brown family furnishings and some fine examples of works by Rhode Island’s famed cabinetmakers.

The John Hay Library has an outstanding collection of one-of-a-kind books and manuscripts. It has three anthropodermic books meaning “bound in human skin’. The library also has the papers and personal library of John Hay, who was the private secretary of Abraham Lincoln and late Secretary of State. There are also the personal manuscripts and letters of horror master H.P. Lovecraft. The library is open to all members of the Brown community and to the general public.

The Roger Williams Park Zoo opened in 1872 and is among the nation’s oldest zoos. It has become one of Rhode Island's top tourist attractions. The zoo is home to more than 100 species of rare and interesting animals from all over the world. It is also known for its award-winning conservation programs. It showcases animals typically found in Africa, Australasia, South America, and the Tropics.