Things we could use help with
We have quite a few ideas and topics of interest at ArtInRuins but only so much free time. If any is inclined to find some enjoyment in historic research or photography, we welcome all contributions. Here are some topics we’d love to dive deeper into but if you have your own topics, send us a pitch!
#Research and Documentation
#Properties tagged with “Needs History”
Our Needs History tag highlights properties that are short on historic documentation and research.
#Add Block Island’s Harborside Inn and it history
A fire gutted the building in August, 2023, and it was demolished as a total loss. We’d love to host some documentation, which would be the first property on the site for Block Island. The Boston Globe did a nice write up that provides a good start.
#Brown University‘s BioMed Building expansion in 2002
The expansion of this building in 2003 razed some buildings around it that we missed because it was only a year after we started. One was a former post office, which would be interesting to uncover if possible.
#David Brussat’s list of the 10 Best Lost buildings in Providence (from 2014)
Mr. Brussat was the Providence Journal’s architecture critic for decades and he still maintains a blog. We have a list page of Mr. Brussat’s 10 Best Lost buildings but would need help completing the missing properties. The missing properties are:
- The Outlet Company
- The third Howard Building (1859, James Bucklin)
- The Narragansett Hotel
- The Hoppin Homestead building (1875, James Bucklin)
- The Benjamin Hoppin House (1816, razed in 1875 for the Hoppin Homestead)
We’ll be working on adding some of these to the archives, as there are photo sources at the library. But if anyone knows of non-PPL sources for imagery, please let us know.
#Corliss Steam Engine Company
One of the five industrial wonders of the world, many factories of the industrial revolution were able to move off of water power alone with the advent of the steam power engine. Corliss made the largest of their kind. Their factory was located next to R.I. Tool (map from 1875) where the main state Post Office is now. More info and any photos that can be found of the buildings would be a great addition to the Archives.
#Cranston Open-Air Cycledrome
Similar to the Cyclodrome in Providence/Pawtucket, Cranston had a cycling arena. We mistakenly used a photo of the Cranston track for our page about the Providence one. We’d like to have a page for this one, too.
#Kinsley Park
Mentioned in an essay on our Cyclodrome page, Kinsley Park was an athletic field of the same owner.
#Research the old Boy’s Club looking over South Main Street
From this photo found in the PPS Architectural Slides Collection and then this one found later, the building in the center was located across South Main Street. The street in the center, we believe, is Power Street. A Google Streetview shows the RISD Industrial Trust building to the left and the stone buildings still to the right. It looks like a Thomas Tefft design, but that is unlikely. Others did copy his style.
#Hoppin Homestead Building, 357 Westminster Street
Built 1876, designed by James Bucklin. Demolished ??. Not many photos are available. One from the RISD Museum Digital Archives.
#Interesting properties found in the PPS Slide Archive
- 210 Angell Street (Google Streetview) was a former house partially demolished and captured in the slide archive, undated — 210 Angell Street, Slide Archive
- 38 Bath Street (Google Streetview) has been captured along with what looks to be mill housing further up Bath Street — Bath Street folder
- Photos of the house move of 1 Angell Street
- Wild photos of 12–14 Benefit Street during renovations, all undated. Hard to believe that portions of Benefit Street were ever in such decay.
- In a similar vein, a before and after of 20 Benefit Street, 27–29 Benefit Street, 40 Benefit Street, 50 Benefit Street, 80 Benefit Street, 88 Benefit Street, 94 Benefit Street would be fun. (made it up to reviewing 188 Benefit Street, much more to go)
- Undated photos of 224 Benefit Street while it was being converted into an extension (?) of the RISD Museum.
- Great example of the restoration before and after of an old, old home. The window transformation is wonderful at 362 Benefot Street
- An empty lot with garages along Benefit Street that we believe now has a house on it could use some investigation.
- We’d like to know more about the story at 77 Benevolent Street, which looks to be a house that was razed. This looks to be an earlier photo of one of the houses as well.
- Wanskuck Mill Houses along Brand Avenue
- Trinity United Methodist Church, now Southside Community Center
- Amazing transformation, this photo would be a great before and after. 115–117 Brook Street
- A block of houses lost when the Wheeler School expanded. 407–409 Brook Street, 411 Brook Street, 415 Brook Street, and 419 Brook Street
#Developer Tasks
You don’t have to be a historian or photographer to contribute! We have some ideas about to improve the functionality of the site as well. The site is in a public Github repository and it is built with Jekyll, SASS for CSS, and vanilla Javascript.
#Interactive Map
Each property has a latitude and longitude associated with it as well as a Google Maps link. We’d like to visualize categories of properties on maps. We’d like to use Open Street Maps instead of Google but that requires a map tile rendering engine service. If anyone has expertise in setting these things up, that’d be a great project to contribute.