Hudson Furs

About this Property

#Redevelopment

Hudson Furs moved into this former ecclesiastical building in 1939. By then it had been home to two different congregations and had sustained damage to the church spire in the Hurricane of 1938. Very little remains of the once magnificent building that featured a tall spire and steep gable roof.

From what we can tell by looking at the supplied photo of the former church, the remaining building is about a third of what must have been a 50 foot roof height — the tower was 60 foot tall and the spire was 110. The remains were split into two stories of interior space with an added flat roof.

Somehow over time, the unassuming structure became the center of mob activities. Hudson Furs was well-known as a place to purchase and/or store expensive items. In addition to its storage area for such items were more than 100 safe deposit boxes each two by two by four to five feet — much larger than what can be found at a bank. These deposit boxes became a favorite hideaway for the local syndicate run by Raymond Patriarca.

Leading up to 1975, mob associates stored hundreds of pounds of gold bars, gems, cash, and other valuables in those boxes. On August 14th, 1975, the Bonded Vault was robbed. Eight mob-associated men took all five employees hostage and pried boxes open. They made off with an estimated $30 million in valuables.

They fled to various states, with one of them spending their take in Las Vegas. Eventually, all were caught and the organization of the heist was tied back to Patriarca, who felt his associates were not paying him a fair share. The various trials of the participants became the most expensive and longest trial for a bank robbery in Rhode Island history. Raymond Patriarca was never formally charged for direct involvement in the heist.

Much more information about the Bonded Vault Heist can be found in many places:

1. True Crime New England podcast: “Episode 171: The Bonded Vault Heist”
2. Crimetown podcast: “Season 1, episode 4: The Bonded Vault Heist” on Soundcloud, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts
3. What’s Going on in Rhode Island: 50 Years Ago Today: The Bonded Vault Heist
4. GoLocal Prov: What Do FBI’s Files on Ray Patriarca Tell Us About the Bonded Vault Robbery

#Current Events

We think Hudson Furs remains in business as a storage facility for various valuables, though it does not have an active website. The Hudson Furs corporation was dissolved in 2023¹ in favor of Hudson Services. Hudson Service’s last active Annual Report filing was in April of 2024. So they may recently have gone out of business.

This location was part of the 2019 Open Doors RI tour of places that are normally not accessible to the public.

#History

Much of the research here comes from Facebook user Kerry Hopkins, Treasurer of the Burrillville Historical & Preservation Society and Treasurer at First Universalist Church of Burrillville. She was kind enough to share some of her personal research with us.

The building was completed by 1869 for the congregation of the Second Universalist Church, who had only spent five years in their first building on Weybosset Street downtown. A congregation of the Seventh Day Adventists moved from Ontario Street and purchased the building by 1924.

A news story in the Providence Journal dated Saturday, September 24, 1938, detailed how the spire had been damaged:

The steeple of the Cranston Street Seventh Day Adventist Church, badly battered Wednesday night when the gale stripped it almost to its framework, was condemned as unsafe yesterday by Inspector of Buildings Alexander Addeo. […] Despite police orders and the menace of the fragile brick and slate-covered steeple residents in the immediate vicinity refused to move from their homes, saying they had no place to go and that no accommodations had been offered them.

A booklet prepared to commemorate the great storm has a passage about the steeple:

Beauty was sacrificed in the interests of safety immediately after the storm. This steeple atop the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Cranston street in Providence was dynamited after the wind had torn away the roof and weakened the structure. An alert photographer caught the picture just as the steeple started to topple.

While the report talks about the steeple, it is unclear if the rest of the building was also heavily damaged to the point of no longer being a functioning church. The photo shows some damage the the main structure, but it is difficult to tell. Soon after the hurricane, though, the church changes hands. A clipping from the Providence Evening Bulletin on May 28, 1939 details how Hudson Furs was moving in:

“To Become Storage Plant” said the sub-headline. “The permit, issued to the Hudson Cold Storage Company and calling for an expenditure of $15,000, was the largest recorded in this section of the State during the last seven days.”

A 1920 Sanborn Map² shows “Church of the Mediator (Universalist)” on the corner of Cranston and Burgess. There is no postal number, but it is between numbers 115 and 93. A 110 foot spire and 60 foot tower are noted in the drawing.

By the 1951 it is labeled “Cold Stge, Fireproof Construction, Rebuilt 1939.”³ The postal number is 101 and 103. The entire building is labeled with a “2” for two stories. The spire and tower are gone and the roof, though the map does not specify, has been flattened. What remained, and what was likely worth the investment from Hudson Furs, were the thick brick walls. By the 1955 map update, the one-story outbuilding to the west was constructed.⁴

This property is not listed in the Broadway-Armory Historic District, probably because the original building has been severely altered.

#In the News

Last two defendants in Bonded Vault heist have charges dropped

by Doane Hulick
Providence Journal | November 8, 1985 (abridged)

Superior Court Judge Ronald A. Lagueux yesterday dismissed criminal charges against the last two defendants in the 1975 multimillion-dollar Bonded Vault robbery because the state failed to give them a speedy trial.

Lagueux criticized the Rhode Island Supreme Court for reinstating the charges against Lawrence M. “Mitch” Lanoue and Robert S. MacAskill on May 4, 1984, almost two years after the charges had been dismissed by another trial judge.

“What is curious about this decision,” Lagueux said, “is that the Supreme Court could have readily concluded that there was an unexplained delay of two years” on the part of the attorney general’s office in bringing the two men to trial.

“Why the case was sent back (to Superior Court) is beyond my comprehension,” he said.

LANOUE AND MacASKILL were among nine men indicted for the Aug. 14, 1975, robbery at Bonded Vault, a commercial safe-deposit company in Providence, in which an estimated $3 million, much of it in precious metals and jewelry, was taken.

Three were convicted and sentenced to life in prison after a trial in 1976, three were acquitted and one became a witness for the state and was not tried.

Lanoue and MacAskill were missing for two years after they were indicted Jan. 9, 1976, on multiple counts, including robbery, kidnapping and weapons offenses.

Before they could be tried, both indictments were dismissed, in 1980, because the grand jury that indicted them was unconstitutionally composed. The state did not reindict them until December, 1981 — 16 months after MacAskill’s indictment was dismissed and 14 months after Lanoue’s indictment was dismissed.

In September, 1982, just before they were scheduled to be tried, Superior Court Judge Francis M. Kiely dismissed the indictments, ruling that the state had failed to grant them a speedy trial.

Dennis J. Roberts II, then attorney general, appealed.

ON MAY 4, 1984, the Supreme Court reversed Kiely’s ruling and ordered the charges reinstated.

The Supreme Court said that Kiely was wrong to find that Lanoue and MacAskill were not responsible for the delay between their indictment and their trial date in September, 1982.

In his decision yesterday, Lagueux said that Lanoue and MacAskill were denied their constitutional rights to a speedy trial because the state delayed bringing them to trial for at least two years, and had no explanation for the delays.

“By September, 1982,” Lagueux said, “there were two years of delays chargeable to the attorney general and no explanation.”

Lagueux also questioned the timeliness of Supreme Court rulings on cases under appeal.

“The Rhode Island Supreme Court sits on most cases for 1 1/2 to two years,” he said. “It always seemed incongruous to hear the chief justice say (trial judges) should have trials within 180 days when they sit on cases 1 1/2 to two years.”

Judge Lagueux’s decision came after a hearing on a defense motion to dismiss the charges.

Lanoue is serving an 8-year term at the Adult Correctional Institutions for a Johnston burglary.

MacAskill recently was released on parole after serving time for a separate robbery.

— HULICK, DOANE. “Last two defendants in Bonded Vault heist have charges dropped.” Providence Journal (RI), CITY ed., sec. NEWS, 8 Nov. 1985, pp. A-03. NewsBank: America’s News, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=NewsBank&req_dat=D4BD6B42F1AB4706B5E1244D477DEE03&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/1525BEAE532DF920. Accessed 23 Aug. 2025.