<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hello all, I think the point is not what the alternative is — one will be found — there is alerady one proposed by architect Friedrich St. Florian which would maintain the walls and create a cluster of houses within them .. but the number of houses would be a couple fewer as I understand. i am posting below the letter I sent to the CPC so you would see in full my thinking on the importance of not repeating Balton Road in this established neighborhood. Elizabeth<div class=""> </div><div class=""><p class="MsoNormal">Christine West, Chair<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Providence City Planning Commission</p><p class="MsoNormal">Dear Christine West,</p><p class="MsoNormal">I am writing to support the efforts of the citizens
petitioning the City Planning Commission not to approve the developer’s plan
for 288 Blackstone Boulevard. I agree
with all their objections to the current proposal, but would like to make a few
additional points to underscore the importance of the Beresford-Nicholson
estate for the character of the Slater Avenue neighborhood:</p><p class="MsoNormal">If you drive north along Slater Avenue between Mount Street
and Rochambeau Avenue you enter a very different world from the more southern
part of Slater. The east side of this north
stretch of the street is notable for the walls and trees that hide the houses
beyond. The most notable stretch of all begins where Slater, breaking its
straight march from Irving Avenue to Rochambeau, unexpectedly jogs west. </p><p class="MsoNormal">The specific reason for the jog is not due, as one might assume,
to topography. Rather the disposition of this northern stretch of Slater is
explained by the fact that <i class="">before </i>there
was the Slater Avenue we know today there was the Beresford-Nicholson mansion with
its notable out buildings, extensive landscaping, surrounding walls, and buffer
of berms and trees. Without the Nicholson estate, Slater could have run
straight from Irving Avenue north to Rochambeau. The street is deflected westward because it
swerves so as not to cut through the grounds of the Nicholson estate.</p><p class="MsoNormal">One does not have to rely on the drawings for the proposed
development to see how it will destroy the character of this street and neighborhood.
One has only to look at the developer’s work nearing completion on Balton Road --
large houses crowded together, plastered
against the street edge, with prominent garages and driveways rather than grass
and trees -- to see how out of place such a development would be on Slater. This new housing is the antithesis of the
neighborhood that people are appealing to the CPC to protect, a neighborhood that
is notably both modest and gracious, unpretentious and harmonious with a canopy
of mature trees. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Providence is a city of neighborhoods nested within
neighborhoods which give those of us who live here a strong sense of place that
expands from the street we live on to the larger community. These “micro” neighborhoods are defined in
good part by their physical cohesion. Erode
their visible distinctiveness and you erode also the social cohesiveness that
contributes both to their amenity and by extension to their role in creating a
safe and diverse city. </p><p class="MsoNormal">If, when Slater Avenue was laid out, the city saw fit to
adjust the line of the street to protect the integrity of the estate, how much
more reason to protect the estate and its boundary wall today now that they have
become integral to the character of the neighborhood that has grown up around them,
a neighborhood appreciated not only by its immediate residents but by those of
us who enjoy it as a byway that is both of the city and apart from it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I ask therefore in the most heartfelt way that the City Planning
Commission protect this neighborhood that is valued so much for its very
special character and to which the Beresford-Nicholson estate is key.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Sincerely,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Elizabeth Grossman<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Professor of Architectural History Emeritus<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Rhode Island School of Design<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Resident 130 8<sup class="">th</sup> Street <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p>
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