ProJo Columnist Doesn't Like the Vision of a Future Providence, Complete with Boarded-Up Library

It’s 2021 in Providence, and it’s a scary sight. (Providence Journal "Lifebeat" column by Mark Patinkin, 7/3/2011)

Excerpt: I walk hurriedly past the former Providence Public Library, shut down seven years ago in 2014 when the city went bankrupt due to the pension crisis. The windows are boarded with plywood. It’s a classic Renaissance structure that’s now a shell.

There’s an ironic word, renaissance.

That’s how everyone used to describe Providence — a dying mill city that improbably came back to vibrancy.

No more.