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huron9000 t1_j386puf wrote

Reply to comment by Kelruss in The Arcade - Providence RI. Said to be the oldest shopping mall in America. Only a couple downstairs storefronts were occupied. by quinntronix

It’s smack dab in the middle of downtown. That should be the interesting enough- the street life, the commerce, the architecture. The architecture, at least is mostly still there…

The reason to cut through would be to buy and/or eat something from one of the small businesses that used to populate the Arcade.

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Kelruss t1_j39ak0e wrote

> It’s smack in the middle of downtown.

Geographically (maybe), but not socially. Like, it used to be the case that there were more people when it was surrounded by offices and right across from the Fleet/Bank of America offices. But almost all of the buildings around it have tons of vacancies, and it’s centered in a bunch of parking. It’s not a “place” so to speak, it’s just a building out of the way.

Like, if you think about how people flow Downtown, they don’t flow east along Exchange and Weybosset. They mostly flow southwest down Washington and Westminster, south towards PPAC, or north toward the mall and train station. With the CIC and the beer garden and the pedestrian bridge, that’s a new destination.

But the Arcade is just sort of tangential to all of these flows, just a little too out of the way to attract the foot traffic it needs to thrive. That’s not its fault, of course, it’s just the reality after years of Downtown being hollowed out.

It’s possible to imagine a future where it’s the focal point of a journey with some creative placemaking, but I don’t think that’s necessarily what a lot of its neighbors care about.

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