From Robin Amer
| 00:49:32
Producers: Robin Amer
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Review of Reconstructing Providence: Adaptive Reuse, Urban RevitalizatThe producer takes a complicated, potentially dry topic and delivers a fine treatment. There’s lively audio, an interesting original score, and fast-moving, cogent narrative. Piece wisely focuses on two neighborhoods, giving us time to get to know at least a few protagonists and get a real sense of place and of the issues involved. Unhappy artists fearing eviction from illegally occupied mill live/work space tail a building department guy as he inspects: “This place will go up like a matchstick.” The artists’ want affordable, flexible housing, the city wants to keep them alive, especially after the horrific Station nightclub fire. A group of developers want to raze the mills and build a super market, preservationists want to preserve the industrial heritage of the city. Other developers plan for adaptive reuse of industrial buildings in a neighborhood of immigrants who fear being forced out by the gentrification wave that inevitably follows artists. While sympathetic to the artists’ point of view, the lens ranges wide. Although this is about Providence, the issue exists in any urban setting –– affordable housing is scarce all over the country. Conveniently in two parts so could run as short series. Glad to see a talented young producer tackle this kind of subject. |
Originally broadcast on WRNI Providence, on Focus Rhode Island, August 20th, 2004.
RECONSTRUCTING PROVIDENCE:
ADAPTIVE REUSE, URBAN REVITALIZATION & NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE
Written & produced by Robin Amer
Edited by Paul McCarthy & Jim Moses
Original music by Alec K. Redfearn
HOST: If you walk around Providence, you can’t help notice the giant red brick buildings scattered though most of the neighborhoods. With their distinctive smokestacks and eight-foot tall windows, these are the city’s mill buildings - former textile mills or jewelry factories, once the economic engines of the city.
All together, there are nearly two-hundred and fifty old mills in Providence, left over from the city’s days as an industrial powerhouse. But since industry left Providence for points south and then overseas, those buildings that weren’t reoccupied by artists or small businesses fell into disrepair, or, in worse case scenario, burned down. For this reason, the city saw them as eyesores...
Read the full transcript
("Forcefield," Lightning Bolt, the Power of Salad (DVD), Load Records, 2003, ~15 seconds)
Justin Grotelueschen
Posted on October 24, 2004 at 06:12 PM | Permalink
Review of Reconstructing Providence: Adaptive Reuse, Urban Revitalizat
A news-y topic that's not treated by one. The score is wonderful but at times abruptly comes in or cuts off. Other than that I like this quite a bit. Another crappy story about artists working to build a community and a city tearing it down in a fit of greed. Plenty of Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) standing up in community meetings to deplore the rising costs of these new Providence art spaces. More than any producer I've heard in a while, Robin talks to the listener in a conversational tone that doesn't sound canned, just telling a story -- she's learned how to write for her voice. Highly recommended.