Documenting Change since 2002

Unique places have special stories

We document the architectural landscape and collect the oral, written, and photographic history of important places in Rhode Island. We hope to be a safe space for storytelling, memory-sharing, and dreaming about the future of the built environment. More about A.I.R.

383 properties and 7 Essays with 6,549 images. Browse more from our Categories and Tags.

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1,947 anecdotes from people just like you.

  • The history is incorrect. It was the Civic View Inn at the end of 1974 and early 1975. I know because I worked as a waiter during the lunch hours at the Clam Shell Restaurant (a legitimate respectable lunch-time restaurant) on the first floor in the front of the building. In t...
    Juan Mariscal on Diocese House
  • I worked there during the same summer as Mike McGuire! I don’t remember him, unfortunately, but I sure remember my job of putting the jewelry pieces into the plastic bags, over and over again. Like Mike, I remember well the feeling of the building: the high walls and that wood...
    Virginia Lockwood on Coro Company Building
  • Found a vintage pair of Welsh sunglasses in my grandfathers basement. Would love to see them repaired!
    Brady Reed on Welsh Manufacturing
  • I’m wondering if any interior photographs exist of the Gilbane Exchange Place engine house. (A.I.R.: We really wish we could find some)
    Harry Cohoon on Central Fire Stations, Providence
  • It is still sad shortsightenness that this engine house was closed leaving a huge response hole in the East Side thus extending the time equipment would be on scene. The simplest answer to the question of reuse is to reopen the house.
    Harry Cohoon on Providence Fire Station no. 4
  • I was thinking, can we save this building? My thoughts are to bring it over to Wrights dairy Farm.
    Joseph Riley on Milk Can
  • When I was very young, early 1960s, we passed this building on the way home from Worcester (my grandparents) to East Providence. I remember 2 signs/billboards that I believe were on this building. One was for the bus to NYC, about $9 (RT? One way?) and another that simply said...
    Jennifer Moody on Blue Ribbon Beef
  • My grandparents, Charles and Pearl O’Connell,lived in one of the cottages. My grandmother was a nurse and my grandfather was a cottage master. I’m 77 years old and I believe I was five or six then when I visited last. I also remember, that there were glass containers to captur...
    Dianne C Doering on Sockanosset Boys Training School