Great Destinations

Providence, Rhode Island

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Newport, RI
Boston, MA
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White Mountains, NH
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Nowhere is this more evident than in the section of Providence known as "downcity." After years of neglect and lost battles with suburban malls, the historic district's stately granite buildings are filling up again with college offices and classrooms, apartments, and performing-arts space. Just a few blocks away, the recently constructed Marriott Courtyard, an elegant 210-room hotel, is giving visitors an excuse to stay overnight in downtown, while the nearby Providence Place Mall, a 150-store shopping center just off I-95, has attracted some of the country's biggest retail chains.

Providence is a city of rivers, and the renaissance of the downtown has brought with it the return of these waterways. Gondolas and water taxis glide up and down the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck Rivers, slipping under arched bridges, running parallel with the new granite walkways. Throughout the year nearly a million people turn out for WaterFire, a "fire-sculpture installation" that illuminates the city with a series of small bonfires in metal braziers that blaze just above the surface of the rivers that pass through downtown Providence.

With all the excitement of the "new" Providence, be sure not to miss the old, historic Providence. The finest collection of 18th- and 19th-century homes in the country can be found on Blackstone Boulevard or, better yet, on Benefit Street in the heart of the city's Historic District. In nearby College Hill, stately Victorians rub up against the campus of Brown University and parts of the Rhode Island School of Design, blending college culture with city history.