36 Hours in Providence, Rhode Island: Things to Do and See
Photographs by Tony Cenicola
By Lauren Matison
One of America’s oldest cities, free-spirited Providence is a playground of history and creativity with a long tradition of resistance. You can easily stroll from Downtown, enlivened with new public art, across the Providence River, to see well-preserved 18th- and 19th-century architecture. There are new galleries and museums, including a groundbreaking feminist cultural center and the African American Museum of Rhode Island.
Saturday 10 a.m.
“Alice H. Parker” by Quinn Bryan at the Alcove
A block over on Broadway, feel pulled to a wall of portraits at the Alcove, a feminist cultural center that opened in January. Among 32 newly commissioned paintings by local artists, part of the center’s inaugural exhibition, “Founders and Inventors who Shaped Our World” (through mid-2027), are Rhode Islanders like Mary T. Wales and Gertrude I. Johnson, the founders of Johnson and Wales University, and inventors like Alice Parker who created the gas furnace in 1919. The center’s Biographical Library documents the lives of more than 2,000 under-recognized scientists, innovators and thinkers. The Alcove is rooted in “the belief that if you can see it, you can be it,” said Khamry Varfley, the curator and public programs manager. Admission is free, with additional access for paid members.
