A History of Kennedy Plaza

A History of Kennedy Plaza. Kennedy Plaza. , The Great Salt Cove, a tidal pond, once filled the area that has become, over the past 160 years, the city's center for transportation, civic life, and commercial activity. Formed between 3800 and 2700 years ago, it was a major Native American settlement and a crossroads for travelers along Narragansett Bay, up the Blackstone River or to Massachusetts Bay. Little development occurred after European settlement on the east side of the Providence River in 1636, but by the Revolution four wharves extended from the Cove's east bank. Building on the west side of the Providence River increased after 1750, and Cove Street, constructed on the waterfront in 1827, regularized the Cove's southern edge., The Cove was first significantly transformed in the mid-1800s. In 1844, the Providence and Worcester Railroad petitioned the City to fill the Cove to create an elliptical Cove Basin, 1300 feet long and 1180 feet wide. On the filled land, they built rail lines, freight houses, and the then-largest rail station in North America. Union Station, designed by Thomas Tefft, stood immediately south of the Basin. The area in front, 150 feet wide and 900 feet long, was named Exchange Place. Soon it was lined on the south by large commercial buildings., Exchange Place grew in civic stature after 1870. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, commemorating the Civil War was erected at its west end in 1871. Just beyond it, a lot acquired for that purpose in the 1850s, the Second-Empire-style Providence City Hall, designed by Boston architect Samuel F.J. Thayer, rose between 1874 and 1878 to anchor Exchange Place's west end. In 1887, the equestrian monument of General Ambrose E. Burnside was installed at Exchange Place's east end., Conditions apparent by the 1880s led to the next transformation of Exchange Place. Trolleys regularly passed in front of Union Station and enhanced public transportation connections. The Cove Basin, never properly engineered, had become polluted and silted. Two hundred trains daily came through Downtown Providence, crossing streets at grade and creating traffic problems. By 1889, the city, state, and railroads agreed on a plan to fill the Cove Basin, move the rail lines north approximately 200 feet, and build a new Union Station complex on an artificial knoll well above street grade. Reconfiguring the Cove Lands began immediately, and construction of roads, bridges, and the new Union Station complex, designed by Stone, Carpenter and Willson, continued for almost ten years. In 1896, fire damaged Tefft's Union Station, but it remained in use until the new station's completion, after which the old station was destroyed., The reconfigured Exchange Place provided transportation and public-space improvement opportunities, but fifteen years passed before they were all realized. More than 400 electrified trolleys (introduced here in 1892) passed directly under the elevated Union Station made direct connections between local and long-distance public transportation. The open space north of Washington Street created by moving the rail lines was developed in 1899 as City Hall Park. In 1901, a fountain commissioned by Paul Bajnotti to memorialize his late wife, Carrie Brown Bajnotti, was installed in the eastern half of City Hall Park. In 1902, the city acquired the lot at the east end of Exchange Place and deeded it to the United States government for a new Federal Building; built between 1903 and 1908, it handsomely balances City Hall on the west. But controversy surrounded the development of the area south of Washington Street. Merchants wished to keep it open for free parking. Some lobbied for public open space, with a landscaped mall the length of Exchange Place. Others wanted a trolley shelter., [Captions:] , Providence's new Union Station replaced the original 1848 structure which had been heavily damaged by fire., A view of Exchange Place, circa 1900, shows City Hall and the Soldiers and Sailor monument at the west end as horse drawn sleighs, private carriages and passenger trolleys travel through the city., Horse cars were introduced in 1864 and ran until electrified streetcars gradually replaced the animal powered vehicle. The last horse car ran in 1894., Electric street cars were introduced in 1892 replacing horse cars and creating a new transit worker - skilled mechanics who maintained the fleet of cars.