Lay of the Land
Travel Tips: Neighborhood Guide
Although many visitors to Providence, especially business travelers, elect to stay in hotels in the recently rejuvenated downtown area, much of the city's appeal lies in the diversity of its neighborhoods. Spend all of your time in the vicinity of the new Providence Place Mall and the Rhode Island Convention Center and you'll miss much of what Providence has to offer. Neighborhood highlights include:
— College Hill: Many of the city's top historical attractions lie east of downtown on a promontory rising from the opposite bank of the Providence River, site of the first permanent colonial settlement in Rhode Island. The College Hill neighborhood is where you'll find Brown University, the Benefit Street preservation district, the impressive RISD Museum and the youth-oriented shops and entertainments of Thayer Street.
— Fox Point: This largely working-class residential area south of the more affluent College Hill district has long been the center of Providence's Portuguese-American community, though more recently an influx of students and academics has injected a hip and artsy element to the neighborhood. Look for cool cafes, galleries and antique shops along Wickenden Street east of Benefit, and a pleasant stretch of publicly accessible shoreline at India Point Park (www.friendsofindiapointpark.org).
— Federal Hill: In the early 1900s, waves of Italian immigrants settled here in what had been an Irish working-class community, and their influence remains strong in this colorful neighborhood just west of downtown. The main commercial strip, Atwells Avenue, offers a tantalizing selection of restaurants, cafes, bakeries and gourmet shops, and while Italian specialties take center stage, Chinese, Mexican and other international cuisines are represented as well.
— Roger Williams Park: Some residential areas south of downtown Providence show little sign of benefiting from the city's ongoing renaissance, but this lovely 430-acre urban green space near the southern city limits is a great place for outdoor recreation. It's also home to an impressive zoo (www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org) with roots going back to Victorian times.
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