It sees Weybosset and Westminster streets teeming with horse-drawn wagons and trolleys; a boy no older than eight poses jauntily in one shot, puffing a cigarette. It sees enormous crowds — men in dark suits; women shaded under parasols and wearing elaborate frilly dresses — swarming downtown for the dedication of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. It sees baby carriages and butchered meats inside the Sprague Company General Store and rows of hulking, impossibly intricate linotype machines inside the Journal and Bulletin printing offices.
The crowd is dazzled and, as the libations flow (this is happy hour, after all), the presentation soon becomes interactive, with participants shouting anecdotes and identifying photos by landmarks like the Grace Church steeple. Marco Lomazzo, a senior at La Salle Academy, is slightly more demure, but no less entranced. He periodically looks down from the screen to scribble excitedly in a pocket notebook. He's fond of reading historical plaques around Providence, he explains at the intermission, so tonight's show is like catnip. It bumps his homework — reading Hamlet — a bit further down his to-do list.
"I'll read that later; I can do SparkNotes for that," he says. "This is more important."
There is no definitive date for the next show, but Connors, the Historical Society, and the Roots, all seem interested in making the presentations a regular happening. Check rihs.org for more information.
Topics:
This Just In
, Providence, 3D, 19th century
