For years, an archiac Providence building resembling a haunted house, at the intersection of Chestnut and Elbow streets, greeted N4N when he reported to work. As fate would have it, I had a front-seat view from my perch in the Doran Building when a giant backhoe demolished the old building on Wednesday. Not even a coat of paint, curiously slapped onto the building in the last year or so, was enough to save it.
Mike Corso, formerly the in-house lawyer for Cornish Associates, a driving force in creating the state's historic tax credit, and the owner of tazza, acquired the property, known as the Pardon Clarke House, and tells me that he plans to build a three-story office building on the site. The building is actually much older than I surmised, as revealed in the following Jewelry District Association description, but Corso said it was too badly damaged to be preserved.
155 Pardon Clarke House (c. 1823):
This is a 2-story, end-gable roof, frame house with a side-hall plan built in the Federal style. The house sits on a high granite ashlar and stuccoed rubble stone foundation, with a
twin flight of stone steps, with a wrought iron handrail on one flight, leading to the front door, which is flanked by three-pane sidelights framed by two pairs of narrow Doric pilasters. An elaborate bracketed hood and raised wooden paneling in the transom area beneath it were apparently added in the late nineteenth century. The house, which has a brick chimney near thc center, has a I-story and a 2-story back building, both with gable roofs. Several small jewelry firms have occupied the building since 1920. Alterations include asphalt shingles over the clapboards and new one-over-one double-hung sash windows, which apparently replace some earlier changes in the fenestration. There is a 2-story, flat-roof, brick and concrete block addition on the north side.
Here are some other recent changes in the Jewelry District, besides Brown's steady acquistion of property:
-- There's a new Starbucks down around J&W.
-- The RI office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation recently moved into the neighborhood, not long after the architectural firm of Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels.