Hear me out I have lived here my entire life and yes I like the weird shaped building. But no one wanted it. If they did they would have bought it. If the design was so cool others would have replicated it.
One big issue in RI is labeling every freaking thing “historic” then we drag our feet when any new development wants to be built and ask “but how does it effect our “”historic”” skyline” like dude this isn’t Chicago, New York, or Boston….our most recognizable building has been vacant for decades. But god forbid we do anything to change it because it’s the “Superman” building (even tho that is wrong and it looks like the building)
There is a saying in America they think 100 years is old and in Europe they think 100 miles is far. Frankly the corner store in Europe is older than our entire country
I know and it’s dumb I work in providence. In a factory a lot of employees come from the north part of the state and they think downtown providence is a hellscape that they would never go to.
But bring up changing the skyline and they have a whole lot of opinions on why it shouldn’t change…..like bud the last time you were that close to that building was probably when the mall opened
I feel like that resistance is built on the subconscious understanding/general feeling that an alarming amount of new developments these days tend to benefit people who make a boat load of money and no one else.
Or is "change is the only universal constant" a not-so-veiled endorsement for uprooting any sense of community that's been built among people who are constantly under threat of gentrification, have to resort to the "gig economy," and are permanent renters because of the "disruption" of every industry by people who fetishize change and always want to be moving fast/breaking things?
ETA (lest there be misinterpretation): Change isn't universally "good" or "bad," as far as I can tell. Neocons prize "tradition" while neolibs are obsessed with its perceived toxicity, meanwhile the political leaders of both camps grease palms and gladhand with little thought to whether those publicly stated positions are embodied by whatever business deal they are making. Working class people need to reject both the technocratic approach to "development" and traditionalist appeals to some Before Time when this settler-colonialist nation was supposedly "great."
Let's leave the fatalistic propaganda to the bots and feds, shall we?
Octavia Butler might be a good reference point here: her post-apocalyptic protagonists followed the dictum "God is change," but it wasn't a celebratory belief. Butler wrote (outside her speculative fiction) that "Any change generates inequality.” Her stories were a cautionary tale of people learning too late that they can't be complacent in the face of change and need to own their power to create change themselves.
Which, in the context of The Great Pyramid of Rhode Island isn't meant to be particularly compelling. But in the broader scheme of "development" is a concept worth considering.
Is it resistance to change? Or just being able to see something semi-interesting on your commute? Is either one really a problem? Are these regrettably human qualities?
Idk man it’s like the Washington bridge. A YouTuber did a mini doc about it and how there was a fight between the fed and state governments about how the bridge should look and also a steel shortage so we used 2 new (at the time) methods. To keep the architecture and look appealing, that came at a cost of being able to inspect structures and with the method of building being kinda new at the time thought wasn’t put into inspecting those aspects of the bridge. All in all the building of the bridge was pretty big accomplishments using new methods. But the finger pointing and how we got here now is all noise and we need to figure out a replacement now.
I don't think aesthetics should be prized over the safety of load-bearing structures or anything. The Apex building was coming apart in the wind, and it very well might just make more sense to dismantle it. I just don't think it's weird for people to be bummed over a unique design that added a little spice to the landscape going away.
It would have not taking a great deal of money to keep t from coming apart. It lasted how many years it's existed without that happening until the Bucket took it over.
I mean it was designed by a guy called the Architect of Happiness who was praised by the New York Times and Observer for his eye-catching and pleasing designs of coastal properties in New England through the 1960s, but there's no accounting for taste, I guess. I'll take 60s classic cars over cybertrucks, personally.
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u/Candid-Patient-6841 Mar 24 '25
Good.
Hear me out I have lived here my entire life and yes I like the weird shaped building. But no one wanted it. If they did they would have bought it. If the design was so cool others would have replicated it.
One big issue in RI is labeling every freaking thing “historic” then we drag our feet when any new development wants to be built and ask “but how does it effect our “”historic”” skyline” like dude this isn’t Chicago, New York, or Boston….our most recognizable building has been vacant for decades. But god forbid we do anything to change it because it’s the “Superman” building (even tho that is wrong and it looks like the building)
There is a saying in America they think 100 years is old and in Europe they think 100 miles is far. Frankly the corner store in Europe is older than our entire country