Forgotten Providence

One block from 276 Grove St.

Multiple time boarded loser here—at least once since 2001. Currently wide open to the breezes or whatever else blows in. Someone has started work on the interior—you can see the plaster tore down to the studs. New wiring too.

But no one to call it home.

Update 5/03/09 by Funsickle

Graffiti inside and out!

No juice. No foreclosure data either—likely missing owner then. Graffiti and boards appear new to 2009.

Foreclosed upon in 2006. Sits in purgatory for a few years. A part-time-local buys(/tries to rescue) it in 2008, neighbor says puts about $40K into renovations. House then sits empty for a few months while owner is away in Florida (he’s a lawyer). Waiting for rental tenants.

The tip came in from Phil like this:

Another long time abandoned house at 136 West Clifford St in South Prov.
house is the first one in where W. Clifford crossed Somerset St

The back door has been kicked in and the house is a magnet for the local
kids where they hang out at night and vandalize the adjacent community
gardens…

A good neighbor corroborates the exact same story. He says he chased kids out of the house many times and was repeatedly in contact with the owner to get someone over to shore up the house or get someone living in it at least temporarily.

None happened. And after the first window was broken, they all went. 40 panes in total. Two new furnaces, gone. New bathtub, destroyed. Mid-day, mid-week, the day I was standing there talking to the neighbor taking these photos, a local elderly man stumbled around the street, first carrying a random piece of furniture away from what looked to have been a nearby eviction.

I went to shoot the photo from the rear, and the good neighbor followed to check on the joker. It was a scene played out many times before (minus the photog), and the neighbor was clearly exasperated. The elderly man was too weak to even open the busted back door, so as he tried, neither of us even confronted him. He was literally harmless, and besides, the house has already been stripped of all it’s worth. Why even make a scene?

Startled, the old cager finally turned around and in an aged, slow drawl, exasperated:

“Well excuse me gentlemen, I was not even meaning no harm. I wasn’t up to no nothing, just checking around to see if there was anything…I might happen to be able to acquire.”

Indeed, there are a slew of community gardens in this area. SWAPs marking are all around. This neighborhood has seen badness, but it would take someone with longer Providence perspective than I to determine if it’s seen worse.

The good neighbor—born and raised in his house across the street, now in his late 30′s, says neigh.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The old man babbled his way onto the street, and the neighbor left to go work in his yard. The city (!) even has been out to badger the remote-owner as well, and if the house is not on it’s way to being secured by Monday, a fine is coming down.

Revisit June 19, 2009

Here’s one that just popped up down in my neighborhood Washington Park. Windows smashed. Doors are secure but we’ll see for how long…

It was owned by a nice Haitian family for a while then sold in ’02.