Opening Up: The New Old Face of Providence, Rhode Island

Abstract

A young couple walks down an alleyway. She suggests that it would be wonderful if music was played from speakers in the branches of the trees. A week later, the speakers have been installed, music is played as they have another romantic date and walk along the same way. This is a scene from the TV series Providence, which made the capital of the smallest state of the USA well known, not only to the American TV audience but also worldwide. In Providence we are shown a city that has an almost rural air about it. Bright sunshine, small streets, short distances which can easily be walked or done on the bike — not at all the picture we usually have in mind when we think of an American city, not to mention a state capital. The protagonists in the series are young and work in the city in which they grew up. Even though the city is shown as provincial and quiet, it has something very metropolitan about it. Jobs, houses in neighborhoods with colonial splendor and just about anywhere the camera gets a glimpse of people walking by, sitting on benches or walking their dogs — a city full of life.