Project 04: Program

Narrative

I am a boater launching at Bold Point Park for the first time this season. It is late June. I’ve been busy so I haven’t been able to enjoy the water as much as usual but better late than never. I cast off my line and head out to the channel. As with any other day I can’t wait to throttle up, plane out and cruise to the lower bay. I get to the first channel marker and look to my right. I realize that something is different. The old abandoned waterfront structures have been demolished to make way for this new structure that engages the waterfront. This structure seems to pass through the impenetrable sea wall and over the highway and it frames images of the Providence skyline. There are rows and rows of boats at these new public docks. A dozen sailboats pass by loaded with children guided by a sailing instructor. I thought the sailing school went out of business years ago. Five boats followed by the harbormaster pass through the hurricane barrier. I’ve never seen that before. I really have to head closer because this is truly amazing. I enter a no wake zone as I approach the docks and a stranger yells, “Throw me that line. I’ll help you tie up.” I am astonished. I’ve always had to battle the current and tie up myself. There is usually never another person around the area. I tie up and look at the city stamped on the transom of the gentleman’s boat. This guy came all the way from Narragansett. Narragansett is the best place for boating in the entire state, but this guy travelled all the way here, over an hour and a half’s ride. He says to me, “Isn’t this place great. It’s nice to escape the touristy areas of the state once in a while to come to a place like this. This is what this state is all about, “Great people, great entertainment, great waterfront, and a great capital city.”

I walk up the docks and cross a beautiful lawn with people picnicking, flying kites, laying in the sun, and just plain having a good time. I get to the threshold of the building, a ramp/stair that brings you up to the first terraced level. I am level with the roof of the tugboat shed. I walk to the edge and I can look over the rail into the high up cabin of the tugboats. I can see the guys working furiously below fueling and readying the tug. They must be preparing to head out to meet a tanker ship entering the Port of Providence. I walk back to the center of this terrace and cross another threshold into an enclosed realm, which slowly ramps to another level. This sets the stage for another unique view perfectly aligned with the roadway. I can look out the window of the structure and through the passenger’s side glass of the cars driving by. There is light coming from my far right and left through narrow inlets, which must frame some other views to the Providence River, the hurricane barrier and India Point Park. I see above me that a part of the structure literally crosses the highway bridging to the other side and that a part below me penetrates the highway sea wall. There are large crowds of people moving about on the other side of the threshold and through the threshold, which used to be an impenetrable barrier. I go up one level into another space, which frames a beautiful panorama of the vertical Providence skyline and I turn around 180 degrees to witness a breath-taking panorama of the horizontal landscape that is the Narragansett Bay. I can see to Warwick from here. I decide to cross this bridge, truss, structure that acts as a threshold to the otherside of the sea wall and begin my descent to the ground level passing through all sorts of spaces full of different people. I touch the ground and feel instantly connected with the city and turn around realizing I am at the exact point where the structure penetrates the hurricane barrier. From here there are framed views of all the different programmatic elements of the waterfront and I can see each amenity offered to the visitor as if it were a brochure, but most importantly I can feel the relationship between Providence and its’ waterfront.