Providence Neighborhoods: West End
Providence Neighborhood Profiles
The West End is Providence's largest neighborhood and is located in the southwestern quadrant of the city. A landlocked neighborhood, it is surrounded by the neighborhoods of Silver Lake, Olneyville, Federal Hill, Upper South Providence, Elmwood, and Reservoir. Historically, the section of the West End delineated by Union and Elmwood Avenues, and Ford and Cromwell Streets was considered part of Elmwood. Furthermore, residents recognized the region west of Dexter Street as West Elmwood. Today, the borders of the West End are Westminster Street to the north, Elmwood Avenue to the east, Huntington Avenue to the south, and the railroad to the west.
The first settlement of the general area of the West End occurred shortly after the King Philip's War (1675-76), mostly around the northern sections of Mashapaug Pond. The first, and largest, farm in the region was established by John Sayles during the late 17th century and was located to the northeast of the Pond, extending into the area which is now Elmwood Avenue and Broad Street. Settlement followed the construction of more roads in the area, most notably Greenwich Road, which traversed the neighborhood as Elmwood Avenue does today.
The area's first village developed in the northernmost section of the West End. In 1739, Obidiah Brown established Hoyle Tavern at the intersections of Westminster and Cranston Streets, and soon thereafter early settlers built eight houses in close proximity to the tavern. Now, that site is occupied by a large branch of Citizen's Bank.
Westminster Street was the major route between downtown Providence and Olneyville Square and was settled at a more rapid pace than was Cranston Street. For the most part, however, the West End throughout the 18th century was an area of farms and wealthy country estates. Asa Messer, then the president of Brown University, Captain Samuel Snow, and John Mawney were some of the more prominent Providence citizens with estates in the West End. Two of these three men have since had their names bestowed on area streets while Snow Street runs between Washington and Weybosset Streets in the downtown section of the city.
In the 19th century, the West End began to develop industrially and residentially. By mid-century the area was host to several factories, including the New England Butt Company's factory on Perkins Street, and the Winsor & Brown gun factory on Central Street. Much of the industrial development during this period occurred around the now-filled Long Pond. Several developments in this industrial section of the West End, including the Providence Gas Company gasometer and the American Standard Watch Case Company, remain in operation today.
Residential development took place primarily in the second half of the 19th century, following the growth of industry and transportation services in the area. The Elmwood Omnibus Company began operation of horse-drawn coaches in 1855, with service on Elmwood Avenue and Broad Street running hourly in the morning and each half-hour in the afternoon. Then in 1865, the Union Railroad Company ran its first streetcars along Westminster Street between downtown and Olneyville; additional lines quickly opened for Cranston Street and Elmwood Avenue. With these services, residential construction occurred throughout much of the West End in the late 1800s.
Construction patterns led to the emergence of distinct communities in the West End neighborhood. North of Cranston Street, around Dexter and Parade streets, they developed a predominantly middle-class, Yankee area of one and two-family homes. This area also included the Dexter Training Grounds (formerly a private estate donated to the city in 1824, it became part of the city's park system in 1893), the Cranston Street Armory, and the Cranston Street Baptist Church, all of which still exist today.
Another distinct community of the West End took shape south of Cranston Street. By the mid 1800s, increasingly large numbers of Irish, French-Canadians, African-Americans inhabited this southern part of the West End. Much of the residential construction was in the form of triple-deckers and other multifamily houses to accommodate the growing numbers of lower-income residents.
As was the case with many of the various ethnic sections of Providence, each ethnic group established a church to meet the needs of their community. Black residents of the West End established the Mount Zion Methodist Church in 1861, the Irish built the Church of the Assumption in 1871, and French-Canadians formed their parish by 1878 (their church, St. Charles Borromeo, was not completed until 1915).
For much of the 20th century, particularly after the 1930s, the West End has been a slowly decaying inner-city neighborhood. Middle class residents moved out of the neighborhood in large numbers, leaving the area with limited resources. The neighborhood is adjacent to the Huntington Industrial Park, created as one of the city's two industrial districts in the 1970s. When the Gorham Manufacturing Company left the neighborhood, Olneyville lost importance as a freight rail hub, and Route 10 was constructed, many residents of the southern part of the neighborhood were left unemployed and both physically and psychologically disconnected from other parts of the city.
Moreover, in recent years some new residents have become increasingly active in their efforts to restore and renovate the neighborhood's housing supply, particularly the area's historic homes. Currently, the West End includes two National Register Historic Districts: Broadway/Armory, shared with Federal Hill, and the Bridgham and Arch Street area. This second area, closer to downtown Providence and Federal Hill, will soon be the site for the renovation of some older houses and their subsequent conversion into affordable rental units.
According to the 1990 census, 14,828 persons resided in the West End, an increase of 8.4 percent from the 13,680 residents who lived in the West End in 1980. One in three residents of the West End is Hispanic, about 30 percent were African-American, and 14 percent were Asian, making the West End one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods. In addition, more than one in three residents of the West End was foreign born and nearly half do not speak English well or at all, figures that indicate that the West End is frequently the first home for new immigrants arriving in Providence.
Less than half (44%) of the persons aged 25 years or older in the West End had completed high school at the time of the 1990 census. More than four out of ten employed residents in the West End worked in manufacturing and 17 percent were employed in the professional services sector. The unemployment rate in 1990 in the West End was nearly two percentage points higher than the rate recorded for the city as a whole.
Median family income in the West End was $19,758 in 1989, about 30 percent lower than the citywide median family income. One in three persons had an income below the poverty level according to the 1990 census and about one in three families was living below poverty. Nearly half (46.7%) of all children in the West End were poor in 1990, as compared to 39.7 percent in 1980. The poverty rate among the elderly in the West End also increased over the past decade, rising from 28.2 percent in 1980 to 32.1 percent in 1990, although the number of elderly persons living in poverty declined by 20.7 percent during this same period.
Housing tenure in the West End remained stable over the past decade, although there was a decrease of about 10 percent in the total number of housing units and the number of occupied housing units declined by about 8 percent. Three out of four housing units in the West End were renter occupied. Almost half (44.7%) of all housing units in the West End were located in buildings with three or four units and more than one in five units were located in structures with five or more units. About two-thirds of all housing units in the West End were built more than 40 years ago. Many live in the two major housing complexes located in the area, the Codding Court public housing project and Wiggin Village, near the downtown area.
Overcrowded housing is a serious problem in the West End, particularly among renter occupied units. Almost one in seven (14.8%) renter-occupied housing units was overcrowded in 1990 (more than 1.01 persons per room), which was more than three times the rate recorded for the city as a whole. The median value of owner-occupied housing units in the West End was $82,500 in 1990, about 26 percent lower than the median value citywide. Median rents were about 7 percent lower in the West End than the median rent citywide. Nearly two out of three West End residents moved into their present housing unit within the past five years.
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