filed under Activism | Neighborhoods
Cape Verdean community weighs in on waterfront
7:10AM ON
06/11/2008
BY
Dave Segal
Yet another reason emerges to add public waterfront space, and try to draw people back to the water. The laying of Route 195 was a tragic instantiation of top-down, classist and racist urban planning (with analogues all over the country) and contributed to the dessimation of Fox Point’s Cape Verdean community. Increasingly, they’re making it clear that they want — and deserve — more recognition as the highway move pushes on:
Fox Point was once the home of a large Cape Verdean population. Then Route 195 was built, and much of the community was uprooted as homes were destroyed to make way for the highway. Changes in the neighborhood’s demographic in the following decades brought wealthier residents and further broke up the old neighborhood.
Now, as the city holds a four-day charette to discuss the future of the Providence waterfront, members of the scattered Fox Point Cape Verdean community of the 1960s have joined to fight for the preservation of the India Point Park area as community space — specifically, the Shooters nightclub property, which borders India Point Park and is for sale.
“India Point is our space. If nothing else, let’s preserve it for public space,” said Claire Andrade-Watkins, an Emerson College professor who grew up in Fox Point.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:18AM
P. Says:
My grandparents on my mothers side lived in fox point when it was an portuguese/cape verdean enclave (she is portuguese), it is shame to think of that neighborhood along with the northern edge of federal hill (route 6/10) sacrificed in the name of highway development. urban renewal sucked.
As someone who has deep roots in this city i really don’t want to see the waterfront my ancestors arrived at to become a yuppie playground.
SUPPORT THE PROVIDENCE WORKING WATERFRONT ALLIANCE!!!
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:57AM
Michaela Zacchilli Says:
yeah i biked down by shooters last night and ended up at this totally brutal park at the end of gano that i totally forgot existed amidst all the construction. anyway there was a whole slew of folks playing soccer and kids on a playground and families and dudes on bikes and it was a wicked nice gem nestled between an overpass and some serious on-ramp building action. it was SORT OF like magic.
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