Newport Show 2017

the main artery running the length of the waterfront. By the American Revolution, Newport ranked among the richest seaports in British North America causing the governing council to declare, “the town had grown to the admiration of all.” The port fell into decline after the Revolution while the seaside meadowlands became the focus of a grand expansion. During the 1800s, the sociability offered by summer cottages set on spacious boulevards caused an urban boom. The extension of a modest dirt road known as Jew Street became the centerpiece for a new district. Speculators Alfred Smith, George Downing and Joseph Bailey extended Jew Street and, when completed in 1853, named it “Bellevue Avenue.” Consuelo Vanderbilt recalled, “[…] we proceeded in state down Bellevue Avenue. And society rolled by in the elegant equipages one saw in those days when to be well turned out on wheels with a handsome pair of horses was as necessary to one’s standard of luxury as a fine house.” Gilded Age opulence soon faded with the economic depression, world wars and urban renewal of the 20 th century. Redevelopment from 1966 to 1969 radically transformed the harbor area’s historic structures, when wharves and the grid of 17 th century streets were demolished for the creation of Perroti Park, America’s Cup Avenue, Brick Market Place and the pedestrian-only Long Wharf Mall. For all of the changes it has witnessed, Newport survives as a repository of history where streets still offer an architectural pageant of times past. It remains a place of memory to be preserved, interpreted and, most importantly, allowed to evolve. It is a cultural touchstone where dreams of what makes a city have been realized in its buildings and on its streets. Mapping the Newport Experience is a research project documenting the evolution of the city’s urban layout from Colonial settlement to the present day. Through period maps, paintings, illustrations, photographs and literary sources, Architectural Historian John Tschirch examines the history of Newport as an “accidental work of urban art” and the cultural response to its richly layered streetscapes by over three centuries of artists and writers. To learn more visit NewportHistory.org. 11