India Point Park

India Point Park is a park in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island at the confluence of the Seekonk River and Providence River. The park takes its name from the maritime activity connecting Providence with the East and West Indies.^[1]

In the 1960s, declines in the area's use for shipping led to its being redeveloped as recreational space. Local architectural historian William McKenzie Woodward notes^[2] that the construction of Interstate 195 isolates the park from the rest of the East Side, which he believes is an effect poorly mitigated by the pedestrian walkway. Consequently, more space than might be desired is reserved for parking since the park is mostly reached by car. This will hopefully be remedied by the opening of the new pedestrian bridge which replaced the original one after it was demolished to make room for the relocation of I-195.

RIDOT continued work on the replacement bridge, to be called the India Point Park Pedestrian Bridge, through the late fall of 2007 and winter of 2008. The bridge was scheduled to open in September 2007, but efforts to save a large caliper tree on the Fox Point side and more complicated than expected construction on the India Point Park side pushed the opening to October 2008 - three years after the demolition of the old bridge.

The new pedestrian bridge is six times wider than the one it replaced. It features benches, decorative lighting and will feature landscaping of flowers, shrubs and small trees on the bridge itself as well as on a stair and ramp system on the India Point Park side. Once the watering system is installed in the fall of 2009, the ambitious landscaping part of the bridge project will begin. RIDOT has a web site listing computer renderings of the new bridge, as well as animations of the project.

References

External links

• Friends of India Point Park