Federal Hill “Crime and Cuisine” tour owner responds to Walter Potenza’s “Defending Legacy”

by Bradly J. VanDerStad, owner, Providence Tour Company, letter to the editor

Dear readers:

My name is Bradly J. VanDerStad, the owner of the Providence Tour Company and the author of
Federal Hill’s most popular tour, “Crime and Cuisine on Federal Hill”. The tour, which we
describe as a true-crime themed food tour, launched last May and has been well received – at
time of writing, we have received over 1,500 direct bookings in addition to a few additional
hundred who have come in groups by charter bus. It also won a 2024 Best of Rhode Island
Award for Best Niche Tour, selected by Rhode Island Monthly’s editors.

A letter was recently published in RINewsToday (“Defending the Legacy of Federal Hill – Walter Potenza”) in which the author alleges that the tour we operate portrays the neighborhood as a “den of crime,” and perpetuates “negative stereotypes” about Italian Americans. The letter also suggests that the tour depicts the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence as an “underworld colony.”

These suggestions could not be further from the truth. We at the Providence Tour Company work hard to present a thoughtful, historical, and nuanced perspective of Federal Hill’s cultural history through extensive research and engaging with local business owners and other stakeholders.

Among the very first things we say about the neighborhood on the tour is this: Before we begin, I’ll ask that you suspend your judgments while on our walk. When Italian people mass migrated to this area making it our unofficial Little Italy in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were very few opportunities for them. They constantly had to vie with other immigrant groups – particularly the Irish – for jobs and respect from the Yankee majority.

So, when “the system” is racist and denies you opportunity based on merit, you’re forced to make opportunities for yourself and your family, and that’s what drew so many to organized crime.

Organized crime was an institution that allowed Italian people to make money and succeed. I want you to ask yourselves: before you cast judgment, what would I have done in this person’s shoes? Many Italians in Providence became very successful through virtuous means – like John Pastore, born 1907 on Federal Hill, who became the first Italian American elected to the US Senate. But this isn’t a tour of people doing legal things – it’s a tour about people doing illegal things, which is much more interesting.

Just know that just this tour doesn’t exist to paint Italians as bad people- it just chronicles the history.
The tour goes on to further outline the context in which Italian people existed on Federal Hill in the early 20th century: poor living conditions, low wages, police brutality, and limited voice in government forced immigrants to consider extralegal opportunities, just as today’s marginalized communities are forced to make similar decisions.

These stories contribute to the vibrancy of Federal Hill history. It’s the stories of trial and conflict that add to Federal Hill’s legacy as a proud and resilient community. The focus on crime serves as a gateway for deeper understanding of Federal Hill’s role in Providence history, and presents the neighborhood as one of nuance, complexity, and worthy of exploration.

In the last year, Providence Tour Company has spent over $50,000 at Federal Hill restaurants directly as part of Crime and Cuisine: roughly half of which came from travelers who may not have come at all were it not for the tour, and half of which from locals who were either getting their first taste of Federal Hill cuisine or coming back for more.

The tour is unquestionably supporting the small businesses of Atwells Ave, and we know because the owners and staff tell us so. I personally live a twenty-minute walk from the Hill and am a regular presence there, working closely with local vendors. Restaurant owners have specifically thanked us for bringing customers in to eat pizza in the heat of the summer, and for bringing large groups in for lunch during the week when they’d otherwise be slow.

Business so exceeded our expectations for our opening year that it presented our company with the opportunity to donate $1,000 to Federal Hill House, a social services community nonprofit a few blocks from Atwells Ave, in support of their mission to empower today’s low-income, non-English speaking, and immigrant communities in the Federal Hill neighborhood and beyond to thrive.

The existence of a crime-themed tour in a neighborhood is an indicator that the neighborhood is safe enough for tourism to permit one. Crime-themed tours don’t launch successfully in areas where the current level of crime is a tourism deterrent.

I will allow: the title “Crime and Cuisine” is provocative. But like any good novel, tours need a hook to pull people in, and once guests have been introduced to the incredible neighborhood and cuisine of Federal Hill, they will most certainly be back for more. It has come to my attention that the author of the letter also operates a food tour in the area. It has been my experience that the needs of the neighborhood are best met when its small business owners engage in thoughtful conversation about its future; the Providence Tour Company welcomes this dialogue and hopes the author will consider joining us for a tour someday.

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Publisher’s Note: Executive Chef Walter Potenza has been running tours on Federal Hill (and in Italy) since 2005. The main topics in Providence he describes as “the white pages of the Italians and their contributions to the state. I do not spit on the sacred plate of the Italian dinner plate, by luring people in purchasing the discriminatory prejudice toward the Italians and their alleged connections with the underworld.” 

Read Chef Walter’s weekly “Ask Chef Walter” every Sunday in RINewsToday