Vibrant, outdoor socializing space, and a mural, coming in 2024 at Pawtucket’s Senior Center

A building with a green awning in front of it.

The Pawtucket Division of Senior Services/Leon Mathieu Senior Center has announced its receipt of a grant from the Harriet Ballou Foundation that will support the Leon Mathieu Senior Center’s (LMSC) Mural and Socialization project to create a vibrant public event space including a mural, for socializing in an underutilized parcel of land adjacent to the…

Read More

Passages – Life and Times of Morris Nathanson

A man with glasses and a mustache is leaning against a brick wall.

By Herb Weiss and Phyllis Van Orden Nathanson Painter, Illustrator and Restaurant/Hospitality Designer Morris Nathanson’s artist studio is just a stone’s throw away from his childhood home on Japonica Street in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Growing up poor during the depression in his Pleasant View neighborhood, settled by Armenian and Syrian immigrants who worked in the…

Read More

The Station Fire. 20 years ago. “41 Signs of Hope” (3 of 4)

41 signs of hope by dave kane.

(Note: February 20, 2023 marks the 20-year anniversary of the Station Nightclub fire. This article, reviewing Dave Kane’s book, “41 Signs of Hope,” was initially published in the Pawtucket Times on December 20, 2014 and with us, again, in 2017 – we reprint it today – written by RINewsToday contributing writer, Herb Weiss. The tragic, untimely death of a…

Read More

Morris Nathanson, R.I.P. – David Brussat

An old black and white drawing of a city.

by David Brussat, Architecture Here and There – contributing writer (Editor’s Note: Brussat submits this testimony on the morning of Nathanson’s funeral) This is a sad moment for Pawtucket and the rest of Rhode Island, and a sad one for me. A tear runs down my cheek. We have lost one of the most influential…

Read More

Neighborhood views of the proposed Hope Street bike lane

An artist's rendering of a bike lane on a busy street.

Photo: Hope Street Merchants Association Part one. A lively and at times heated discussion about the proposed bike lane on Hope Street, Providence, ensued after more than 20 small-business owners sent the city’s mayor, Jorge Elorza, a letter on August 22 urging him to stop even an early October trial of a bike lane. That…

Read More

Top Story of the Week: Lifespan closes popular weight and wellness center, disrupting care of hundreds

Center for weight and wellness.

UPDATED: Lifespan to close its Centers for Weight & Wellness. Patients react. May 18, 2022/RINewsToday This story has been updated, see below The Center for Weight Loss and Wellness at Lifespan’s Miriam Hospital location is shutting its doors. The program, portions of which are associated with the Optifast product, is honoring contracts as they wind…

Read More