Apartment hunting in Providence

Last Sunday, 12 August, Susan worked a short day and we left late morning for a drive down to Dick and Dorothy's house in Massachusetts.

On Monday we got up early and drove into Providence, RI, to start looking at apartments. The long and short of it is we didn't find anything but we did certainly learn a great deal about the East Side of Providence.

An overcast morning and a few sprinkles, which promised more later in the day, didn't deter us from our primary objective: apartment hunting.

The morning began with an appointment to see a 2nd floor apartment on East Manning. The owners, a wonderful couple with two little boys, lived on the first floor and we had a grand time chatting with them about the advantages of living in the Wayland Square area of the East Side: close to downtown, Brown and RISD but out of the college mainstream, a Whole Foods within walking distance.

Throughout the day we saw seven units, several in the Wayland Square area. In fact we even ate lunch at a small funky cafe, The Edge, in Wayland Square, a nexus of shops and eateries near the intersection of Wayland and Angell streets. We were also treated to a short tour of the Brown Universiy area by a realtor who happens to live in an enormous old Victorian home smack in the middle of the campus -- he also showed us a couple of properties but they were a no-g0 for us.

Most of the units were in double- or triple-decker homes and almost all were on the second floor. One apartment came close to what we were looking for -- this, too, was on East Manning in fact. It had huge kitchen storage space, good countertop workspace and a large kitchen to boot, as well ceiling fans in every room (something unique to this apartment we noted) and even two window a/c units!

The determining factor for us was, ultimately, structural: getting our furniture up the tiny, twisty stairs of these early 20th century double-decker homes would, we felt, be a real challenge.

But we met some interesting folks while developing a bit of a feel for at least one side of Providence. Someting in that to be sure.

So we are moving on. To what we have no clue yet. But we'll keep ya posted!

Ciao,

Steve