Fundraising drive for new R.I. Heritage Hall of Fame with interactive technology to begin

A MODEL OF THE R.I. Heritage of Hall of Fame, slated to be built in Bristol. / COURTESY PATRICK CONLEY
A MODEL OF THE R.I. Heritage of Hall of Fame, slated to be built in Bristol. / COURTESY PATRICK CONLEY

PROVIDENCE – A fundraising drive for the new Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame will begin June 14 at Conley’s Wharf Building at 200 Allens Ave. at 3 p.m.

A press conference will be held at that time to discuss plans for the new building.

The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame building, slated to be built adjacent to Roger Williams University on Metacom Avenue in Bristol, has long been a dream of Patrick T. Conley, president of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.

Conley said in a phone interview Friday that the goal is to raise $11 million and have the building open by June 2018.

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The 13,563-square-foot HOF will be a tourist destination, featuring changing exhibits and displays, honoring and recognizing the achievements of those Rhode Island men and women who have “made significant contributions to their community, state, and/or nation.” Interactive technology, using the biographies of the inductees, will be used, according to the business plan for the Hall of Fame.

“Rhode Island is only one of four states without a museum of state history,” the business plan reads. “Yet very few states have a history as long and as distinctive. Instead, we are the Rodney Dangerfield among our sister states – we get no respect – but it is because we do so little historically as a state to command respect,” the plan states.
The document states that the plan is to build “an imposing hall modeled upon the Roman Pantheon to exhibit and honor our pantheon of eminent Rhode Islanders.”
The Hall of Fame was founded in 1965 and has a 25-member volunteer board. Conley, a 1995 inductee, has been on the board since 1996 and president since 2003.
He said material can be found on its website, and some of it is in storage.
“We just don’t have a home,” Conley said.
Conley himself has written two books about early inductees to the HOF.

“The Hall of Fame in its new building will not be merely a gallery of eminent Rhode Islanders,” Conley said in a statement.
“The inductees will come down from its walls and actively engage students and the general public in a continuing dialogue about Rhode Island and our state’s contributions to America and the world at-large. It will be a ‘living’ Hall of Fame by relating our history through a series of changing exhibits using the latest museum technology.”

Healy/Kohler Design, which also has done work for the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum in Newport, has been selected to create the education-based program for visitors to the Hall of Fame.

“The theater production will be an immersive experience that will connect to all of the visitor’s senses. Not only will the audience see amazing footage and hear the personal and emotional stories of our inductees but visitors will also feel, smell and touch the excitement of being part of Rhode Island history,” Conley said.

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