Volunteers repair Providence Riverwalk

Volunteers coordinated by the Downtown Providence Neighborhood Association repaired more than a half-mile of the walking area, safety pillars and cables of the Providence Riverwalk. / COURTESY RICH PEZZILLO
Volunteers coordinated by the Downtown Providence Neighborhood Association repaired more than a half-mile of the walking area, safety pillars and cables of the Providence Riverwalk. / COURTESY RICH PEZZILLO

PROVIDENCE – The Providence Riverwalk is safer and more aesthetically pleasing, thanks to volunteers coordinated by the Downtown Providence Neighborhood Association, who have repaired more than a half-mile of the walking area, safety pillars and cables.
In partnership with the city’s Parks Department, which provided the tools and materials, the volunteers started in mid-July and by this week had repaired and painted the green pillars and repaired the safety cables along the Riverwalk.
The work saved the city more than $40,000 in labor costs, according to Rich Pezzillo, an organizer of the neighborhood association, which has 300 members who live downtown. About 100 people turned out, combined, for the first two phases of the work, he estimated.
The Riverwalk repaired by the volunteers stretched from behind Hemenway’s, on South Water Street, to the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. More than 140 pillars were sanded and painted.
A third was scheduled to be undertaken this week.
Volunteers included the downtown residents as well as business owners, downtown workers and city officials, such as Mayor Jorge O. Elorza.
“When the opportunity came, what we saw was residents really wanted to take pride in the city,” Pezzillo said. The city is financially strained, but that should not stop volunteers from improving public facilities that are in disrepair, he said.
“Let’s not have that be an answer for this year, or next year,” Pezzillo said.

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