I had occasion yesterday to go to Chalkstone Avenue, which is one of the big streets in the North End of Providence. It looked a little different than I remembered it from my previous visit. The neighborhood has been trending Latino for a while now, and there are a couple more signs of that.
The Castle Cinema used to be a great second run movie theatre. It ran dry years ago because there's no parking around it and because no one wants to walk anywhere. (Maybe the end of peak oil will change that?) Anyway, when I saw the building a few months back it was housing a pizza restaurant. Now it's a church. By my guess Evangelical of some kind, definitely not Catholic.
On the other side of the street is what for a long time was a Dunkin' Donuts. Now it's something called the Caliente Grill, next door to a chicken restaurant. Both places looked like they serve good food. If you have a hankering for the coffee chain that now insists on calling itself just plain Dunkin' there are plenty of locations still around, including one close by on Smith Street.
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I don't think I ever spent much time on Chalkstone Ave. so I can't say i remember it at all. The map says it's near RI College, which I do remember, and close to Roger Williams Medical Centre, which I don't remember. I looked up some pictures but almost all of them were for real estate sales rather than street views of points of interest. I did find a place called The Grilled Cheese Society (sounds pretty elite) and the Machupicchu Restaurant (ancient Inca cuisine?) as well as Dunkin' (!?) - doesn't sound as cool as they likely thought. It's sad about the Castle Cinema but you're right nobody likes to walk anywhere these days - although we all may have to get used to it if the gov't really intends it's EVs or nothing. Ah well, I hope you had a good visit and got home safe.
Anyhow, we watched an episode of Olive and Mabel this morning.
You need to see them too.
The Grilled Cheese Society is still there, or at least still has a barebones website up. The one outside picture of it I could see on Google is old, though. It shows it being next to the Brick Oven society that the Castle became before the church thing. I probably passed by it and didn't notice because I was preoccupied. As for the Machupicchu Restaurant, they apparently specialize in Peruvian cuisine. So not ancient Inca as such but quite plausibly with some Inca in the bloodline. It looks like they're primarily marketing to affluent gringos. Of course the restaurant business is tough at any level. Anyway, I got home safe but didn't do what I meant to do while I was there. You win some and you lose some.
I'm developing a great fondness for Olive and Mabel. The Scottish guy has a whole bunch of videos of them up. Well, I guess I don't have to tell you.
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