Anna Masini

Crime and the City

December 17th, 2014
Working Together: Presence of Brown University on Thayer Street
The Thayer Street Planning Study provided by the City of Providence Department of
Planning & Development gives a thorough outline of the redevelopment plan being put into
action on Thayer Street. Although the plan is supported and funded by Brown University, how
beneficial the plan is for Brown students can be put up for debate. The most prevalent change is
257 Thayer, a four-story, 95-unit project that is meant not as student housing, but described as a
multifamily residential and retail project. While 257 Thayer provides much more housing than
the homes that is replaced, it creates a larger problem for Brown students. The homes that
occupied the city block between Thayer Street (west), Euclid Street (south), Brook Street (east),
and Meeting Street (north), were meant for Brown students living off-campus.
The elimination of these homes, and decreased off-campus housing available to Brown
students directly off of Thayer Street is not only an inconvenience to Brown students, but creates
a safety issue. College Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods are targets for crime, and having
students living farther away from the regulated areas of campus is not safe. Students often walk
home late at night, whether from the library, or drunkenly from a party. Living two or three
blocks off of campus and where security guards or blue lights are located is not safe. Brown
Street, which is barely the edge of campus, is the most common location for crime alerts that are
sent to students. Multiple times each year I receive alerts from Brown Department of Public
Safety explaining an incident in which a student was approached by a hooded figure that
demanded their wallet. Brown Street directly borders Brown buildings and is the most direct

route from the Main Green to the Pembroke Campus. The fact that this area is so dangerous, but
people are moving even farther away from campus is worrisome.
I had my car here on campus during the fall of 2013. I parked on the corner of Brown and
Keene Street, which is just one block north of the edge of the District that the Thayer Street
Planning Study discusses. Early on a Thursday morning I received a phone call from the person
that I was renting the parking spot from that the tires off of my car were stolen. The people took
my tires, rims, and left the car sitting on black milk crates.

(Here is a photo of my car (right), the morning when my tires and rims were stolen. As you can see I was using a
parking spot between two homes on Keene Street. The car was placed on four black crates.)

When I was giving my report to the police officers that came to the scene, they told me
that while the car was in a parking lot behind a home, it was likely that the people who took the
tires had been watching the car for weeks. He said that the crimes committed on College Hill are
commonly Hope High School students who bus in from other areas of Providence for school.
Some of these students are gang members, and others are just teens who know they are in an area

with privileged college students. They were telling me how the East Side of Providence,
especially the Brown campus, is a target for gangs and crime. I was looking at a map of crime
rates in Providence, and there is a higher rate on College Hill.

(On this map, Hope Street is visible. The area west of it is the District being discussed in the Thayer Street Planning
Study. The map shows that the crime rate is higher in this area and in downtown Providence than in other parts of
the city.)

For many, College Hill is viewed as an area with privileged young people who are not as
careful about locking their doors and windows, and as the officer told me will just replace
whatever is taken. This particular statement caught me off guard because while Brown does
have people with enormous wealth on campus, there are a lot of people on need-based
scholarships. According to the Brown University Financial Aid website, 44% of the current
freshman class (the Class of 2018) is receiving need-based scholarship aid, which includes
Brown scholarship, and federal and state need-based scholarships and grants. It is understandable

that Brown is a target for crime, but it is difficult to grasp because not everyone is under the
same wealth umbrella.
The officers also mentioned Olneyville which as of last fall I had never heard of before.
Olneyville is a neighborhood in Providence with an area of 0.564 square miles. With a
population of about 6,429, the average household income in 2011 was $29,710 in Olneyville.
This is far below the average income for the city of Providence, which in 2011 stood at $37,856.
Another statistic that stood out about Olneyville is the level of educational attainment amongst
the residents. More than 50% of the Olneyville residents have less than a high school education,
which is one of the highest proportions for any neighborhood in Providence. These statistics give
insight into the demographic of people who, according to the two police officers I spoke with,
are attracted to College Hill for robberies.
This fall I spent a few hours every Tuesday at DAbate Elementary School in Olneyville.
I feel very fortunate that my time at DAbate overlapped with when I was taking Crime and the
City. After learning a little about Olneyville last fall, frankly, I was nervous to walk the three
blocks from the bus stop to the school, alone as a white, 20 year-old female. However, the people
I came across in Olneyville pleasantly surprised me and did not fit the stereotype I went in
assuming. It is clear that it is a less privileged area of Providence, but I was not nervous that
anyone would approach me while I was walking alone.
I did, however, notice the damage and state of the homes in the neighborhood. During
Crime and the City we discussed the Broken Windows theory, which is the idea that by
regulating and maintaining urban environments, we will be able to limit minor crimes such as
vandalism and theft. In Olneyville the homes are not well kept, with broken fences, littered
yards, and the homes themselves have chipping paint and boarded windows. This is interesting

because while this neighborhood is not nearly as well kept as College Hill, according the map
shown above, the crime rate in Olneyville is not as high as the crime rate on College Hill. This
contradicts the belief that by maintaining an area it will decrease crime rate, because Thayer
Street and the Brown University campus are extremely well kept in relation to other parts of
Providence. Therefore, it is difficult to fully support the idea of the broken windows theory,
because it is evident that there are other factors that play into crime rates in cities and
neighborhoods.
The fact that Thayer Street and College Hill are obvious targets for crime is reason to be
wary during the Thayer Street Improvement Plan. The plan being implemented is not only
displacing Brown students living off campus from the safer, more central area of College Hill,
but is also making the area an even greater target. While it can be viewed as a positive change to
bring in higher end and nicer retail and food establishments, it is also just making a higher end
clientele that may now appear even more attractive to gang members and thieves.
One of the main points made in the Planning Study is the goal to create an attractive,
clean, and safe retail space. The focus on Thayer Street being a retail corridor as well as
residential for non-Brown affiliated people. The issue that this creates is that Brown students are
being pushed out of the space surrounding Thayer Street, which is what many students consider
campus. As an athlete, I walk up and down Thayer Street to the OMAC and Nelson Fitness
Center multiple times each day. The redevelopment has been an obvious over the last two years.
The change has not been limited, however, to construction. The homeless people that have been
soliciting on Thayer Street no longer have as great a presence. Between the men with actual
registered tables to sell goods, and the people who just sit on the steps of different retail
establishments, they have not been nearly as noticeable.

The repaving of not only Thayer Street, but also the surrounding area has been one of the
most notable changes completed by this improvement project. The streets used to be covered in
different sized potholes. The repaving that has occurred over the last six months has been a
positive, and popular change. Many of the changes that have been made on Thayer Street are
positive and accepted by the residents in the area. However, as mentioned previously, the
building of 257 Thayer, is extremely negative in the eyes of Brown students.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan (UofM).
Although Ann Arbor is larger than Providence, the two cities are fairly similar. Both are liberal
college towns, best known for the universities present in the area. One difference that I have
noticed, however, is that Ann Arbor residents are much more invested in UofM than Providence
residents are invested in Brown. I am not sure whether or not it is because UofM is a much larger
university with roughly 43,625 students (undergraduate and graduate), while Brown has only
about 8,848 students enrolled during the Fall 2014 semester. Because UofM has a population
about one-third the size of Ann Arbors population, it is understandable that the University has a
greater presence in the city. However, I have noticed not only a difference between the presence,
but also a difference between how the universities are viewed by the residents in their respective
cities.
While UofM had a terrible football season this year, which angered many Ann Arbor
residents, (hard to believe a football team has such an influence on the happiness of an entire
city) many people move to Ann Arbor because of the University. Whether for a job or just
because it is appealing to be in a college town, the University of Michigan is a pull for many
people. Ann Arbor residents take advantage of the opportunities made available from the
university. For example, there are numerous museums: art, natural history, science; theater and

musical performances, the renowned University of Michigan Health System, and athletics are
popular and common events for residents to attend. It is clear that Ann Arbor residents not only
accept the university, but also are invested in what it has to offer.
The Thayer Street Planning Study makes it clear that the area surrounding Brown
University does not want to become too closely connected to students and what Brown has to
offer. In the early description of the Planning Study, it says that Brown University and other
major landholders in the District should be involved in the reactivation of the space. They note
that a way this can be done is allowing limited Brown University functions and operations, such
as academic research activities and performance arts, to occur outside of the Institutional Zone.
This is just a way of pushing Brown students off of Thayer Street and onto campus. However,
this is not what is happening. It is just displacing Brown students from the close, and safer areas
around campus outward toward less monitored and secure parts of College Hill.
Some of the changes being made to Thayer Street have been positive and appreciated by
the residents of the area as well as Brown Students. However, after reading through the Thayer
Street Planning Study, it is evident that the goal is not to appeal to Brown students, but rather to
bring in a different clientele to the area. While this is understandable because it will be a more
permanent demographic, it is important for these developers to recognize the role that Brown
students play in the success of Thayer Street. Many of the establishments would not still be in
business if not for Brown students, and the competitive retail on Thayer Street will not thrive if
Brown students are pushed off of Thayer Street. Brown is an incredibly prevalent part of
Providence, and in the redevelopment of Thayer Street, it is necessary to recognize the role of
not only the university, but of the students.

References:
City of Providence Department of Planning & Development: Thayer Street Planning Study.
NBBJ, Klopfer Martin Design Group, Toole Design Group, HR&A Advisors.
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Ann-Arbor-Michigan.html
http://www.city-data.com/zips/48104.html
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Providence-Rhode-Island.html
http://www.city-data.com/zips/02906.html
http://www.usa.com/ann-arbor-mi-crime-and-crime-rate.htm
http://www.usa.com/providence-ri-crime-and-crime-rate.htm
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2603000.html
http://www.ro.umich.edu/report/14enrollmentsummary.pdf
http://www.brown.edu/about/facts/enrollment
http://local.provplan.org/profiles/oln_main.html
http://www.brown.edu/about/facts/financial-aid