The Telephone Building is a historic commercial building at 112 Union Street in
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
. It was built as the headquarters and exchange of the Providence Telephone Company, which occupied it from 1893 to 1917.
Building history and architecture
![Telephone Bldg Details](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Telephone_Bldg_Details.jpg)
The Providence Telephone Company began construction on this building in 1892, and completed it in 1893. It was originally designed by Providence architects
Stone, Carpenter & Willson
Stone, Carpenter & Willson was a Providence, Rhode Island based architectural firm in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It was named for the partners Alfred Stone (1834–1908), Charles E. Carpenter (1845–1923). and Edmund R. Willson (18 ...
as a three-story building. In 1904, due to growth of the company's business, construction began on an additional two stories. These were completed in 1906.
["Providence Telephone Company" in ]
Providence Magazine
' 28, no. 12 (December, 1916): 794. After the Providence company moved its headquarters to the new Telephone Building in 1917, it kept ownership of the Union Street building and rented it out as office space. It has now been converted into apartments.
The street level facade is limestone, with a three-part entrance bay and two smaller flanking bays. The entrance bay is partitioned by Ionic columns, and the smaller outer bays are flanked by Corinthian columns. A complex entablature of grotesquework separates the second and third floors. The fourth and fifth floors, added in 1906, are more simply treated, with a simple parapet at the top.
Company history
The predecessor of the Providence Telephone Company, the Providence Telephone Exchange Company, was incorporated in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
in March of 1879 by Rhode Island and Connecticut investors. Later that year former Governor
Henry Howard formed the Providence Telephone Exchange Association, which acquired the stock of the Connecticut investors before merging with the Telephone Exchange Company in January of 1880.
In May of 1880 Howard incorporated the Providence Telephone Company. In addition to Howard, its notable directors included businessman
Francis W. Carpenter. Howard was the first president of the company. The other presidents of the company were Henry C. Cranston from 1892 until his death in 1896, Dexter B. Potter from 1896 to 1916, Philip L. Spalding from 1916 to 1919 and Matt B. Jones from 1919 to 1921.
Spalding and Jones were both officers of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company of Boston, which had bought a controlling interest in the Providence company in 1915. The two companies were consolidated in 1921. Charles T. Howard, who had variously been secretary, treasurer and vice president of the Providence company since 1880, was elected a vice president of the New England company.
["New England Telephone & Telegraph Company" in ]
Bell Telephone News
' 11, no. 2 (September, 1921): 15-16.
Despite the expansion of the Union Street building ten years earlier, by 1916 the growth of the Providence company had made the building inadequate.
That year they began construction on the new Telephone Building at the corner of Washington and Greene streets, designed by
Clarke & Howe
Clarke & Howe was an American architect, architectural firm from Providence, Rhode Island that was active from 1893 to 1928.
The firm was established in 1893 as Clarke & Spaulding, with Prescott O. Clarke and Arthur R. Spaulding. Wallis E. Howe w ...
. The company moved into the new building in 1917, which continues to be home to the regional office of
Verizon New England.
The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1983.
See also
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence, Rhode Island
References
Infrastructure completed in 1893
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island
Buildings and structures in Providence, Rhode Island
Telephone exchange buildings
Renaissance Revival architecture in Rhode Island
Buildings designated early commercial in the National Register of Historic Places
Telecommunications buildings on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places in Providence, Rhode Island
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Rhode Island
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