The Arcade Providence

The Greek Revival building at 130 Westminster Street was built in 1828 and is the oldest enclosed shopping arcade in the United States. Two monumental granite colonnaded facades frame a three-story interior of cast iron and skylights. After years of vacancy, the upper floors were converted into micro-loft apartments in 2013; the ground floor holds a handful of small restaurants, artisan shops, and food vendors.

Worth walking through even if you don't spend anything. The interior light is good, the architecture is excellent, and the scale is pleasingly human compared to contemporary shopping development.

things to do architecture sight
A story
Built in 1828, the Westminster Arcade is the oldest enclosed shopping arcade in the United States, predating its European counterparts by several years. For most of the twentieth century it housed conventional shops; by the 2000s it was empty and threatened with demolition. The 2013 conversion into micro-apartments — some as small as 225 square feet — was one of the first such adaptive-reuse projects in New England.