College Hill is Providence's intellectual and historic core — a steep hillside east of downtown lined with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century wooden houses, climbing up to Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Benefit Street, a block east of the river, is the "Mile of History," a remarkably intact stretch of colonial and Federal architecture running north to south through the hill.
The neighborhood has a pleasant density of things to see on foot: the Providence Athenaeum, the RISD Museum, Brown's main green, the old First Baptist Meeting House (1775, the oldest Baptist congregation in America), and the cobblestone back streets behind the campus. On a fine afternoon, College Hill is one of the most satisfying walks in New England.