Wikimedia Commons/Zigamorph
Where Providence Goes for Italy
Federal Hill sits just west of downtown Providence, right across Interstate 95, and Atwells Avenue runs through the middle of it as the main street.
For more than a century this stretch has been the center of the city’s Italian-American life, and today people drive in from across New England for the food alone.
You can walk the whole thing, ducking into bakeries and markets that have been open since your grandparents were young, and there’s a gateway arch at the entrance that tells you exactly what kind of debate you’re about to have.
Wikimedia Commons/Will Hart
From Old Neighborhood to Little Italy
Irish immigrants lived on the lower streets of Federal Hill first, but Italian families started arriving in the late 1800s and reshaped the place fast…