Taking the Long Rhode Home
By Beth Schwartzapfel
September 2006
I’ll admit it. I’m one of those people who refer to New York City as “the City.” I grew up in Jersey, and all the years of telling people I was from “right outside the City” really ingrain themselves in a person. I’ll also admit that I agree with Edward Norton’s character in “Keeping the Faith” when he says that anyone who does not live in New York City must be, to some extent, joking. I guess I’ve been joking for some time now. I’ve lived in Providence, Rhode Island – affectionately known to locals as ‘Little Rhody,’ ‘The Biggest Little,’ and other nicknames that include the word ‘little’ – for almost 10 years. In those 10 years, I’ve come to love the Ocean State with a fierceness that I’d previously reserved for New Jersey. I know, I said New York City is my one and only, and it is – but let me explain.I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the Garden State is the butt of many jokes. If you’ve ever driven down the Jersey Turnpike, through the foul smoke that hangs in the air over the city of Elizabeth, you understand why many call New Jersey the armpit of the east coast. My use of the phrase “right outside the City” artfully dodged any need to count myself among those who live in the armpit. But soon I began to feel I was betraying my home state. New Jersey is home to 830,000 acres of farmland, not to mention Philip Roth, Albert Einstein, Frank Sinatra, and Bruce Springsteen. I grew up in a town where I could walk to school and knew my neighbors, yet I was only 15 minutes from Manhattan. And though I would never have chosen to live in Jersey, the fact is, that’s where I was from.
So I began to say it proudly. “I’m from Jersey.” My voice was feeble at first, but it slowly gained in strength as I practiced. And while I do love New York City – to this day, I would probably prefer to live in Brooklyn than anywhere else– the truth is, New York City doesn’t need me. Everyone loves New York City. If other people were going to talk trash about New Jersey, I was going to love it double in order to compensate. Yeah. I do [heart] NJ.
Which brings us to Rhode Island. At 1500 square miles, Little Rhody is the smallest state in the Union. The whole state is only slightly larger than the acreage of farmland in New Jersey. For many, the Biggest Little is nothing more than a 40-mile stretch on the road from New York to Boston, or the place where you turn off 95 to head east towards Cape Cod. It takes exactly one hour to drive from one end of the state to the other. We have 39 cities and towns, one area code, and no major league sports teams. But what we don’t have in size, we more than make up for in personality. Perhaps you’ve heard of our former mayor, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci? He was mayor for 10 years before serving a 5-year suspended sentence for beating his estranged wife’s lover. He was then re-elected and served as mayor for another 10 years before being convicted of conspiracy to run a criminal enterprise out of City Hall. He’s now 4 years into his federal racketeering sentence in – of all places – Fort Dix, New Jersey. Despite these transgressions – or perhaps because of them – Rhode Islanders love Buddy. Buddy was a symbol of the scrappy-ness that Rhode Islanders are famous for. ‘You fancy people from DC think you can come in here and tell us what to do? We have our own way of doing things, thank you very much.’
I moved here in 1997 to attend college. “I’m moving to Rhode Island,” I used to say, like I was testing out an unfamiliar phrase from a foreign language. What a random place to move to. But it is precisely its randomness, in part, that makes Rhode Island lovable. The longer you live here, the more you understand about the place and its many quirks. You start to accumulate stories that exemplify Rhode Island, stories that could only happen here. You start to feel like you’re in on a secret. Like the time we went to drop my girlfriend’s car off at the mechanic. One of the garage’s employees was writing her name on the little yellow tag that attaches to her keys. My girlfriend began to spell out her last name as he wrote. “M-O-H-I-U-,” she said. “M-O-H-R-U-,” he wrote. “No,” she said. “I-U.” He looked up at her like she was crazy, and wrote the letters over again. R-U. “No,” she said again. “I-U.” Finally he put the pen down. “I don’t know!” he roared. “Am I?” You see, in Rhode Island, “I-U” and “are you” sound the same.
Boston may be only 50 miles up the road, but it might as well be a world away. ‘You’re going to Newport?,’ the old joke goes. ‘Did you pack a bag?’ I have a friend who jokes that she gets a nosebleed when she crosses into Woonsocket, a city which abuts Rhode Island’s border with Massachusetts. It’s just too far north. And though my heart has long pitter-pattered for the City, I’ll take Providence over Boston any day. As the biggest city in New England, Boston is home to more museums, bars, music venues and educational institutions than any other nearby city. But it’s too proud of itself. Any city that talks a big talk raises expectations. And when I’m deciding whether a city meets my expectations, I always pull out my handy city yardstick: New York. And Boston, I’m afraid, is so not New York. Rhode Island, on the other hand, makes no claims. It is what it is. If you don’t like it, don’t come.
My girlfriend and I live in the first floor of a big old Victorian house on the city’s West Side. The West Side is what real estate agents would call “up and coming.” Our discomfort at being a force for gentrification notwithstanding, we love our neighborhood. At the Hudson Street Market, the neighborhood corner store, the owners are in a band and they know everyone by name. They’ll write your name on a New York Times for you and put it aside if you’re not going to be there early enough to snag one on Sunday. The neighborhood is built around a big park, and in the park is a dog run. There is no better way to get to know your neighbors than to hang out in the dog run. Well, sort of. We have a growing handful of fun, hipped-out places to hang out – restaurants, bars, and coffeeshops. We have old mill buildings which have been converted into loft space, galleries, and studios. We can bike to downtown in less than 10 minutes, and to most other neighborhoods within 20 minutes. And while the retail establishments haven’t settled quite as thickly as I hope they will one day– it’s a pain to walk from one to the other, for the most part – they are so much cooler than comparable places in other neighborhoods because everyone is so excited to be a part of the West Side. Some of the bars have teams in the neighborhood’s summer kickball league. When one of the restaurants needed extensive renovations to meet fire code, other bars and restaurants actually held fundraisers to help the owner back on his feet again. The West Side is a microcosm of the small-town feel that pervades the rest of the state.
I may have mentioned that I love cities. My girlfriend, on the other hand, loves the country. If it weren’t for me, she’d live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, delivering calves and riding horses. (Remember how I said I’d rather live in Brooklyn than anywhere else? Did you wonder why I don’t live there?) Providence is a nice compromise, because although our neighborhood feels relatively urban, we can be in the middle of nowhere in less than an hour. Rhode Island isn’t called the Ocean State for nothing.
We have over 400 miles of coastline which includes some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, and none is more than an hour away by car. On a summer day, we can drive down to one of Newport’s famed beaches, spend the day swimming and sunning, go to Flo’s Clam Shack for a fried shrimp dinner, for dessert stop by a farmstand which makes its own ice cream, and still be home by sunset. Much of the state is rural – half of its million residents live within the boundaries of its 6 cities, which means that outside of the city the population thins out considerably – so there are many places to go for scenic walks.
My favorite hiking guide is called “Walks and Rambles in Rhode Island,” and it’s true, we have more in the way of walks and rambles than we do in the way of hikes. (Our highest point is Jerimoth Hill, elevation 812 feet.) But the walks and rambles are beautiful. The North-South Trail runs the length of the western part of the state, starting at the Connecticut border and continuing through woods, past stone fences and rocky outcroppings, lakes and streams, and over old dirt roads all the way to the Massachusetts border (it’s only 40 miles, but still). In the fall, the leaves are magnificent, and in the winter, these same places are perfect spots to throw down your cross-country skis.
And so, we radiate Rhode Island pride. We have Providence posters in our apartment, Rhode Island sweatshirts, hats, and t-shirts. One of my favorites has a cartoon drawing of our illustrious ex-mayor. “Free Buddy,” it says. “Providence RI.” My best friend has a tattoo of the state seal. The state motto is “Hope,” but for a moment, she considered changing it to “Home.”
My girlfriend and I are moving next year. She has applied to medical school, and we’re waiting with bated breath to find out in what direction we’re going to be pointing the old U-Haul. She’s applied to several New York schools just for me, and while I’m thrilled about the possibility of finally living in the City, I think we’ll be back here before long.
My love for the Ocean State is more pure than my love for either New York or New Jersey. It’s not cool to live here the way it’s cool to live in New York. You don’t get any points for being from here. But unlike my love for New Jersey, I don’t love Rhode Island in defiance of its naysayers, either. I don’t love it because I need to overcompensate for those who don’t. I love it because it is what it is. Home.
