During last week's dedication of the Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences, speakers commented on new opportunities the building will bring to students and faculty at Brown. For some East Side residents, however, the building serves as a reminder of their inability to stop the University's steady expansion through Providence's historic neighborhoods.
Still, according to some members of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, outcry from neighbors has forced University administrators to consider the ramifications of off-campus expansion more seriously.
"The Life Sciences Building was built in the wrong place," said Ronald Dwight '66, a CHNA board member, citing potential toxic waste emission from Frank Hall as one reason the building does not belong in a residential area.
"It would have been better to put the building as a centerpiece in another area," said Dwight, who lives on Benefit Street.
But, Dwight added, the CHNA's persistence over the years has made the University more responsible. "Brown can no longer operate in a shroud of secrecy," he said.
Former CHNA president Tom Goddard, who lived on Bowen Street before moving to Newport in 2003 - in part because of crime and the University's expansion efforts - called the CHNA's discussion with Brown about the planning of Frank Hall "a watershed."
The CHNA helped University leaders realize they must prioritize Brown's interests and decide which ones warrant expansion on College Hill, Goddard said.
"We got them to do the math," he said. "We lost the battle but we might have won the war."
Goddard commended the University's expansion in the Jewelry District and the subsequent relocation of Brown's Development Office to that neighborhood. He also approved of the 2005 opening of the Library Collections Annex, which stores less-used texts at a location four miles from campus.
Still, Goddard and Dwight agreed, East Side residents often feel they reap little reward from their efforts to influence the University's physical planning.
"Neighbors are concerned and not convinced that outreach is anything more than just that - that Brown is probably proceeding along the paths that it chooses to," Goddard said. He cited plans for the Walk - which will connect Pembroke Campus and Lincoln Field - as evidence of little change in the University's attitude, noting that plans call for the destruction or relocation of several historic houses on Angell Street.
In addition to the CHNA, other neighborhood associations have mobilized for reasons varying from rowdy students to concerns altogether unrelated to the University.
Along with other Benefit Street residents, Allen Kurzweil, a visiting fellow in the American civilization department, revived the North Benefit Street Association - which dates back to 1962 - this summer.
Kurzweil, who is currently president of the NBNA, said the association was revived to deal with problems such as speeding and graffiti and to "maintain the architectural integrity" of the street.
"Our goals are not as ambitious or wide-ranging as the CHNA's. ... Our issues are not University-specific," Kurzweil said. "They affect any urban population that has an architecturally and historically significant street that also happens to be a prime traffic artery," he said.
The NBNA has met twice since its resuscitation and will meet again in November. Meanwhile, Kurzweil and others have released the first issue of the NBNA's newsletter, The Lamp-Post, which informs residents of holiday events, a planned neighborhood block party and a reward for anyone with information about graffiti vandals.
Fox Point residents are less likely to have felt the brunt of the University's expansion, but they continue to deal with students living in their neighborhood and Brown employees parking in the area, according to Daisy Schnepel, secretary of the Fox Point Citizens' Association and a Transit Street resident.
"We're wondering what the University is going to do about the parking issue, whether they'll expand their parking needs into Fox Point," Schnepel said.
Five years ago, the University considered razing buildings on Gano Street to make way for a parking lot, but residents banded together, writing in and calling for the University to reconsider. However, rowdy students have been harder to deter than proposed construction projects, Schnepel said.
"Overall, those students who live off campus are good neighbors," Schnepel said. "We just have small pockets of bad neighbors." According to Schnepel, students sometimes vomit or urinate on residents' doorsteps on their way home from waterfront bars such as Hot Club and Fish Co.
Brian Shure, a member of the Residents of Williams Street and adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, expressed frustration with the University.
"We've tried very hard to work with Brown. ... They seem to listen and they say they're doing these things but really they're doing nothing," he said, referring to a University administrator who he said has ignored multiple e-mails requesting greater attention to student behavior.
Shure said it is the University's responsibility to discipline students who live off campus. He said he wants students to stay in the area so long as they "learn how to behave."
