Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant is a residential neighborhood in northwest Providence, bounded by Olneyville, Valley, Manton, Elmhurst, and the town line with North Providence. It was one of the last sections of the city to be developed; most of its housing stock dates to the early 20th century, after streetcars began running along Chalkstone Avenue in the 1880s and a commercial strip formed between River Avenue and Mount Pleasant Avenue. That same Chalkstone strip still functions as the neighborhood's day-to-day commercial spine.

The neighborhood's institutional character is shaped by Rhode Island College, which has occupied its current Mount Pleasant Avenue campus since 1958 and remains the state's public liberal-arts college. Mount Pleasant High School, also on Mount Pleasant Avenue, is the neighborhood's public secondary school. Triggs Memorial Golf Course — a Donald Ross design that opened in 1932 — provides a large block of public open space at the neighborhood's edge. Providence College, often associated with the area, actually sits across the Smith Street boundary in Elmhurst, but its proximity makes the PC campus walkable from the eastern edge of Mount Pleasant.

For getting around, Mount Pleasant is rated "Very Walkable" by Walk Score (70), with moderate transit and bike scores. RIPTA service runs along all four boundary corridors — Douglas (Route 50), Smith (Route 57), Chalkstone (Route 56), and the Admiral / PC corridor (Route 55) — connecting the neighborhood to downtown Providence and to surrounding northwest suburbs.