Upper South Providence

Upper South Providence is one of Providence's official South Side neighborhoods, sitting directly below the Interstate 95 corridor that separates it from downtown and the Jewelry District. Until 1868 the area was part of the city of Cranston before being reannexed to Providence; substantial development followed the late-19th-century industrialization that drew Irish and Jewish immigrants to the area, and Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Second Empire homes were built for textile and jewelry industry families, including the president of the Gorham Manufacturing Company.

The defining institutional presence today is the Brown University Health hospital cluster on the eastern side of the neighborhood. Rhode Island Hospital is a 719-bed acute care teaching hospital affiliated since 1959 with Brown University and serves as the only Level I Trauma Center in Rhode Island. Hasbro Children's Hospital opened on the same campus in 1994, and Women & Infants Hospital sits adjacent. The hospital system employs nearly 8,000 people, making it a major employment anchor for the surrounding blocks.

Trinity Square, in the area historically associated with Upper South Providence, is best known as the site of Trinity United Methodist Church, where the Trinity Repertory Company staged its first production in 1964 before moving to the Lederer Theater Center downtown in 1973. Open space within the neighborhood is limited; the Davey Lopes Recreation Center at Dudley Street and Prairie Avenue is the largest green space, supplemented by the smaller Dudley Street Gateway and Pearl Street Park. Just across I-95, the Jewelry District has been redeveloped on land freed by the relocation of I-195, with new housing, a parking garage, and a hotel branded as Providence's "Innovation & Design District."