Wayland

Wayland is one of six neighborhoods that make up Providence's East Side, bounded by Lloyd Avenue, the Seekonk River, Pitman Street, and Arlington Avenue / Governor Street, sharing edges with Blackstone, Fox Point, and College Hill. The neighborhood takes its name from Francis Wayland, a Baptist pastor and former president of Brown University, and most of its building stock — including a notable cluster of Queen Anne apartment houses — went up in the early twentieth century after earlier marshy ground near the river was filled and developed.

Daily life centers on Wayland Square, the small commercial node at Wayland Avenue and Angell Street, where independent shops and restaurants sit alongside houses of worship including the Gothic Revival Saint Martin's Episcopal Church (1917) and the adjacent Temple Beth-El. Walk Score rates Wayland Square a 90 ("Walker's Paradise") and the wider neighborhood an 86, the 4th most walkable in Providence.

The eastern edge of the neighborhood opens onto the 45-acre Blackstone Park Conservation District, a wooded reserve along the Seekonk River with walking trails, York Pond, and the historic Narragansett Boat Club boathouse, jointly stewarded by the Blackstone Parks Conservancy and the Providence Parks Department. Transit riders reach downtown via RIPTA Routes 32 and 34 along Angell Street, both of which use the 1914 East Side Tunnel to bypass the College Hill incline.