Broken Windows Theory

Ever heard of the broken windows theory? It's worth a think. The hypothesis is: if vandals break a window and the window remains broken, more windows are likely to get broken. If there is a little graffiti on a wall, more graffiti is likely to end up on that wall (meaning, more likely to end up on that wall than it is to end up on a wall with no graffiti, all else being equal). If it's true, it's important to address aesthetic issues and vandalism and decay in general, when they are small, or else they get out of control.

In the Jewelry District, where my office is, when I'm going to or from work, I think about the theory. One one corner, this is the view. To the right...


...and to the left.



Pretty unrelatedly, this is the statue in the center of the downcity area's outdoor bus station -- Kennedy Plaza -- where I wait for the 99. I'm still amazed sometimes when I am reminded how martial our national identity is. In DC, there're statues of dudes with swords and guns on horseback all around. It should be no wonder when folks go Rambo.

Then again, it is a pretty amazing statue.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1866-71). Randolph Rogers, American-born artist residing in Rome, Italy, sculptor. Alfred Stone of Providence, project architect. Center of Kennedy Plaza.

Rogers' relief panels for the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol in the early 1860s secured his illustrious reputation as an accomplished artist. A committee of prominent Rhode Islanders, among them Ambrose Burnside, commissioned him to do the state's memorial to its deceased Civil War servicemen. Rogers designed and executed the statues in Rome, the figures were cast in Munich, and local architect Alfred Stone was assigned the task of assembling and completing the monument in Providence. Among the plaques listing the roster of war dead are four figurative relief panels. Three of them symbolize, respectively, War, Victory, and Peace. The fourth, and most striking, is a figure of an African-American slave with broken shackles dangling from outstretched arms. Though commonly identified as a personification of Emancipation, according to the monument's program the figure is intended to symbolize History. On top of the plinths to which the plaques are affixed are four figures representing branches of the armed services: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and the Navy. Crowning the composition is a larger-than-life figure entitled "America Militant". Originally erected in front of City Hall, the monument was moved to its present location when the current central esplanade of Exchange Place (now Kennedy Plaza) was constructed in 1913.