Saturday, January 21, 2012
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Lefkowitz, Garfinkel, Champi & DeRienzo
Photo taken inside the offices of Lefkowitz, Garfinkel, Champi & DeRienzo - accountants at 10 Weybosset Street.
The pipes have begun to leak blood. Blood has tested human, type AB positive. Cause unknown, investigation continues. (Champi has not been seen since October.)
The pipes have begun to leak blood. Blood has tested human, type AB positive. Cause unknown, investigation continues. (Champi has not been seen since October.)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Construction at the Libbey Valley Nursing Community
151 Libbey Valley Avenue houses a small nursing home consisting of between ten and sixteen full-time live-in patients, mostly dementia and Alzheimer's patients, and a team of round-the clock nurses, orderlies, and psychiatrists (as well as occasional manicurists, hairdressers, art teachers, and assorted volunteers). The building dates from 1974; the Libbey Valley Nursing Community was begun in 1982. Papers prove this. It is a clean and quiet facility, and had no reported incidents prior to current renovations.
In the summer of 2009, renovations were begun to a decrepit heating system. While they were at it, Community Director Jocelyn Delessips planned on knocking down a few basement walls and adding in half a dozen more dorm-style rooms. Demolitions revealed an underground wing - warrens of hallways and small rooms, living quarters and storage rooms, shelves stacked with boxes upon boxes of paper documents.
The documents have not all been read as of yet, but the oldest so far date to 1912. Soda cans, chip bags, and tabloid papers left scattered on the floor, near the reading chairs, stuffed into the shelves, date from the turn of the century through to the current year. These rooms were completely sealed. Dust lays half an inch thick. It's all a bit of a mystery.
In the summer of 2009, renovations were begun to a decrepit heating system. While they were at it, Community Director Jocelyn Delessips planned on knocking down a few basement walls and adding in half a dozen more dorm-style rooms. Demolitions revealed an underground wing - warrens of hallways and small rooms, living quarters and storage rooms, shelves stacked with boxes upon boxes of paper documents.
The documents have not all been read as of yet, but the oldest so far date to 1912. Soda cans, chip bags, and tabloid papers left scattered on the floor, near the reading chairs, stuffed into the shelves, date from the turn of the century through to the current year. These rooms were completely sealed. Dust lays half an inch thick. It's all a bit of a mystery.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Ladd Observatory
The Ladd Observatory was opened in 1891 with donations from Rhode Island Governor Herbert W. Ladd. Its first director was Brown University Professor of Astronomy Winslow Upton.
The Astronomy program hardly existed at Brown University prior to Upton's influence. He built it with money and support gained via lofty speeches, war-rally cries, of intellectual freedom and academic exploration. It was at Upton's urging that the observatory was built, it was under his watch that the intellectual architecture of the program was constructed, and it was via his remarkably heavy courseload (in not only Astronomy, but Physics and Mathematics) that the next generations of building and program conservators were created.
Winslow Upton was born on the night of a Witch's Mass, October 12, 1853, in Salem, Massachusetts. His mother, Sarah Upton (nee Ropes) was granddaughter of Abigail Faulkner, who, because of pregnancy at the time of her conviction of witchcraft, was allowed a reprieve to hanging until after she had given birth.
Upton is said to have died in January of 1915, but no body was ever found.
Small mammals frequently found on the grounds with their throats cut, often also with organs missing. Mysterious lights. Rank smells. No hard proof of supernatural phenomena.
Below, the Ladd Observatory in daylight.
The Astronomy program hardly existed at Brown University prior to Upton's influence. He built it with money and support gained via lofty speeches, war-rally cries, of intellectual freedom and academic exploration. It was at Upton's urging that the observatory was built, it was under his watch that the intellectual architecture of the program was constructed, and it was via his remarkably heavy courseload (in not only Astronomy, but Physics and Mathematics) that the next generations of building and program conservators were created.
Winslow Upton was born on the night of a Witch's Mass, October 12, 1853, in Salem, Massachusetts. His mother, Sarah Upton (nee Ropes) was granddaughter of Abigail Faulkner, who, because of pregnancy at the time of her conviction of witchcraft, was allowed a reprieve to hanging until after she had given birth.
Upton is said to have died in January of 1915, but no body was ever found.
Small mammals frequently found on the grounds with their throats cut, often also with organs missing. Mysterious lights. Rank smells. No hard proof of supernatural phenomena.
Below, the Ladd Observatory in daylight.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bell Gallery Suicides
David Winston Bell Gallery terrance. Three apparent falling deaths within three full moons: August 6, September 4, and October 4. All three deaths listed as suicides, though the second body had a slit throat and the third had been dead for weeks before hitting the ground. August body was unavailable for examination. August body is missing. Further information will no doubt be forthcoming; the next full moon is November 2.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
deaths
The squirrels are dying; it started back in July, but I wasn't sure until now. Born deformed like frogs and unable to survive the atmosphere. Look for it in the press. Try. It's not there. I know why.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Swan Point Castle
Near the eastern edge of famous Swan Point Cemetery, one particular hill curves and rolls toward the Seekonk River. It is cool and green in the summer, softly rotting and lousy with mushrooms in the fall, treacherous in the winter. Especially in winter.
Near the bottom of the hill, overlooking the shore is a crypt. It has a porch, a veranda, a backyard. It's beautiful. Children call it the Swan Point Castle. In past years, children called it the Elves' Castle or the Elves' Crypt. It is the Sprague Family Crypt, though that name does not appear on the structure itself, and it is not listed on the Swan Point map - though a different Sprague family plot is. This one was constructed apart, nearer the water, for a few special family members who needed it. It is still in use, when needed.
Spragues tended and tend to die violent - you can take that in whichever meaning you please. They are an old Providence family, founders. (Legend has it that it was a Sprague who planted the apple tree at the head of Roger Williams' first gravesite.) The Spragues are as famous in the area for their drinking and their violence as they are for their money and their local power. They were one of those families.
Those on the receiving end of the violence don't tend to stay dead, and for a while the Spragues were having problems with hauntings. Eventually they contracted Pawtucket-area stone workers Lucero Masonry, known locally for their peculiarly adept containment techniques. They completed construction on the crypt in 1882. Their blueprints, materials lists, and methods have today been lost, but were apparently effective enough. Other than a few limpid wraiths in white gowns wandering the shores of the Seekonk during the colder months, unable to cross the water, the Sprague dead have ceased to haunt the Sprague living - aside from reputation and tradition.
The most recent of the Sprague deaths were Jake and Amanda Sprague-Teague, 7 and 4 respectively, drowned by their mother, Joanne Sprague-Teague, in January of 2007. They were both interred in the crypt, though their mother, a resident of the Rhode Island State Department of Corrections for a life term, may not be, if she dies while in custody. Her family is currently involved in a suit to allow it, when the time comes.
Near the bottom of the hill, overlooking the shore is a crypt. It has a porch, a veranda, a backyard. It's beautiful. Children call it the Swan Point Castle. In past years, children called it the Elves' Castle or the Elves' Crypt. It is the Sprague Family Crypt, though that name does not appear on the structure itself, and it is not listed on the Swan Point map - though a different Sprague family plot is. This one was constructed apart, nearer the water, for a few special family members who needed it. It is still in use, when needed.
Spragues tended and tend to die violent - you can take that in whichever meaning you please. They are an old Providence family, founders. (Legend has it that it was a Sprague who planted the apple tree at the head of Roger Williams' first gravesite.) The Spragues are as famous in the area for their drinking and their violence as they are for their money and their local power. They were one of those families.
Those on the receiving end of the violence don't tend to stay dead, and for a while the Spragues were having problems with hauntings. Eventually they contracted Pawtucket-area stone workers Lucero Masonry, known locally for their peculiarly adept containment techniques. They completed construction on the crypt in 1882. Their blueprints, materials lists, and methods have today been lost, but were apparently effective enough. Other than a few limpid wraiths in white gowns wandering the shores of the Seekonk during the colder months, unable to cross the water, the Sprague dead have ceased to haunt the Sprague living - aside from reputation and tradition.
The most recent of the Sprague deaths were Jake and Amanda Sprague-Teague, 7 and 4 respectively, drowned by their mother, Joanne Sprague-Teague, in January of 2007. They were both interred in the crypt, though their mother, a resident of the Rhode Island State Department of Corrections for a life term, may not be, if she dies while in custody. Her family is currently involved in a suit to allow it, when the time comes.
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