Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Bliss Place
Providence has a long and complicated history with the Children of Bliss.
The Children of Bliss formed as a Utopian community in 1848. They based their worldview on the idea that Jesus had already returned, died in 1798, and been reincarnated as Joseph Imeldos, their first leader. They settled in Providence, as the Satanist capital of the world, for, as they described it, "fun." Since Jesus had already returned and they were already living in heaven, or at least Utopia, there was really no converting to be done here anymore - they just wanted to live among the Satanists because they thought that it would make for an interesting environment.
The Children, living in a sin-free heaven as they were, had fascinating views on what their surrounding communities would have called sinful practices at the time. They had no marriage; pre-pubescent children, menopausal women, and all men above the age of 50 worked to support the remaining members of the community, who lived an orgiastic life of pleasure: free love, free food, free education, free artistic expression. There was, according to diaries, business ledgers, and other available first-person resources, very little crime. There was not a rape, murder, or significant theft within the community during the first one hundred and forty years of their existence. There was some discussion of child abuse - not physical, but mental, or perhaps sexual (misunderstandings as members were being indoctrinated to the lifestyle), but members were always free to leave the community, and supported in their decision - non-Children workers were employed by the Children to maintain homes for those recently departed of the community, to re-adapt them to society, find them homes and jobs, etc.
The original Children supported themselves through the construction of animal traps - they were the leading supplier of all fur traps to New England between the years of about 1860 and 1900 - but around 1890, they began making brass, pewter, and silver jewelry, as well. This is why the relationship is complicated, why they were tolerated. Providence was a trap-industry capital for many years, and then became a jewelry-making capital.* Its Jewelry District is perhaps second only to New York City's Diamond District in not only fame and popularity in the collective consciousness, but in its reputation for housing and protecting via the consumerist free market an unloved minority peoples.
Post-WWII industrialization was good to the Children. Their handcrafted jewelry businesses became industrialized, went global, and got sold. Utopia became more so for a few decades. Their mid- to late-20th century leaders, first Gregor Iyengar and then his son, Nicholas, through financial stupidity really rather than malice or greed, ran the Children's (rather vast, according to all records) fortunes into the ground. As the money dwindled, so did the fun, and so did the acolytes. By the 1980s, there were less than 100 remaining Children of Bliss, all living together in one dormitory-type building in the warehouse district. There had been six child abuse trials between 1972 and 1988. Enough time and money had passed that the surrounding community was no longer as willing to overlook their eccentricities.
On July 12, 1998, just after 5:00pm, an unmasked gunman walked into the Bliss Place building with two 9mm firearms, two 12-gauge shotguns, and 99 improvised explosive devices, a hammer, and almost 600 rounds of ammunition. forty-two people were killed; twenty-nine more were injured. It was the largest single firearm-based killing during peacetime in America. The gunman disappeared; none of the survivors recognized him. There was no note, no known motive, no clues.
Phantom gunshots are heard every July 12th, around dusk, since the shooting. Nightly at dusk, passerby claim to see faces looking out of the windows. The building has been unoccupied since the shooting.
UPDATE: Rumor says that the Bliss Place has recently been sold to an unnamed buyer. Construction permits show that it is slated for remodeling, but not demolition. Cars have recently begun to appear in the parking lot again.
*NOTE: The Providence Jewelry Museum is its own entry in Providence's supernatural past, perhaps simply harboring a ghost, perhaps hiding one.
The Children of Bliss formed as a Utopian community in 1848. They based their worldview on the idea that Jesus had already returned, died in 1798, and been reincarnated as Joseph Imeldos, their first leader. They settled in Providence, as the Satanist capital of the world, for, as they described it, "fun." Since Jesus had already returned and they were already living in heaven, or at least Utopia, there was really no converting to be done here anymore - they just wanted to live among the Satanists because they thought that it would make for an interesting environment.
The Children, living in a sin-free heaven as they were, had fascinating views on what their surrounding communities would have called sinful practices at the time. They had no marriage; pre-pubescent children, menopausal women, and all men above the age of 50 worked to support the remaining members of the community, who lived an orgiastic life of pleasure: free love, free food, free education, free artistic expression. There was, according to diaries, business ledgers, and other available first-person resources, very little crime. There was not a rape, murder, or significant theft within the community during the first one hundred and forty years of their existence. There was some discussion of child abuse - not physical, but mental, or perhaps sexual (misunderstandings as members were being indoctrinated to the lifestyle), but members were always free to leave the community, and supported in their decision - non-Children workers were employed by the Children to maintain homes for those recently departed of the community, to re-adapt them to society, find them homes and jobs, etc.
The original Children supported themselves through the construction of animal traps - they were the leading supplier of all fur traps to New England between the years of about 1860 and 1900 - but around 1890, they began making brass, pewter, and silver jewelry, as well. This is why the relationship is complicated, why they were tolerated. Providence was a trap-industry capital for many years, and then became a jewelry-making capital.* Its Jewelry District is perhaps second only to New York City's Diamond District in not only fame and popularity in the collective consciousness, but in its reputation for housing and protecting via the consumerist free market an unloved minority peoples.
Post-WWII industrialization was good to the Children. Their handcrafted jewelry businesses became industrialized, went global, and got sold. Utopia became more so for a few decades. Their mid- to late-20th century leaders, first Gregor Iyengar and then his son, Nicholas, through financial stupidity really rather than malice or greed, ran the Children's (rather vast, according to all records) fortunes into the ground. As the money dwindled, so did the fun, and so did the acolytes. By the 1980s, there were less than 100 remaining Children of Bliss, all living together in one dormitory-type building in the warehouse district. There had been six child abuse trials between 1972 and 1988. Enough time and money had passed that the surrounding community was no longer as willing to overlook their eccentricities.
On July 12, 1998, just after 5:00pm, an unmasked gunman walked into the Bliss Place building with two 9mm firearms, two 12-gauge shotguns, and 99 improvised explosive devices, a hammer, and almost 600 rounds of ammunition. forty-two people were killed; twenty-nine more were injured. It was the largest single firearm-based killing during peacetime in America. The gunman disappeared; none of the survivors recognized him. There was no note, no known motive, no clues.
Phantom gunshots are heard every July 12th, around dusk, since the shooting. Nightly at dusk, passerby claim to see faces looking out of the windows. The building has been unoccupied since the shooting.
UPDATE: Rumor says that the Bliss Place has recently been sold to an unnamed buyer. Construction permits show that it is slated for remodeling, but not demolition. Cars have recently begun to appear in the parking lot again.
*NOTE: The Providence Jewelry Museum is its own entry in Providence's supernatural past, perhaps simply harboring a ghost, perhaps hiding one.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Firehouse13
Now a hipster haven, an art gallery and music venue, Firehouse13 was, as recently as the early 1970s, an actual firehouse. Ironically, or crudely, or obviously, the attached stable caught fire in 1895 during a governor's ball to which all of the firemen had been invited as honored guests. 30 horses died in the fire.
Guests at the current Firehouse13 report hearing the stamping, neighing, whinnying, and, sometimes, pained screaming of a group of horses, along with smells of manure and hay. No reported harm to the living.
Guests at the current Firehouse13 report hearing the stamping, neighing, whinnying, and, sometimes, pained screaming of a group of horses, along with smells of manure and hay. No reported harm to the living.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wyndham Hayward Garden
According to police reports and all official school and city documentation, Brown University freshman Wyndham Hayward committed suicide by jumping from his dorm room window in 1920. Yet if this is true, why was his body found in a second-floor bathroom? And why was his memorial garden sponsored and planted by the Providence Historical Society, widely known as a cover organization? And why does nothing grow there?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Jennie Goncalves
Picture taken 1918, in Paris, France, by Richard Goncalves, the famous photojournalist from Providence whose photography during World War I is credited with helping to create modern war journalism.
The girl in the window is Jennie Goncalves, his daughter, who had died in Providence, Rhode Island that day. She was raped; her throat slit. Her murderer was not found, but was presumed to be a drifter.
The girl in the window is Jennie Goncalves, his daughter, who had died in Providence, Rhode Island that day. She was raped; her throat slit. Her murderer was not found, but was presumed to be a drifter.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Gingerbread House
Caroline Willikens and her daughter Leanne strangled and cannibalized fourteen children in their home between 1988 and 2005, when 14-year-old Jason Stark, their oldest (attempted) victim, managed to escape.
When asked why they did it, Leanne once answered that it was "because children taste better."
When asked why they did it, Leanne once answered that it was "because children taste better."
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Ella
Ella is one of Providence's more heartstring-tugging legends.
Ella, the Irish Terrier, was lost in 1953 when she ran off of her leash as 68 year-old spinster Olive Rowen was walking her on Waterman Street. Olive passed away in 1960. Posters searching for the lost Ella continue to appear on lightposts and mailboxes on the East Side. Ella herself is spotted wandering the neighborhood a few times a year, and people who don't know the legend continue to call the number on the poster to report her. The number, of course, has long since been disconnected.
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