The Meeting Street Steps
The Meeting Street Steps as seen May 2020
“At Meeting Street — the successive Gaol Lane and King Street of other periods — he would look upward to the east and see the arched flight of steps to which the highway had to resort in climbing the slope...”
One of the oldest streets in Providence, Meeting Street runs a little over a half mile up College Hill from North Main to Hope Street -but at the intersection with Congdon Street you’ll find a stone staircase right in the middle of the road.
According to the Providence Preservation Society, the twenty stone steps date back to the late 18th century, though no exact date is given. It’s entirely likely this part of Meeting Street has never been graded correctly and some sort of stairs have always been part of the road. A section of the Annual Report to the City Engineer in 1872 notes that funds are to be set aside to reset and repair the stairs, meaning the stairs were already old and in disrepair by this time.
source: Google Books
The most often repeated anecdote about these steps concerns 27th Governor of Rhode Island, William Sprague IV, who served during the first part of the Civil War from 1860-1863. Known as the “Boy Governor” for his election to office at the age of 29, the story goes that Sprague would climb the stairs while on horseback as he traveled from the Old State House on Benefit Street to his home further up College Hill. Turns out not only can you lead a horse to stairs, but you can make it part of their daily commute as well.
Decades later these same steps would catch the eye of author H.P. Lovecraft, who not only directly referenced them in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (see the above quote), but is believed to have used them as a source of inspiration for the “Rue d’Auseil” his 1921 tale The Music of Erich Zann. Lovecraft describes the street the Zann lives on as “almost a cliff, closed to all vehicles, consisting in several places of flights of steps”. This motif of a “road into staircase” appears again in Dream-Quest where two characters “climbed up an alley that was all steps.” Clearly, the Meeting Street Steps made quite an impression on Lovecraft.
The Meeting Street Steps as Lovecraft would’ve known them, as seen sometime around 1925 (Source: Providence Public Library)
In recent years, the steps had begun to deteriorate, most notably after two different head on vehicle collisions in a three year span. In 2018 the steps were renovated and repaired through the work of various donors and the Providence Preservation Society. As part of the renovations, the steps received a new plaque commemorating the history and current and former restorations of the steps that will no doubt be used for years to come.
The Meeting Street Steps
Intersection of Congdon and Meeting Street