Rhode Island news
Providence to host Fourth fireworks
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 23, 2009
PROVIDENCE — Fireworks will light up the capital city skies this Fourth of July, returning after last year’s display was abruptly cancelled when it was found that the incendiaries were damaging state government buildings on Smith Hill.
Mayor David N. Cicilline announced on Monday that the city will sponsor an Independence Day celebration at India Point Park in the city’s Fox Point neighborhood on July 4. The city is budgeting about $41,000 for the entire night, which is free to the public and begins at 7:30 p.m., with fireworks starting at around 9:15.
The night, which includes performances by RPM Voices, a community choral group, and the Afro-Latino sounds of the Carlos de León Band, is being paid with city revenue from the state tax on hotels, which is administered by the Providence Tourism Council.
Colonial Fireworks, of Toledo, Ohio, will shoot off this year’s fireworks display, which will take up $25,000 of the July 4th budget, or about the same as the cost of the previous year’s displays, according to Lynne McCormack, city Director of Arts, Culture and Tourism.
Another $14,700 will go toward rental of the barges where the fireworks will be launched as well as the permits required by the Coast Guard to set off fireworks in Narragansett Bay. The remainder goes toward the bands.
The city settled on India Point Park because it is the closest venue to downtown with the adequate buffer zone required for a large-scale fireworks display, said McCormack. “We decided it was important to be downtown for the economic impact and as an opportunity for the community to come together downtown,” she said.
It’s also an occasion to showcase the park, which enjoyed a $9.5-million facelift from the state Department of Transportation late last year with the opening of a new pedestrian bridge over Route 195 that connects Wickenden Street to the park and is set to receive another $1.7 million in improvements from the state DOT.
Providence held a Fourth of July fireworks display over the State House from 2005 to 2008, but that was before burns were discovered on the rooftop of the state medical examiner’s office on Orms Street and the state fire marshal’s office determined that the fireworks were not being set off far enough from buildings on Smith Hill.
The city held fireworks displays at Roger Williams Park in the South Side, and, on a few occasions, downtown for many years, until the city stopped Independence Day fireworks displays altogether in 1997, according to McCormack.
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