The Providence Post Office, Court House and Custom House, as it was known in 1944 when this photo was taken, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

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Journal file

PROVIDENCE U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts is scheduled to visit Rhode Island on Feb. 12 to help celebrate the centennial of the federal courthouse in downtown Providence.

The event will mark the first time a sitting Supreme Court chief justice has come to the state since Charles Evan Hughes was here in 1937, said Senior Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya, a Rhode Islander who is the liaison for Roberts’ visit. Newspaper articles indicate that Hughes, an 1881 Brown University graduate, came to see his grandson graduate from Brown.

Another chief justice, Warren E. Burger, spoke during the New England Institute of Technology graduation ceremony in 1988, but he was retired at the time.

“As far as I can determine,” Selya said, “this will be the first time a sitting chief justice has come to Rhode Island for an official function, at least since the 1790s,” when the country’s first chief justice, John Jay, was here.

Roberts’ visit will highlight a yearlong centennial celebration of the five-story gray granite building, which was built between 1904 and 1908 as the Providence Post Office, Court House and Custom House.

“We are cosponsoring a series of events that will bring members of the public into the building so they can enjoy the architectural gem that it is,” Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi said. “Many members of the public don’t know what goes on in that granite building that sits at the end of Kennedy Plaza, or the history of the building. My goal is really to demystify what the building is, so citizens of Rhode Island will be able to see it and appreciate it and learn about the important work that goes on there.”

The events will include three lectures, beginning Jan. 23, when a panel will discuss “whether a civilized nation that provides counsel to indigent defendants facing jail should also require counsel be provided when individuals ‘too poor to hire a lawyer’ face deportation or loss of jobs, housing or critical benefits.”

On Feb. 13, a panel will “explore the rights of victims and eyewitnesses to crime and how those rights relate to the rights of criminal defendants.”

And on April 3, a panel will “point out the features of the courthouse building, long regarded as an architectural gem, and address the cultural, political, and economic factors that led to the design of the building.” Those attending that lecture will be able to tour areas of the courthouse not normally accessible to the public, such as the historic library on the third floor and Lisi’s chambers.

The free lectures, presented by the U.S. District Court and the Rhode Island Bar Association’s Federal Bench-Bar Committee, will run from 7 to 9 p.m. in Courtroom 1.

When Roberts visits on Feb. 12, he will have breakfast with judges before touring the courthouse and taking part in an 11 a.m. centennial ceremony, Selya said. In the afternoon, Roberts will swear in 123 new members of the federal bar in Rhode Island, Lisi said.

Roberts also will meet with about 100 students and faculty members from the Roger Williams University School of Law, giving them a chance to meet someone “who is literally writing history,” said the law school’s dean, David A. Logan.

Construction of the courthouse began in 1904 with the relocation of railroad tracks and the statue of Gen. Ambrose Burnside, according to a brief history posted on the U.S. District Court Web site, www.rid.uscourts.gov.

The project included 3.5 million bricks, 1,465 tons of steel and 70,000 cubic feet of granite. The final cost was $1.3 million. Designed by the local architectural firm of Clark & Howe in the Beaux Arts style, the building “was generally considered one of the finest government buildings outside of Washington.”

The building was turned over to the U.S. General Services Administration in 1961, following completion of the nation’s first automated post office elsewhere in Providence. By then, the building was used mostly for judicial functions, and it was renamed the Providence Federal Building and Courthouse. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

But by 1983, the General Services Administration was thinking of selling the courthouse and erecting a new federal building on Westminster Street, said Selya, who was a U.S. District judge in Providence from 1982 to 1986. “The GSA had good reasons for some concern because we were out of space and we all knew that bills were pending to create a third district judgeship and to create a second magistrate judgeship,” he said.

But Selya was among those who realized what a great loss it would be to jettison the courthouse. “We put our heads together and decided that the existing courthouse was a beautiful building — a building that had a prime location, historical significance — and that it would be very unfortunate to let that building be sold for commercial usage,” he said.

Selya said he and then-Chief U.S. District Judge Francis J. Boyle made their views known. Selya enlisted help from then-Sen. John H. Chafee, who was on the Senate Public Works Committee, and Boyle spoke with then-Sen. Claiborne Pell. “Among us, we were able to pull it off, and the General Services Administration eventually came back with a proposal to keep this courthouse and to build a smaller federal building to house the bankruptcy court and other federal agencies,” he said.

But the courthouse was still in poor condition, so they sought federal money to renovate it, Selya said. Eventually, the government provided $18 million, and the result is not just a “serviceable” courthouse, but a state-of-the-art facility, he said.

“To me, it is exactly what a courthouse is or should be — a very significant structure in a community,” Selya said. “When the country was built and the West and the Midwest was settled, the courthouse was the most prominent building in town. It is something the city and state can be proud of, and when people walk in the door, the appearance is such to foster respect and a sense of the seriousness of the purpose of the work that’s done there.”

The courthouse has seen some of the state’s most high-profile legal cases. In 2002, a jury convicted former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. on a federal racketeering conspiracy charge for running a criminal enterprise from City Hall. In 1991, former Pawtucket Mayor Brian J. Sarault admitted he was the ringleader of a criminal enterprise operating out of Pawtucket City Hall. And in the 1970s, the late Chief U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Pettine ordered and began overseeing a years-long overhaul of the state prison system.

“A lot of the history of Rhode Island has played out in the courthouse,” Lisi said.

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