FLIPPING THROUGH PHOTOS of Weybosset Street in The Journal’s news library last week, I found one that showed how much sidewalk is available for outdoor cafés near the Providence Performing Arts Center. But with my deadline ticking down for “Downtown’s al fresco paradise?” (Aug. 28), I rejected that photo and took my own from the third floor of the turret of the Warwick Building.

To thank the Home Loan Investment Bank for letting me take the shot, I offer what the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission’s 1981 survey of downtown Providence says of the building: “Stone, Carpenter and Willson’s Conrad Building of 1885 probably inspired this slightly later, less elaborate version built by Mary E. Harrington at a cost of $16,000. The building is a handsome, integral part of upper Weybosset Street.”

The figure of $16,000 really does leap out, doesn’t it? I’m sure all those at the Home Loan branch there on Weybosset will find it entertaining.

But why did I go to the trouble of taking the shot myself when The Journal’s photo made my point just as well? Partly, it’s the tree that blocks the 1914 comfort station. Also, the photo illustrates sidewalk conditions of 28 years ago, not those of today.

Still, the photo fascinates me. On June 19, 1980, Journal photographer Cliff Schiappa took the shot looking back in the direction from which I took my shot. You can see the Warwick Building beyond the marquee of PPAC (the Ocean State Performing Arts Center). Since then, the Outlet Co. has been replaced by the Johnson & Wales’s quadrangle, other buildings have been razed, and the comfort station has been expanded. Weybosset has changed a lot.

In 1965, Westminster Street, a block away, was closed to all but foot traffic between Dorrance and Snow. Westminster Mall was proposed as part of the Downtown Providence 1970 Plan (announced in 1960), which recommended demolishing and rebuilding much of downtown. Since Rhode Island’s economy had been struggling for decades, few of the plan’s proposals were carried out. Westminster Mall was one. Cathedral Square was another. The plan called on property owners to refaçade buildings that they couldn’t raze, and so, with financing hard to get, more tarting up than tearing down was done — a blessing in disguise.

Turning Westminster into a pedestrian mall did little to slow the exodus of retail from downtown to the suburbs. Part of the reason may be that Westminster Mall was so ugly. Many of its shop fronts were “modernized,” though not as radically as the 1960 plan urged. Pages 174-5 of the plan compared Westminster from Eddy to Union as it was with how it could be: The O’Gorman and Burgess buildings are “old-fashioned . . . blighted and dirty.” The next page displays the proposed improvement: The Burgess has lost its two top floors and façades of cheesy streamlined modernism have been slapped on both buildings. “The store fronts have been given a handsome, unified treatment,” says the text. Today, most would find this “before and after” revolting.

A better idea should have been obvious: Clean and repair the buildings. Why was this not done?

Well, by 1960 America’s downtowns had suffered three decades of neglect from the Depression to the optimistic aftermath of World War II. Buildings in need of mere scrubbing and fixing up were deemed an insult to modernity. New buildings embraced the officially sanctioned aesthetic, and many old ones that dodged demolition were modernized. Even the public accepted the sleek, machined appearance as reflecting a “futuristic” postwar era. Lately, however, research indicates that an unconscious discomfort with such styles affects even those who do not dislike them overtly. By the mid-1970s, civic leaders such as Hank Kates were already trying to get rid of the new look (which tended to spoil rather than age gracefully), and the city set up an office to help.

(My column “Downtown beauty’s rich uncle,” July 31, implied that the city office followed this trend; in fact, it worked with Kates and others to lead it.)

As it happens, in 1978, even though civic leaders were beginning to embrace the idea of restoring the old downtown buildings, officials decided to redesign Westminster Mall in another modernist style that contrasted with the old buildings as severely as the mall’s original modernism had done. By 1980, Westminster Mall had been rebuilt. Weybosset Street was narrowed. Its sidewalks were widened. Canopies were installed over some sidewalks and clusters of concrete tables and benches with umbrellas on others. A photo taken by Schiappa on Sept. 19, 1980, reveals how clunky it all looked.

By 1989, Providence had finally caught up with its own better instincts. Westminster was reopened to traffic and, perhaps more important, redesigned in a classical style to reflect the street’s historic architecture. Today it is lively and beautiful. Weybosset still awaits its revival. Help it out by starting outdoor cafés and purging ugly modernist lampposts!

David Brussat is a member of The Journal’s editorial board ( dbrussat@projo.com).