Alexander Nicolo, 4, front, and Matthew Superczynski, 3 1/2, make use of the playground at Marieville Elementary School on a school holiday. Matthew’s father, Darryl, used to play there and now lives next to the schoolyard.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

The main street in Marieville, a neighborhood in North Providence, is busy, commercial Mineral Spring Avenue, but the residential streets near the Lincoln border have a quiet, almost rural flavor. Marieville, which also borders Pawtucket, is just three miles from downtown Providence, and Route 146 also gives residents easy access to points north.

The village of Marieville was named after a town in Quebec that was home to many French-Canadian immigrants who moved to Rhode Island in the late 1800s and worked in nearby mills, according to town historian Tom Greene. Greene said Julia Miner, a descendant of the Randall family, began to plat out Marieville and sell the land in 1885 or 1886. He said the old Randall house is still standing on Route 146A.

North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi moved to Marieville when he was 5 years old, and he remembers it as a “hard-working, close-knit family neighborhood.” He said his youth was defined by neighborhood institutions such as the local Roman Catholic church, Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Doc’s PX, which sold candy, bread and milk. A 1988 fire gutted the landmark run by Dante Negris, also known as Doc, who opened the store at 1067 Charles St. after returning to his hometown after his service in World War II.

Lombardi also served as a volunteer firefighter at the Marieville fire station, which he said was almost a rite of passage for young men in Marieville when he was growing up. “The families in the neighborhood gave a great deal back,” Lombardi said. “It’s the type of neighborhood that will never let you forget where you came from.”

Bob Ormond has been a resident of Marieville since 1965, when he and his wife bought their house on Lydia Avenue. Ormond grew up in Smith Hill in Providence and said his leafy neighborhood was considered rather remote and isolated at the time; Mineral Spring Avenue had only two lanes and was considerably less developed and busy than it is today, he said. These days, Mineral Spring Avenue is so packed on Saturdays that “there’s no sense going out there,” he said. But Ormond says he can get to his job at Hertz at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick in 14 minutes because his commute begins at 5 a.m.

Marieville’s varied real estate market includes rental houses and apartments, condominiums and single-family houses. Houses on the market last week ranged in price from $199,900 to the mid-$300,000s. In North Providence as a whole, 115 houses sold in the past six months, at an average sales price of $254,140 after an average of 72 days on the market.

Marieville is an established neighborhood, and many of the houses were built in the early to mid 1900s and sit on lots of less than 8,000 square feet. There is some newer development. Ashlee Commons, a new condominium development, will have 31 units, said Rick Harrington, of Remax Properties in Smithfield, who is marketing the property.

cdunn@projo.com