The stands of what had been Narragansett Park
— Photo by William Morgan
Just off the unspeakably grim Newport Avenue strip, in Pawtucket, R.I., an abandoned colossus reminds us of once glorious days of thoroughbred horse racing patronized by swells from Newport and New York. This enormous structure was once part of a 200-acre complex with barns that housed 1,000 horses.
Narragansett Park opened in 1934, after the state’s official airport was declared to be Hillsgrove Airfield (now T.F. Green Airport), in Warwick, instead of Pawtucket’s What Cheer Airport, and pari-mutuel betting was reinstated after a 30-year ban; it folded in 1978 after a disastrous fire that killed three-dozen horses. The grandstand then became Building #19, the odd-lots warehouse, or "America's laziest and messiest department store," as its founder Gerry Elovitz dubbed it.
The slide from society amusement (thoroughbreds such as Whirlaway and Seabiscuit raced here on its mile-long oval), and a "Retail Derby" against the big-box stores, to inevitable decay, reverberates with the last days of our totally corrupt, would-be Nero-style emperor. Reminding us of Rome's Circus Maximus, home of the great chariot races, Narragansett Park's haunted grandstand is apt metaphor for the end of 2020.
William Morgan is a writer, architectural historian and photographer based in Providence. He has written on stock-car racing for The New York Times. His latest book is Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter.
Postcard photo of Narragansett Park in the 1950s
