The late Bill Warner was more than an urban designer and architect; he was an iconoclast whose vision and passion, more than anyone else’s, propelled the Providence Renaissance. From the late-1950s and the publication of the College Hill Study until his passing in 2012, Bill had an extraordinarily positive and lasting impact on Rhode Island. The influence of his design concept for the state’s capital city amounts to a master plan for its regeneration from the early 1980s through the turn of the current century. Bill is best known for urban designs that reshaped the city: WaterPlace Park, Memorial Boulevard, the Downtown skating rink, uncovering and relocating the downtown rivers (and constructing the road and pedestrian bridges that cross those rivers), the tranquil riverwalks, and, perhaps most visibly, the arched bridge that carries Interstate 195 across the Providence River at Fox Point. With such a track record, the selection committee had no doubt, “That’s a Hall-of-Famer.” They were particularly impressed with Bill’s ability to get things done despite the number of bureaucratic hurdles he faced in the process of realizing his design visions. The committee noted that Bill’s impact consisted of “changing the face of Rhode island’s capital city.”
