Eighty-Six Fires

On certain Saturday evenings from May through November, something happens on the rivers running through downtown Providence that is difficult to describe without sounding like you are exaggerating. Eighty-six iron braziers, each holding roughly thirty pieces of wood, are lit along the Woonasquatucket, the Moshassuck, and the Providence River as they converge at Waterplace Park. Gondoliers tend the fires from the water. Music plays from the banks. On a good night, forty thousand people stand along the riverwalk and watch.

The artist Barnaby Evans created WaterFire in nineteen ninety-four to mark the tenth anniversary of First Night Providence. The original lighting used eleven braziers. It later grew to eighty-six fires, where it has stayed. Evans received what is called the Renaissance Award for the project's role in revitalizing downtown, a word that barely captures what actually happened.

The rivers themselves were part of the revitalization. In the late twentieth century, the rivers at the heart of downtown were uncovered and rerouted as part of a major civic project, creating Waterplace Park and the riverwalk where the fires now burn.

A city that had spent decades declining, losing population and industry, remade its center around water and fire. WaterFire became the image people carried when they thought of Providence. Barnaby Evans lit the first one with eleven braziers. The city kept going.