Newport Now

The two main arteries into the city; Broadway and Farewell, are in absolute disrepair. No vehicle, private OR public can sustain prolonged travel on either of these roads without excessive, unnecessary, and expensive maintenance. "Welcome to Newport"? This is not the welcome mat we want to lay out for tourists and their hard earned dollars they plan to leave here. If those roads remain that way I can only foresee expensive repair on emergency response vehicles, further complaints from locals, and lower return rates of tourists and their money.

At the corner of Thames and Wellington sits Firehouse Pizza. What could be an attractive corner with the Wellington Plaza and the starting point, as the signs designate for Ocean Drive, as well as the gateway to the 5th Ward neighborhood, is instead, marred by the vulgar appearance of Firehouse Pizza. A few observations:

Exterior:
1 The graffiti which has been “tagged” on the façade and interior of this historical building is not art, it is disgusting.
2. The parking lot is not well kept, overgrown weeds, an empty sign post, and uncollected trash.
3. The outside seating area appears to be a collection of unwanted restaurant equipment and a massive mistake of artistic design.
4. The front (Thames St.) entrance has broken windows, outdated fliers/ advertisement, and routinely has beer bottles, cigarettes butts and weeds growing from the building, etc…
5. The South side of the building (facing Asterisk restaurant) has several windows which have fallen out and or have missing panes of glass.

Interior:
Having dined at Firehouse Pizza for the better part of its’27yr operational life, the food has steadily declined and only raises two major concerns: is this really a functioning restaurant that has been thoroughly inspected by health inspectors OR is this some sort of guise for an alternate business which, by the above mentioned items and the overall demeanor and appearance of staff and the majority of the patrons would suggest, perhaps, a more lucrative form of business than selling bad pizza and subs.

Two neighboring restaurants to Firehouse Pizza are both extremely presentable and upstanding. Is there a different standard for Firehouse Pizza which accepts the aforementioned conditions as that which speaks to the best interest of the greater Newport community?

Enough is enough; Newport city officials, do something. Residents, stop tolerating such inaction by the City and by the owner(s) of Firehouse Pizza.

at the corner of Morton and Caroll Avenues all residents and visitors are subjected to an obnoxious and outdated form of advertising, the billboard. Why is this eyesore allowed to exist both at this intersection as well as on Wellington AVE just off of Thames? Is this really the image that Newport wishes to put forth?

Is the City by the Sea really in need of the Wild Orchid? How many visitors and residents need pass by this vulgar and crass display of yet another gimmicky store on lower Thames ST? Is it really in Newport's best image and interest to have such a business hawking pornographic supplies and clothing in prominent display?

A once beautiful yellow daffodil field -- planted by dozens of Newport residents -- has been covered with a layer of gravel left behind by contractor CB Utility Co, a Bristol, RI firm. To date, the city's response to this visual blight has been nil.

Someone has "tagged" the outside wall of the bathroom facilities at the Mary Street parking lot. As one of the city's only public restroom facilities, we should keep them up.

There is a desperate need for a traffic light and cross-walk at the corner of Rhode Island Ave and Memorial Boulevard. Anyone that's ever tried to cross this road (either on foot or by car) knows just how treacherous it can be, with cars, trucks, tour busses, bicycles etc. whizzing by. It's only a matter of time before someone crossing Memorial to get to First Beach or Cliff Walk is seriously injured or worse. With a public beach and public access walk inviting pedestrian traffic all year long, the City can not in good conscience allow this dangerous condition to go unresolved.

Graffiti on wall.

This appears traveling north on Cliff Walk at 40 Steps and has been there since summer.

Anyone else notice our spiffy beach harvester sitting while a tractor and rake clean the beach?

How about someone from the city providing the number of hours of use for this year?

Sadly (although not surprisingly) a woman was hit by a car while crossing Memorial Boulevard today. With the busy season approaching, the State/City absolutely must do something about the hazardous pedestrian and traffic conditions caused by the lack of traffic lights on Memorial Boulevard, particularly near Easton's/First Beach. The simple solution is to install one or two traffic lights on Memorial Boulevard triggered by pedestrian buttons. No need for a traffic light at every intersection. But installing one or two more (near Rhode Island Ave and near Cliff Walk, in particular) will make a huge difference, safety-wise.

There is a small passageway at the Southeast corner of the Mary Street parking lot leading to Trinity Church. It is filthy, with piles of leaves, trash, graffiti, and who knows what else. What a wonderful view on your way to praise God.
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In the past few weeks someone has indeed visited and cleaned out the trash, but the graffiti remain. It remains an embarrassment.
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3/4/11
It has its ups and downs, but the graffiti returns as does the trash. It is clearly a thorn in the side of the City as they alternate between repainting it, ignoring it, locking it, and so forth.

I don't know the right answer. Perhaps if we were to brick it, or at least brick the pavement then it would be more attractive and less subject to violation...

Yes I know there are more important things on the City agenda, but this one does affect a lot of people at a very special time in their week. We need to address it collectively.