Following last week’s steeple picture, another bell-tower. The old Courthouse in a misty picture placed online by the Providence Public Library, here cleaned and colorised. This was presumably where the arrangements for the Lovecraft divorce were made, with Eddy Jr. giving testimony.

It was however gone by the time Lovecraft moved into No. 66, replaced by a new neo-Georgian Court House which retained the bell-tower.

In Letters to Wilfred B. Talman, on page 86 Lovecraft remarks that he especially likes ‘survivals’ rather than ‘restorations’ in antiquities, and he makes the distinction between the two. An example of a cherished survival is “a lingering bit of the past [such as] the lane back of the Athenaeum” in Providence. In the above picture we see the start of this lane, on the near right of the picture…

Here we see the lane in a more familiar view, looking up College Street…

The map shows the lane as quite long, and giving access to many back-gardens, presumably via gates…

This lane was still there when Lovecraft was in No. 66. Because here we also see the start of the same little lane at the back of the Athenaeum, although the time is the early 1930s and the new Courthouse is under construction beyond…

This picture suggests that by circa 1931 the lane had been “improved”, with new fencing and what looks like a stern sign which says “No (something)”. Possibly “No Parking”, as the blight of mass car-ownership was then spreading. It seems to still be there today, though no Street View camera has ventured down it…

As seen above, the 1870s building was replaced in the early 1930s by a new Courthouse. Here we see the Benefit Street ‘top level’ corridor inside that new building, and the entrance to the elevator.

Elderly ladies, and perhaps some elderly gents such as Lovecraft when with visitors or his aunt, could enter at South Main Street (street market, former Old Brick Row, and a car park by the mid 1930s) on the lowest level, and then ascend by elevator to the higher Benefit Street exit, thus bypassing the steepest part of the climb up College Street. Here we see the imposing corridor which the intrepid elevator-hopper would then have to brave to reach the top exit.

This would also have been the long walk made to arrange matters involved in the disposal of Lovecraft’s estate.