Beneath your feet the old highway piers now carry your Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge across the Providence River to 195 District Park. Once called the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge, it wears its renaming from July 2020 as a visible, civic choice. Beneath your feet are the very piers that once supported part of Interstate 195 before that highway was relocated — the bridge was deliberately built on those concrete supports rather than demolish them.
The idea began as a simple, frugal spark in 1999 when a Rhode Island School of Design architecture student suggested reusing the old piers and spending demolition money on a footbridge instead. In 2008 the Rhode Island Department of Transportation allotted US$2 million toward making that idea real. A design competition followed in 2010, announced by then-Mayor David N. Cicilline and then-DOT director Michael P. Lewis; 47 design teams from as far away as Barcelona entered, and inFORM Studio from Detroit was chosen from among the 11 designs that were displayed.
This crossing turns past infrastructure into public space, carrying you over the reused I-195 piers toward Fox Point and the green of 195 District Park.