The Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building is a historic commercial building in downtown

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

, United States, designed by York & Sawyer and completed in 1920. Since 2006 the building has housed dormitories and the Fleet Library of the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

History and description

The Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company was a banking institution founded in 1867 to manage the financial affairs of

Rhode Island Hospital Rhode Island Hospital is a private, not-for-profit hospital campus in the Upper South Providence neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the largest academic medical center in the region, affiliated with Brown University since 1959. As ...

, founded in 1863. It was the first

trust company A trust company is a corporation that acts as a fiduciary, trustee or agent of trusts and agencies. A professional trust company may be independently owned or owned by, for example, a bank or a law firm, and which specializes in being a trust ...

to be organized in New England. As originally constituted, the bank paid a certain percentage of its profits to the hospital; this ended in 1880 once the hospital found other means of fundraising.“Rhode Island Hospital Trust, Providence.” RICurrency.com. Accessed May 19, 2025. https://www.ricurrency.com/bank-name/rhode-island-hospital-trust/. The bank's original building on this site was a

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a architectural style, style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revivalism (architecture), revival style incorporates 11th- and 12th-century ...

building designed by Anglo-American architect Robert W. Gibson and completed in 1891. It was expanded in 1903 from designs by Peabody & Stearns, who matched the original style with the addition of a fifth floor and a more elaborate entrance.John Hutchins Cady, ''The Civic and Architectural Development of Providence, 1636-1950'' (Providence: The Book Shop, 1957): 188. Over the next decade the bank grew to be the largest in Rhode Island and outgrew its building. Plans were made for a replacement in 1916 and construction began in 1917; the latter date is inscribed on the building in several locations. It was designed by York & Sawyer and built by the George A. Fuller Company, both of New York City. Wartime restrictions on the civilian use of construction materials meant that construction was delayed during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. It was built in two phases: a first, completed in 1919, which was built around the original building, and a second, completed in 1920, which replaced that building. It was designed in the form of Renaissance palazzo, stretched eleven stories high. The ''Providence Magazine'' described it as "a modern adaptation of the English conception of the Italian Renaissance." The focus of the interior is the former banking hall, which occupies most of the ground floor. Like the exterior it was designed in the Renaissance style and has a vaulted ceiling supported by twenty-four Corinthian columns. The building is steel-framed and is faced with marble on the two lower levels and with limestone elsewhere. In 1927 an addition was completed on the southwestern side of the building, comprising the section beyond the Westminster and Fulton Street entrances. It was designed by the original architects, York & Sawyer, to match their original building

Later history

In 1933 the bank formed a national bank, the Rhode Island Hospital National Bank, to take over its commercial business. The new bank, opened in the building in 1934, was organized in reaction to the directors' fears of bank nationalization after the banking panic and the

Emergency Banking Act of 1933 __NOTOC__ The Emergency Banking Relief Act (E.B.R.A.), (), was an act passed by the United States Congress in March 1933 in an attempt to stabilize the banking system. Bank holiday Beginning on February 14, 1933, Michigan, an industrial sta ...

. The national bank was merged back into the trust company in 1951 and in 1969 the trust company was reorganized as a new national bank, the Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank. In 1973 it completed the adjacent One Financial Plaza and occupied both buildings. The bank acquired a dozen Rhode Island banks over the twentieth century and in 1985 was itself acquired by the Bank of Boston. The Bank of Boston, renamed BankBoston in 1996, continued to use the Hospital Trust name until 1998, a year before it merged with Fleet Financial Group to form

FleetBoston Financial FleetBoston Financial was a Boston, Massachusetts–based bank created in 1999 by the merger of Fleet Financial Group and BankBoston. In 2004 it merged with Bank of America; all of its banks and branches were converted to Bank of America. Histo ...

. Fleet was the successor to the Industrial Trust Company, later the Industrial National Bank, Hospital Trust's largest local competitor. In 2002 FleetBoston donated the former banking hall to the

(RISD), for use as a library, and in 2003 both of the bank's buildings were sold to Gilbane. Gilbane redeveloped the older building into student housing for RISD and sold it to the school in 2005 for $47 million. In 2006 the Fleet Library, named in recognition of the donation, opened. The architect of the conversion was Nader Tehrani, a RISD alumnus. In 2007 the building was rechristened the Roger Mandle Building after a former president of the University. It currently houses RISD's Fleet Library, Portfolio Cafe and several floors of dormitory space. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1976.

Gallery

File:Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building (edit).jpg File:Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building, 2021.jpg File:RISD flags at the Mandel Building.jpg, RISD purchased the building in 2005

References

External links

Commercial buildings completed in 1917 Bank buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island Rhode Island School of Design National Register of Historic Places in Providence, Rhode Island Historic district contributing properties in Rhode Island Skyscrapers in Providence, Rhode Island 1917 establishments in Rhode Island {{ProvidenceRI-struct-stub

History and description

Later history

Gallery

See also

References

External links