Cranston Legends - Garden City

Ah, Garden City. An outside shopping mall experience located in Cranston where people love to stroll and shop and dogs love to stop, sniff and mark their territory.

Taking walks down to Garden City has been something I’ve done all my life. It’s good exercise and gives you something to do, especially during a global pandemic. As a kid, I would sometimes walk down with my mom on a Sunday afternoon and we’d go to Newport Creamery to get an ice cream soda. (Which is different from their famous “Awful Awful” drink.) I would get chocolate and she would get coffee.

My sister and I would love to go to the Outlet store and hide in all of the circular clothing racks. Our curiosity would spark when we went to see the “Talking Christmas Tree” during the holidays. How could a Christmas tree possibly talk? It doesn’t have a mouth, never mind a face. We’d always search for the voice behind this whole sham, but to no avail. They must’ve been on to us.

As a kid growing up in the ‘80s, my friends and I would walk down in 90 degree heat when we had absolutely nothing to do in the summer. (Yes, we could do that back in the day before Reservoir Ave turned into the Autobahn.) We would pop into Kelly’s Sporting Goods and of course Child World to cool off. I would head right over to the Barbie section and gaze longingly at the variety of pink Barbie doll boxes and the accoutrements that came with her.

The “Hello Kitty” kiosk in Sackett’s Greeting Card store attracted me like a moth to a flame. The colorful shiny plastic trinkets that donned the stand gleamed so brightly I wanted the whole thing for myself. It was just so beautiful.

Probably half of my Halloween costumes came from Woolworth’s. From the Bionic Woman to Bugs Bunny, the thrill of picking out a costume gave us kids quite a rush. Nothing said Halloween more than walking through the neighborhood until your feet are sore in a plastic outfit and a mask with an elastic band hugging your skull so tightly it probably cut down on the blood circulating to your brain. It was all worth it. You did it for the free candy.

Garden City did bring a fair share of anxiety to this little girl’s psyche. First of all, there was the infamous “bad boy” school across the way. Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about. The abandoned Sockanosset Boys Training School, built in the late 1800s. Every parent in Cranston, and the surrounding area, would threaten to send their child to this deserted, frightening place if their child misbehaved. We would drive by and without missing a beat my mother would say “If you act up, I’m sending you to the bad boy school!” It sort of didn’t make sense as I was, well, a girl. Wasn’t there a bad girl school? But I knew enough not to question it.

The summer after I graduated high school, a friend and I were killing time and we decided to explore the old chapel on the grounds which is now The Chapel Grille restaurant. We walked around it, most certainly creeped out the whole time and found an entrance. I sincerely don’t remember much about the inside because almost as soon as we wandered in, a bunch of pigeons flew out from what was the bell tower scaring the crap out of us. Speaking of crap, I do remember the pews being covered in pigeon poo and upon entry into the decrepit building, a wall of humidity hit you probably as hard an old warden would smack a juvenile delinquent with a ruler. We ran out of there as fast as we could but I do wish I documented it with pictures. Supposedly, I had a great-uncle that spent some time in the clink before joining the military and going off to Europe to fight in World War 1.

My anxiety didn’t end there. There was the old rumor that Garden City was built on a coal mine (which it was.) The kids in my neighborhood would all say that one day, not so far into the future, Garden City was going to cave in. This did not sit well with me. The only thing I could think of was that ALL of Garden City, from Jennings Auto Repair all the way down to the movie theatre (where I saw E.T. back in 1982), was going to collapse, all at once, into a deep, hollow, dark, and lonely abyss. The worst part of it all was that when it happened, I would be in Sackett’s drooling over the glossy, shiny doodads on the Hello Kitty kiosk.

Years and years later, in 2001, you can imagine my relief when it was reported that a small cavity, only six feet in diameter, opened up in the parking lot where the old Woolworth’s used to be (where LA Fitness and LL Bean are located now.) It was nothing major, no one got hurt, and most importantly, no one got sucked into a horrific coal mine vacuum, never to be seen or heard from again, namely me.

I can breathe a sigh of relief nowadays walking my pup around Garden City and soak in all of the nostalgia that comes with it. My Sackett’s evolved into Sephora where I spend a lot of time coveting sparkly eye shadows and glistening lip glosses. And my daughter and I frequent Starbucks in addition to Newport Creamery for our cream-based double chocolate chip frappucinos and make-your-own-sundaes with gummy worms, chocolate chips, and M&Ms. (I still get a chocolate ice cream soda from time to time.) If only I could threaten to send my kids to the bad boy school like my mother did to me. To have that satisfaction would make my life as a parent complete.