Counting the Stairs up College Hill

Providence keeps its steepest sidewalks on College Hill, and it hides stairways among them like bookmarks. The hill rises about two hundred thirty feet from the river streets in under half a mile. On a bright February morning I set out to climb it properly, counting every public tread.

The whole circuit is short, about a mile and three quarters from the bus stop and back. Mine took forty six minutes, which says less about distance and more about stopping to look. The climb is front loaded and honest, and the descent asks for careful knees. February dresses the route in sand, rock salt, and a thin blue light.

A note on the arithmetic before we start, because I promised counting and I mean it. I climbed the stairs twice each way on a dry morning and kept a pencil tally. Your numbers may drift by a tread or two, and the hill will not mind.

From the tunnel mouth

The bus stop sits beside the old trolley tunnel portal, a stone arch cut into the base of the hill. Buses still use the bore, and you can feel them hum under the sidewalk while you wait. Step off, face the arch, and take the crosswalk to the sunny side of North Main. The climb begins one block south, where Meeting Street tips up and quits pretending.

I like this start because the hill announces its terms in the first minute. The grade arrives all at once, and the sidewalk answers with its first flight of steps. Somewhere overhead a carillon was practicing scales, dropping notes down the slope like loose change. It was eight fifteen, nine degrees above freezing, and the sand glittered.

The treads of Meeting Street

The stepped sidewalk on Meeting Street is the spine of this route and its main event. The treads come in five flights with sloped landings between, tucked against house foundations. My tally says fifty seven: ten, then twelve, then twelve again, then eleven, then twelve. Each flight is edged in granite, and February leaves a stripe of sand down the middle.

Neighbors here shovel by relay, each house taking the flight against its own wall. The morning I counted, someone had scattered wood ash on the ninth tread, old style. A kettle whistled behind a storm window, and a dog supervised from a porch. Stairs make a street slow down, and the slowness makes it neighborly.

Climb slowly, and the street pays you back at every landing you reach. Turn around once per flight and watch the city assemble itself behind you. First the shingled rooftops, then the downtown towers, then the river showing between them in cold slices. By the top flight you have gained enough height to see weather coming off the bay.

At Congdon Street the steps end and the hill hands you a level ledge to walk. Turn left and follow Congdon north past fences, woodpiles, and one skeptical orange cat. The houses here turn their gable ends to the street like people keeping warm. Two minutes of flat walking brings you to an iron gate and the terrace.

Prospect Terrace, the payoff

Prospect Terrace is a small square of park hung off the edge of the hill. The stone founder stands at its railing, staring west with his hand raised over the city. Below him the drop is sudden, and the whole valley opens like a set of drawers. The marble dome across the river holds the light even on a gray morning.

I gave the view ten minutes and a thermos cap of coffee, which felt about right. A freight horn sounded somewhere north, and two gulls rode the updraft off the bluff. In February the trees are bare, so the terrace shows you everything it has. Summer visitors get leaves and shade, but winter walkers get the honest map.

A word about footing before the descent, since the terrace lulls people. The park crew plows a neat lane to the railing, but the bench rows keep their drifts. I watched a runner learn this the slow way, arms out like a tightrope act. Nobody fell, and the founder did not comment, but the lesson carried.

Ridge lanes and the long way down

Leave the terrace by its north gate and follow Congdon to the corner of Bowen. Here the hill offers lanes instead of stairways, narrow passages between garden walls and carriage houses. I took the brick one that slips behind the corner houses, wide as a wheelbarrow. It delivered me to Pratt Street with cobwebs of snow still on my shoulders.

Bowen Street deserves a sentence of its own before you commit to the descent. It falls west in one straight ribbon, so the water seems to stand at its foot. In February the view arrives filtered through maple twigs and chimney smoke. I stood there long enough to cool down, which the climb had made welcome.

Pratt Street holds one more flight, a short run of twelve concrete treads between walls. That brings the stair total to sixty nine, if you are keeping my tally. From there the descent is all grade: Jenckes Street drops toward North Main like a dare. Take it in short steps, and be glad for the sand crews who came before you.

Halfway down, Jenckes crosses Benefit Street, and you can borrow its lamps for a block. I jogged one block south along Benefit to descend by Church Street instead. The gentler grade seemed wiser with the morning ice still thinking things over. Either way you land on North Main within sight of the tunnel arch.

The loop closes at the same shelter where it began, forty six minutes after it started. A bus surfaced from the portal as I arrived, shaking snow dust off the arch. I let it go and stood a minute, feeling the hill hum behind me. Some routes end with a view, and this one ends with a heartbeat under the street.

Worth the walk

This is the shortest circuit in the gazette so far, and the steepest for its size. In under an hour it gives you stairways, lanes, a terrace, and the widest view downtown owns. I would call it the right walk for a clear cold morning with no appointments.

It is plainly not a route for strollers, wheels, or anyone who would rather skip stairs. The flights have railings on one side only, and the lanes are single file. In ice season the descent wants patience, good soles, and both hands out of pockets. If sixty nine treads sounds like a chore, the Benefit Street loop covers this hill more kindly.

But if counting things quiets your head the way it quiets mine, go soon. Bare trees make February the seeing season, and the crowds are all elsewhere. Fifty seven treads up Meeting Street, twelve more on Pratt, one stone founder, no tickets. The arithmetic of a good morning almost never comes out this clean.

Nell Harrow, founder and editor. Walks out of Providence, writes on the way back.