Offices-Condominiums (Greene and Daniels Mill)

Fronting the Blackstone and the backs of other mills in Central Falls on the opposite bank, this was once a thread mill. One of the partners in the business lived a few blocks away in a grand Victorian house in Central Falls (see CF5). Windows topped with segmental arches and silled in granite are conventionally set into unbroken brick walls in both buildings, Mill 1 (five stories) and Mill 2 (the three-story wing). The detail of special interest is the elaborate corbeled cornice of Mill One, with corbeled bracketing extended down between the arching of the uppermost windows. The two towers are differently designed. As variants on inset arched panels with arched windows, however, both provide examples of the round-arched industrial mode. Some cast iron balconies salvaged from old fire escapes serve as ornaments for the mix of offices and apartments which now occupy the mill. As such conversions go, this is well done. In fact, the developers rebuilt the rooftop mansarded floor and capped and restored the clock to the principal tower of Mill One, gaining another floor of revenue by returning it to its original form. In replacing old, drafty windows with tight modern ones, they also sought out paned sash to approximate what was there. All appropriate and admirable, yet the bland textures of synthetic modern building materials and the lack of decisive reveal in the window frames simply cannot match the vigor and resonance of their Victorian equivalents. Grateful as we are for the effort, this is a pale, well-manor-ed reflection of the mill that was.