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    Rhode Island State House

    4.4 (42 reviews)

    Rhode Island State House Photos

    Recommended Reviews - Rhode Island State House

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    Danny V.

    What an amazing piece of architecture. I loved their Christmas decor. The place is almost entirely marble. You can see where the newer parts are as there is visible caulking, cracks and uneven space. The old world builders were def next level! They even have tours

    Glenn G.

    Rhode Island's State House is a beautiful building.  According to one of their brochures, it's topped with the forth-largest marble dome in the in the world. We stopped by recently on a sunny, hot summer day.  While it was a weekday, the building was quiet with very little visible activity.  The exterior is quite stately and imposing. Tip: There's no real visitor center here, but you'll will find brochures on racks inside.

    Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington
    Stephanie T.

    I took a Monday 10:00am guided tour at the Rhode Island State House, one of Rhode Island's most important landmarks. Free docent-led tours for groups of fewer than ten people are available Monday-Friday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The tour was easy to reserve by completing the General Public Tour request form on the website, https://www.sos.ri.gov/divisions/civics-and-education/ri-state-house/state-house-tours. Groups of ten or more are required to request a tour reservation at least one week before their desired tour. The entrance to the building is located at 82 Smith Street. After doing a security check, you are free to explore the State House. The tour starts at the Visitor Center which offers various memorabilia for sale including postcards, magnets, and items designed and made in Rhode Island. It also has an array of books documenting Rhode Island's history. The tour started exactly at 10:00am. We took the elevator up to the 3rd floor to see the dome and public galleries for the House and Senate chambers. As we headed to the 2nd floor, our guide stopped at artifacts and paintings on the wall. The Senate Chamber is home to the 38 members of the Senate. The State Reception Room has a famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and his shoes follow you through the room (try it out, wherever you are standing in the room, his shoes are pointing at you.) The House Chamber is home to the 75 members of the House of Representatives. The State Library is open to the public and the library ceiling was designed to look like the back of a leather-bound book. There is a display of moon rocks and a miniature Rhode Island flag, souvenirs from the first manned lunar landing in 1969. I thought this was so cool. As we headed back to the first floor, we stopped at the bronze replica of Rhode Island's state seal with the state's original name, "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" embedded on the rotunda level. The last stop was the Royal Charter Museum which contains many priceless documents and artifacts that represent Rhode Island's important place in history. There are also self-guided tours available Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. QR codes to the State House audio tour in English and Spanish are posted throughout the building. Printed self-guided brochures are available in the Visitor Center located on the first floor of the State House, and in the State Library on the second floor. I learnt so much during this tour. It is truly a beautiful and remarkable building. The architects really thought everything out and how to design the building. Seeing the House and Senate chambers was so cool since I've only seen that on television. Feel free to take as many photos as well. As the Rhode Island's founders expressed, "Rare felicity of the times when it is permitted to think what you like and say what you think." I feel honored to be a Rhode Island resident and visited the State House.

    Looks weird without its topper!
    Kristen S.

    It's a beautiful building in Providence. Love the front steps. Lots of wedding parties take pictures here. Relatively easy parking depending on the time of day. I did visit with my class once and had to bring one of my students who uses a wheel chair through the basement near the dumpsters...Not sure if it has updated its accessibility issues but I hope in 2024 thats not an issue anymore.

    David C.

    Beautiful, fine building with well-maintained, secure, and easy-to-navigate surroundings. Only complaint is that accessibility to each building is not clear for non-locals, and that it is difficult to access any kind of refreshments within the Capitol Hill area.

    Nischinth S.

    It was lit up in pink as it was breast cancer awareness month. After an in depth research found outvthat there was a fundraiser followed by fireworks. I was in there for the waterfire and just hung out after a meal to get a personal firework show with no crowd and one wanted to check for events locally. My wife was happy about it and that's all that matters.

    view from Prospect terrace
    Frank W.

    After viewing the state house from Prospect Park, I made the relatively short walk to the state house itself. I was duly impressed by the marble building as well as the grounds as I walked around the perimeter of the entire property. I plan on returning some day in the future to take one of the weekday tours of the inside of the building.

    One page of the Rhode Island Royal Charter of 1663
    Ade B.

    Another beautiful historic state capitol building. I arrived about an hour before closing so I was too late for any guided tours. But I was able to wander around and take in the beauty of the building on my own self guided tour. The building is on the small side for a capitol building, which makes sense considering the size of the state. There is the rotunda, where you can look up to see all the beautiful murals on the ceiling and up in to the dome. Up on the second level you can walk around to see the various statues and read information about the state. The House and Senate chambers are on the 2nd floor as well, along with an exquisite library. My last stop was the Charter Museum on the first floor. A tiny museum with documents and artifacts explaining how Rhode Island became a state based on freedom from persecution for religious beliefs. The museum was a nice surprise since it's not common for a capitol building to contain a museum. My trip to Providence wouldn't have been complete without a stop at the state house.

    Ben W.

    Beautiful State House right inside the heart of Providence and can be seen from all directions of the city! Highly recommend checking it out and go on the weekdays to actually be let in.

    Andres A.

    A stately building. When you think about what a capital building is supposed to look like this is it. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to go inside of this public building but I could imagine what it would look like just by what I see from outside. Next time I visit it will definitely be a part of my things to do.

    William G.

    On my long drive along the east coast, I intended to hit every northeastern state. I pulled into Providence, Rhode Island to check out the life there. I found the town to have more of a small town feel. Much like Vermont and New Hampshire, this state is small with a population to match. I looked for a picturesque location to take good shots as a souvenir. I looked up the state house, and navigated over here. This state house stands tall, both due to its height and the fact that it sits atop a hill. Parking is found in front of the building, and was no problem to find. I took a few photos from several angles, and moved on. I saw a few people coming in a out of the building. I had to be in Connecticut at a certain time, so I didn't go inside. It was quite an impressive building.

    Meghana A.

    Office of the governor! Just wow!! ... entirely cladded in white marble.. it's one of the few structure in the world to have a self supporting dome (like the Taj Mahal)... everything is so ornate! We got to tour the state house in its entirety... the reception room, House of Representatives and senate chamber with all the "Yea" and "Nay" voting buttons and my oh my the library is just stunning.. swirling wooden staircases take you to the upper levels where they have books mostly for researching legal matters. There was a replica of the liberty bell just outside the senate chamber. It's feels so luxurious much like a castle..... it's just magnificent and I stood there gazing in awe!

    Very historic place with amazing architecture
    Lynn S.

    Really amazing, historical place to explore. Even if you don't do the guided tours which start on the hour (9am and after) during the weekdays, it's a great building to visit. The architecture in it is incredible! We joined the tour for a bit and it was interesting hearing about the pieces of history. The state room, charter museum and state library were the highlights of the building and also seeing the dome from the inside was really impressive. Definitely worth the visit if you like historical things.

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    Review Highlights - Rhode Island State House

    There was a replica of the liberty bell just outside the senate chamber.

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    The Shunned House - The Shunned House - Please be mindful that this is a private residence; be respectful.

    The Shunned House

    4.0(2 reviews)
    0.4 miCollege Hill

    Benefit Street is a nice little walk and The Shunned House is a sweet little surprise. What I like…read moreabout The Shunned House is that you would have NO CLUE that this house was significant amongst the others in the surrounding areas. The armory down the street stands out a lot more than the lil house that HPLovecraft wrote about. Still it's a great side trip that will only take seconds out of your day if you are in or around the colleges in the area. This is obviously a residence and they have since named the house after someone but you can see the wall that used to be used as the front of the house and the descriptions stand strong in Lovecraft's writing. No big deal but I liked being there and seeing it.

    I was going to write about this curiousity, but I realized I couldn't do any better than what…read morebrought me in the first place: "The house was--and for that matter still is--of a kind to attract the attention of the curious. Originally a farm or semi-farm building, it followed the average New England colonial lines of the middle eighteenth century--the prosperous peaked-roof sort, with two stories and dormerless attic, and with the Georgian doorway and interior panelling dictated by the progress of taste at that time. It faced south, with one gable end buried to the lower windows in the eastward rising hill, and the other exposed to the foundations toward the street. Its construction, over a century and a half ago, had followed the grading and straightening of the road in that especial vicinity; for Benefit Street--at first called Back Street--was laid out as a lane winding amongst the graveyards of the first settlers, and straightened only when the removal of the bodies to the North Burial Ground made it decently possible to cut through the old family plots. "At the start, the western wall had lain some twenty feet up a precipitous lawn from the roadway; but a widening of the street at about the time of the Revolution sheared off most of the intervening space, exposing the foundations so that a brick basement wall had to be made, giving the deep cellar a street frontage with door and two windows above ground, close to the new line of public travel. When the sidewalk was laid out a century ago the last of the intervening space was removed; and Poe in his walks must have seen only a sheer ascent of dull grey brick flush with the sidewalk and surmounted at a height of ten feet by the antique shingled bulk of the house proper. "The farm-like grounds extended back very deeply up the hill, almost to Wheaton Street. The space south of the house, abutting on Benefit Street, was of course greatly above the existing sidewalk level, forming a terrace bounded by a high bank wall of damp, mossy stone pierced by a steep flight of narrow steps which led inward between canyon-like surfaces to the upper region of mangy lawn, rheumy brick walls, and neglected gardens whose dismantled cement urns, rusted kettles fallen from tripods of knotty sticks, and similar paraphernalia set off the weather-beaten front door with its broken fanlight, rotting Ionic pilasters, and wormy triangular pediment. "What I heard in my youth about the shunned house was merely that people died there in alarmingly great numbers. That, I was told, was why the original owners had moved out some twenty years after building the place. It was plainly unhealthy, perhaps because of the dampness and fungous growth in the cellar, the general sickish smell, the draughts of the hallways, or the quality of the well and pump water. These things were bad enough, and these were all that gained belief among the persons whom I knew. Only the notebooks of my antiquarian uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple, revealed to me at length the darker, vaguer surmises which formed an undercurrent of folklore among old-time servants and humble folk; surmises which never travelled far, and which were largely forgotten when Providence grew to be a metropolis with a shifting modern population." H.P. Lovecraft, The Shunned House Be mindful that this is a private residence. Please be respectful.

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    The Shunned House - The side of the Shunned House that shows where the doors used to be

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    The side of the Shunned House that shows where the doors used to be

    Meeting Street Steps

    Meeting Street Steps

    4.0(1 review)
    0.5 miCollege Hill

    The Meeting Street Steps are an unusual feature in the College Hill National Historic Landmark…read moreDistrict. These 20 granite steps were constructed in the late 18th-century to connect Meeting Street and Congdon Street and had for centuries provided a shortcut for residents, including Governor William Sprague. Local folklore maintains that Sprague would travel out of his way between his home and the old State House just to ride up and down the steps on horseback. We take these steps a lot when we take our walks along the East Side of Providence, so we have enjoyed the city views from both the top and bottom of the steps. These steps have a strong historical significance to the city. Prior to its 1995 inclusion on the Most Endangered Properties list, the city-owned Meeting Street Steps stood in complete disrepair. Moisture had forced the steps out of alignment; the retaining walls on either side were crumbling; and the handrail had disappeared. Neighboring residents formed the Meeting Street Steps Work Group and petitioned the Preservation Society to include the stairs on its Most Endangered Properties list. Beginning in 1999, in conjunction with the City and the Meeting Street Work Group, the Preservation Society helped to solicit over $100,000 in donations from nearly 350 residents. Soon thereafter, ground was broken to realign the steps, rebuild the retaining wall, install handrails, and beautify the surrounding area. Contributors included the College Hill Neighborhood Association, the North Benefit Street Association, the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, and East Side Marketplace, which pledged 1% of the cash register receipt totals of concerned shoppers. Today, they are in good shape and used by hundreds of pedestrians.

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    Meeting Street Steps
    Meeting Street Steps
    Meeting Street Steps - Plaque

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    Plaque

    City of Providence - Historic fox point

    City of Providence

    4.1(32 reviews)
    0.5 miDownCity

    Rhode Island is the smallest state in the United States; but it has a unique and diverse culture,…read moreespecially its capital city, Providence. Downtown Providence is my favorite City; maybe I'm biased because I was born there. As a teenager, I loved taking the city bus to the Providence Place Mall, then hanging out at the Waterplace Park. Once I was in college, I would frequent Thayer St., the East side, and Wickenden St. often. I was always hanging out with my friends, at one of my favorite dive bar/club, Club Hell; they had 80s nights on Tuesdays, goth nights on Wednesdays, and Rock & Roll nights on Fridays. Providence is definitely a foodie city with tons of good eats. On a warm day, just take a walk around; lots of history and beautiful architecture. The new pedestrian bridge is also a lovely addition. There are many events that goes on, Waterfire is a popular one. It is home to some notable colleges such as Brown University, Providence College, Rhode Island School of Design, and Rhode Island College (my alma mater!) If you go to Federal Hill, there are some good restaurants and bars; home to the best Italian food. If you want to be one with nature, go to Roger Williams Park and Zoo. Overall, definitely a fun little city and gem in my eyes.

    Overnight Parking fines. Received a $40 dollar fine for parking on the street in front of our…read moredaughters dorm. Not a single sign up and down any street about on campus concerning No overnight parking without a permit. Although there are signs every 10 feet about 3 hour limit they couldn't be troubled to post about that so they can fine visitors. When you call the city you are told that has been a law for 70 years that I should have known about even thought I have been living in a different state my entire life. Also was they actually have it posted at the entrances to town, but I couldn't be giving an example of where to find one.

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    City of Providence
    City of Providence
    City of Providence - Church

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    Church

    Burning of British Taxed Tea Marker

    Burning of British Taxed Tea Marker

    4.0(2 reviews)
    0.5 miCollege Hill

    Months before the American Revolution started, colonists destroyed British tea in protest. You know…read moreabout that, right? Well maybe not. Because this plaque doesn't commemorate the 1773 protest known as the Boston Tea Party, when Massachusetts colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor. Instead, it refers to a later incident in Providence, RI, when its colonists burned the British stash of the "Needless Herb" in protest against the Crown. This happened on March 2, 1775. It's an inspirational story of patriotism, defiance, and solidarity. Based on the urgings of the Continental Congress, Rhode Islanders overwhelmingly agreed to show support against British tyranny. They did so by lighting a bonfire on Market Square, and after speech making and the ringing of bells, hundreds of pounds of British tea were tossed into the fire. One month later, things had reached their breaking point with the killings at Lexington and Concord. The Revolution was under way. The plaque's inscription reads: Near this spot the men and women of Providence showed their resistance to the unfair taxation by burning British Taxed tea in the night March 2nd 1775 Erected 1894 by Rhode Island Societies of Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution. Too bad the plaque is in such tough shape, how awesome would it be if this treasure of American history could be restored?

    Historical marker at the spot in a building where Tea from England was protested and burned in the…read moreyear 1775. Call it the Providence Tea Party! A revolution that started, against burdensome taxation. Traffic cones and trash in front. Plaque is in need of more attention and paint, barely legible.. The building itself looks like an old custom clerks office. Needs much better management. Rebel review: 4

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    Burning of British Taxed Tea Marker

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    Rhode Island State House - landmarks - Updated May 2026

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