Jane’s Walk is a movement of free, neighbor-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs. Anybody can lead a Jane’s Walk. The festival encourages people to share stories about their neighborhoods, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and use walking as a way to connect with their neighbors.

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, May 3, 2025

10am-10:45am: Restoration Today: Ensuring the 21st Century Livability of 18th Century Buildings

The Newport Restoration Foundation actively cares for the preservation, maintenance, and continued livability of over 70 18th and 19th-century rental properties in downtown Newport and at Prescott Farm in Middletown, RI. Much of this work is carried out by NRF’s full-time Preservation Crew of carpenters, painters, and systems experts.

This tour will introduce participants to the restoration and preservation work of NRF through a focused lens on one ongoing 2025 restoration—42 Division Street, a ca.1748 residential building in the Newport Historic District undergoing a full restoration by the NRF crew. NRF staff will explain project planning and how tools such as the NRF archive and property records are used to care for the buildings today. Members of the NRF team will share how clapboards, shingles, and architectural details are made, remade, and integrated into repair work on site, with a “replace in-kind” preservation ethos leading all work. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, learn about materials and methods, and place the context of the house restoration into the larger preservation story of Newport.

Location: Meet at 42 Division Street

11:30am-12:30pm: Jane’s Lunch at Spring Park

For millennia, what is now Spring Park has been a gathering place on Aquidneck Island.  Whether a source of water or a place to gas up your car, people have been drawn to this site. Ironically, now that it’s a park it seems there’s even less clarity on what exactly we do there.  What a great time to gently build public memory around what we do with this reclaimed public space. Bring-your-own-lunch, a game, a puzzle, a song, a proposal, a question or an answer, and we’ll figure out new ways to make use of this ancient and brand new gathering place. Jed will bring the coffee.

Location: Meet at Spring Park and bring a lunch

1pm-1:30pm: North End Art Walk Parade

Join the Newport Health Equity Zone, North End residents and friends as we walk from The Florence Gray Center to the Newport Skate Park and on to Miantonomi Park. Participants are encouraged to make and/or bring their best parade accoutrements (banners, flags, signs) from home, and costumes are encouraged!

Location: Meet at the Florence Gray Center and End at Miantonomi Park

3pm-4pm: Keeping History Above Water: Community Resiliency & Action

Newport, “City by the Sea,” is characterized by its surviving colonial architecture and long-held relationship with the water. Much of the City’s historic downtown, wharves, and colonial-era neighborhoods are experiencing the worsening impacts of high tide and increased storm flooding caused by climate change. While Newport has long weathered storms, the prolonged, damaging effects of rising tides on 18th and 19th-century foundations, framing, and utilities are spurring historic property owners to find solutions. As a community-wide challenge, this tour will focus on the approaches to protect vulnerable historic properties from rising tides and highlight the opportunities and challenges facing Newport to unify resiliency and preservation initiatives citywide.

Location: Meet at Storer Park and end at 53 Bridge Street

6:30pm-7:30pm: Easton's Pond; Past, Present & Future

A tour at twilight by a "plate of fire" as the poet Mary Oliver wrote.  With Spring in its glory and bloom, we hope to watch the Great Blue Herons, Night Heron, and Egrets come to roost for the evening.  Snapping turtles will be beginning their mating season, and with any luck, goslings and ducklings will be in the moat. We will begin awhile before the sunsets, gathering at the entrance to the Pond at Braga Park, with an overview of the Pond's history in its natural state as an estuary, before it transitioned into a farm, a dump, and to its incorporation to Newport Public Water Works.  Our walk will guide us south towards the beach, to allow for conversation, and on our return home, lead into silent contemplation and appreciation.  Come with a warm layer, a journal, and a friend!

Location: Meet at the Bridge at Braga

Sunday, May 4, 2025

9am-10am: Exploring the Landscape of Newport’s Quaker Community

Starting from Brick Market, this walk will take us to the Great Friends Meeting House and then through Newport’s Easton Point neighborhood. Along the way we’ll discuss Newport’s Quaker community and its role in shaping the city’s society in the 17th and 18th centuries. We will reflect on Quaker values and practices while visiting where they lived and worshiped.  

Questions to ask along the way: What do we know about the Quakers?  How where they different from other religions in colonial America?  In what ways did Quaker values and practices shape Newport’s urban landscape? In what ways did Quaker values and practices shape Newport’s economy? Do you think that present-day New Englander’s values and sense of identity are still influenced by the religious practices of the colonists? (Puritans, Quakers, Pilgrims)

Location: Meet at Brick Marketplace, Goddard Row

11am-12:30pm: Elmhurst/Glen Manor House Then & Now

In the 1880s, Henry A. Taylor started acquiring land which turned into the Glen Farm, totaling 1500 acres.  The "Manor House" was designed as a French style chateau by John Russell Pope and constructed in 1923 just north of the actual glen on the Sakonnet River. The home’s location is the same spot Thomas Cooke had a home in the mid 1600’s.The Frederick Law Olmsted firm designed and completed the farm’s landscape. By the 1960s the Manor House had been sold and incorporated into a private school for girls, Elmhurst Academy and later into a public elementary school in '72. Hear from resident historian Gloria Schmidt and environmental advocate, Emily Skeehan. Let's reflect on the Glen's use in the last 50 years and how the Glen trail has changed. Learn about the Preserve the Glen Coalition, Portsmouth's Bike & Pedestrian Advisory Board, and the Friends of the Glen Manor House to see how you can get involved preserving Portsmouth's unique cultural asset.

Location: Meet at Portsmouth's Glen Park most eastern parking lot (between Glen Park and Glen Manor House)

2pm-3:15pm: Explore Green End's Green Spaces

Since childhood, I've loved discovering shared and green spaces of this island. We'll pass by various farmland at the top of the hill near Sweet Berry Farm. We might see a flock of turkeys or hear some cows — you never KNOW. Depending on the weather, bring some mud shoes or boots!

Location: Meet at Howland Park in Middletown

4pm-5pm: A Normal Neighborhood with Really Unique Features

The neighborhood between Bellevue Ave and Cliff Walk is a mix of new and old houses and regular folks.  Newport is fascinating in that every street has interesting structures and landscapes, including this one.  

Location: Casino Terrace outside of Cru Cafe in the Stop and Shop parking lot

Fest Date: May 3 - 4, 2025

Location: Various Locations in Newport, RI

RSVP for this Walk

Click here for more information.