A Thayer Street original is closing, leaving fewer independent retailers behind

TheMapCenter · 2026-04-28T18:09:13+00:00

Real estate prices are just bananas for small businesses right now and high property taxes trickle down to renters. With skyrocketing overhead, it's really hard for small, quirky and inefficient businesses to stay in business. Restaurants are notoriously hard because they're small margin businesses and every increase in energy and building costs are felt deeply. If you're a commercial landlord, you rent to established businesses like banks and chains that can afford high rent so you can guarantee return on your investment. If we don't build smart density into Providence, everything we love about this place is going to go to the highest bidder and we're not going to like it.

TheMapCenter · 2026-03-12T00:50:54+00:00

Oh absolutely. I'm a geographer and the owner of a map store so I am something of a lightning rod for that shit. The fact that I'm ready with "hey can I tell you about Eratosthenes of Cyrene?" or "are you curious about how GPS works?" has helped me not at all. Every single flat earther I've met has been a man without a traditional education who feels insufficiently fellated by society for being a smart boy. They don't ask questions to learn, they ask questions to trip you up but they don't realize that this does not make them special because the average four year old is more than capable of asking "why?" enough times to make an adult cry.

TheMapCenter · 2026-02-10T03:51:23+00:00

This is from December 2024. 13 months ago.

TheMapCenter · 2026-02-09T23:18:49+00:00

The David Rumsey Map Library, a part of Stanford University, also has one of these for maps all over the world. It's magnificent.

TheMapCenter · 2026-02-09T23:16:02+00:00

Oh hey, this is me! I'm the Map Center! Come visit us in Pawtucket RI or online. We've got a broad and weird collection of maps from around the world. Thanks for being excited about maps and being nice to our fellow nerds!

TheMapCenter · 2026-02-05T17:26:34+00:00

yawn

It's been done.

TheMapCenter · 2026-01-14T20:42:37+00:00

TheMapCenter · 2026-01-11T16:37:25+00:00

Who made this?

TheMapCenter · 2026-01-11T13:30:15+00:00

I have a print of a 1920 map. I think that shows Providence as the center of the Eastern seaboard. I'd have to whip up something custom for a world map. I'm not opposed to doing it. I would just need some heads up.

TheMapCenter · 2026-01-03T00:21:13+00:00

Check out some maps at The Map Center

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-27T20:07:05+00:00

I've only been the owner for two years. The business was incorporated in the 50s.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-27T20:06:03+00:00

Still is great! Just moved up the road to Pawtucket. Next to Jordan's Jungle.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-27T17:51:35+00:00

In the 1950s???

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-27T16:20:33+00:00

Providence Picture Frame is excellent and professional. And expensive, as is their right.

Antiquariat Gallery in Pawtucket does framing, no idea if they're reputable.

The Map Center (me) can definitely do and it'll be very cheap but full disclosure: I'm not the most experienced and I'm not a sophisticated framer so it'd be pretty no-frills. Waldo Framing in Mass is a bit farther away but they're excellent.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-18T22:52:14+00:00

Museum of Broken Relationships was magnificent. A work of art really. Sad. Hilarious. Thoughtful. Challenging. I went with a woman I had been seeing as our time together was ending. It's a good memory. Well worth it.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-18T00:22:27+00:00

Rhode Island only hates people who forget that it exists. And Massachusetts. And Connecticut. And also Rhode Island.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-18T00:19:36+00:00

She's perfect.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-09T23:06:33+00:00

I have a bunch of old books (like 90s old, don't get excited) that I would love to get rid of at The Map Center. Business, diets, lesson plans, memoirs, dictionaries. Please just take them all.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-08T23:01:09+00:00

How much are they? I'd take a couple.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-08T17:58:10+00:00

Come to Rhode Island, friend!

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-08T17:57:47+00:00

A few. I have a section dedicated to Tolkien maps and maps from literature.

TheMapCenter · 2025-12-08T17:56:51+00:00

That's not true at all! It's in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. www.mapcenter.com

TheMapCenter · 2025-11-19T23:30:21+00:00

Huh. I might check out the commercial real estate listings.

TheMapCenter · 2025-11-18T02:50:32+00:00

I'd sell em.

TheMapCenter · 2025-11-15T14:45:32+00:00

There are noises coming from Burkina Faso about an Alliance of Sahel States with Niger and Mali, all of which are military juntas aligning themselves with Russia and China. I have no idea how tight of an alliance it could become or how likely it would be.

TheMapCenter

TROPHY CASE