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Ontario Apartments

building in Rhode Island, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ7094595 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Ontario Apartments are an historic apartment complex located at 25-31 and 37-41 Ontario Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The apartments were designed by Page & Page, and built in 1925 and 1927 by Harry Soren in a Mission/Spanish Revival style. The apartments consist of two three-story, flat-roofed, wood-framed buildings. The building at 25-31 Ontario Street was built in 1925, and forms a U-shape. 37-41 Ontario Street is to the west, is identical in detail but configured differently.

These buildings are "well-preserved examples of early twentieth-century apartment buildings and are typical of ... apartment buildings in middle-class neighborhoods during the 1910s and 1920s." They were designed to appeal to wealthier tenants who did not want to care for single-family dwellings. They were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ontario Apartments” as building in Rhode Island, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ontario, Apartments and building.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 1927, 1998—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ontario, Apartments and building providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ontario Apartments”, the useful work is to connect “building in Rhode Island, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7094595. Authority coordinates are 41.800, -71.420. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1927 and 1998.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ontario Apartments”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ontario Apartments primary sources, Ontario Apartments archive and Ontario research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ontario Apartments”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ontario Apartments” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.