CITY WATCH A downtown moment between a bistro and a strip club BY CHRISTINA BEVILACQUA

According to the postcard, the 7 pm gallery talk would take place at 50 Aborn Street in Providence, but 7:03 found me at the corner of Washington and Aborn in doubt: desolate dark seemed the latter’s only promise. I forged ahead and felt the city’s bright din disappear behind me; "I knew there was nothing on this block." Then, a panorama of light and life, immense, shining windows on a gallery of people and pictures, opened before me. Astonished, and feeling a bit Alice-like, I opened the door.

Trinity Rep’s offices are on the third floor of this building, and its Consortium’s on the second, but when had the street level come to life?

"My job is ultimately to fill our buildings with tenants," explains Francis Scire of Cornish Associates, whose offices are on the fourth floor (and whose CEO, Buff Chace, was one of its buyers in 1999), "and toward that aim I work to keep the lights on and activity going in our spaces. The more people see an active, brightly lit downtown, the safer they feel in the area."

Thus spaces such as 50 Aborn are finished cleanly and then put to temporary use. A Westminster property currently houses a twice-weekly farmers’ market. Last spring, RISD’s graduate furniture students showed their thesis work in the Aborn space. The show I stumbled onto was Bearing Witness, Scott Lapham’s photographic record of Providence’s disappearing mills.

In 2004, Japanese designer Rae Kawakubo bucked the trend of uber-retail sites when she set up her one-year-only "Guerrilla Store" in a poky Berlin storefront. This fall Illy coffee created a "pop-up" shop in SoHo, designed to disappear in mere months. In both cases limited availability drove consumers mad with desire. While no one would object were similar frenzy to attach to 50 Aborn’s "provisional retailing," it would be more accident than design. Ultimately, Scire hopes to land "a moderately priced restaurant that’s hip and fun for hanging out" to round out the nearby mix of highest-end dining at Gracie’s, the more mid-range Brasserie Bravo, and AS220’s eminently affordable kitchen on Empire, soon to feature food by cult favorite Taqueria Pacifica.

Last week in daylight, I stood again in the Aborn space, filled through December with the wares of the Providence Design Collective. Couturier and collective member Karen Beebe was on the phone. "We have clothing, jewelry, house wares, fine art, and accessories, all designed by local artists," she offers, then adds, "We’re next to Gracie’s . . . and across the street from the Satin Doll."

Indeed, at this instant in this city we are all teetering temporarily between the new boutique restaurant and the venerable strip club. All prognostications and editorials as to where we might land aside, it’s a rich and revealing moment for the eye and mind.