Providence’s
Lost Design Invention
Resurfaces
Embedded Files
"The Higgins Ghinknobulater" ~ 160 Years Later
By AB Marcus
An 1860s creativity machine from 333 Waterman Street is shaking up today’s design world.
A strange piece of Providence history has returned to the spotlight and it’s causing a stir among designers, futurists, and AI thinkers.
On April 10, 1865,
Dr. Gregory J. Higgins, a reclusive inventor tucked away in Providence's Richmond Square inside the old factory building at 333 Waterman Street, unveiled a prototype device he claimed could “measure and magnify, meticulous, magnificent, magnanimous imagination ideas.”
The machine’s name: The Higgins Ghinknobulater. Pronounced ("Higgins Ghin-Knob-U-Later")
Originally intended as a tool to analyze early creative thought, the device malfunctioned during a full-power test and instead began producing fully formed design storylines, eerily predicting future innovations, designers, and creative breakthroughs that hadn’t yet occurred.
In one surviving notebook, Higgins wrote: “These stories are not predictions they are messages. They point toward the writer who will complete them.
Initials: "AB”
Today, many see a connection to PVD's own AB Marcus, creator of Design Adventure Stories, whose work mirrors the imaginative patterns the machine once produced.
The Higgins Ghinknobulater feels less like a relic and more like a prototype of the world we’re entering now.
And with the latest updated 21st century prototype it is sure to create innovation in a new way.
Providence, the Creative Capital of New England, once again, proves itself a place where creativity, technology, and astounding, ambitious, adaptable myths converge.
Tragically, Dr Higgins was taken too soon when he died in the notorious horrific Richmond Switch, RI train accident of April 19th 1873 - known today as Wood River Junction, RI.
After Dr. Higgins’ death in 1873, the original Higgins Ghinknobulater prototype was quietly sold at auction and shipped overseas to England in 1874 inside a wooden crate labeled - ‘Experimental Optic Chrono-Analyzer.’”.
Its trail leads to Kent County, England, where according to a local family legend a peculiar American “story-making device” was given to a young boy recovering from a shattered leg.
That boy’s name: Herbert George. The son of a shopkeeper and a lady's maid.
Confined to bedrest while his leg mended, little Herbert George, became enthralled with the strange machine his father brought him one day along with new story books to read.
The Higgins Ghinknobulater was filled with gears, lenses, and cryptic brass knobs. Ten knobs in fact, on this curious device. It hummed faintly at night. Then it issued fragments of worlds that did not yet exist. It whispered invention and innovations never thought of before...
So impressed by the Higgins Ghinknobulater, that Herbert George used only his initials: H.G. in his byline in stories he wrote.
And of course, soon after, the world met The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man stories that seemed to spring from the same imaginative patterns Dr. Higgins recorded decades earlier at 333 Waterman Street, Providence.
Some now say Wells didn’t invent science fiction.
They say Providence, Rhode Island exported it.
And now you know the rest of the story…
About Providence’s Lost Design Invention
The End.
A Basket of Hope
RISD Museum redesign & kittens
By AB Marcus
On a crisp November morning in Providence, Rhode Island at 806 Hope Street, Esther and Daura unlocked the door to their tiny storefront studio "Hope Exhibit Design," expecting another long day of drawing, drafting, and displays - the kind of work that kept them going even when everything else felt tight.
But today, a woven basket waited on the welcome mat at the front door. Inside, three tabby kittens Rocky, Kona, and Leo blinked up with newborn innocence. A handwritten note lay across the blanket:
“I know you will take good care of Rocky, Kona, and Leo! God Bless You!”
Esther exhaled sharply. They were barely holding their business together as it was.
Competing against massive New York exhibit firm Tessellate Exhibit & Experience Design for the RISD Museum redesign contract felt like climbing a mountain in socks...
And kittens were not part of the plan.
Daura scooped them up gently. “Maybe they’re meant to be here,” she said.
By noon, an email arrived from 20 North Main Street, Providence - The RISD Museum.
The subject line read: "Final Round: 24-hour design challenge deadline."
So these two PVD display designers had just a single day to produce something remarkable while famous New York Exhibit giant Tessellate had big budgets, full teams, software specialists, and entire floors dedicated to proposals with interactive digital technologies like AR and VR.
"How can we compete with them?" Esther said.
All afternoon and deep into the night, the two worked at a feverish pace.
While their competitors released flashy teasers online - multi-million-dollar renderings dripping with polish.
Esther felt the weight of society’s expectations pressing in: "big cities win, small studios lose," she said nervously.
"Maybe Providence wasn’t meant to topple Manhattan," Daura said.
Around 2 a.m., Rocky the little climber kitten, knocked over a dusty stack of archived museum display books they kept for inspiration.
Just then a museum curator’s note slipped free:
“Exhibits should feel like home where discovery feels personal, human, and hopeful.”
Esther held the paper like a compass. “This. This is what we’re missing.”
The mood shifted. They redesigned not with intimidation, but with Providence’s quiet brilliance creativity at human scale.
A week later, RISD called.
Hope Exhibits WON!!!
Somehow, Providence's little "Hope Exhibit Design" had defeated the Big Apple Firm!
When RISD museum director, Tsugumi Maki visited their studio, the three curious kittens curled atop the winning model like tiny guardians.
Which made her laugh! "We all loved your hopeful human design!" she said.
Just then, Esther looked at the handwritten note pinned above her desk to take good care of the kittens with the message... "God Bless You!"
She realized hope comes softly, on a cue only when the heart can hear it.
And sometimes, it comes in a basket on Hope Street.
The End.
2-Min Narrated Story
A Basket of Hope
Slatersville: America's First Mill Village
Slatersville: America's First Mill Village is an Emmy® & Telly Award-Winning Series.
Design Adventure Snapshots
11 Quick Snapshots of PVD Design Adventure Stories from The Creative Capital of New England!!
Listen & Read ~ Fully Narrated Stories Here!
1. A New Game
When Hasbro leaves Rhode Island, four local creatives—Catherine, Robert, Ashley, and Freddy—band together in an old Providence mill to start a new toy company, proving that imagination and community can outplay corporate abandonment.
2. The Excellent Wonder Box
Two Providence designers, Bryana and Sam, discover a mysterious 1636 box that transports them through time to witness historic innovations—including the first U.S. women-led factory strike—teaching them that good design can literally reshape history.
3. Only Murmurs in the Billing
Struggling Providence designer Emily, overwhelmed by bills and doubt, recalls her sailing coach’s wisdom—“change your sails”—and learns resilience and adaptability are the true arts of design.
4. Cotton Candy Kate & Her Design Castle in the Sky
Game designer Kate’s meteoric rise and collapse in Providence reveal that lofty creative dreams must be balanced by patience, practicality, and humility.
5. PVD Flying Carpet Story
RISD designer Vincent and Brown engineer Troy build a real flying carpet that soars above Providence, only to learn that even magical innovation carries a hidden cost.
6. Dance Party Design
A futuristic glimpse of Providence in 2052, where design, technology, and rhythm merge into one electric creative celebration of motion and imagination.
7. The Most Neglected Design Client
A designer’s dream project unravels after a brutally honest client comment, teaching the painful but valuable lesson that critique is the cornerstone of better design.
8. PVD Seagull Scamper
An unexpected moment of creativity inspired by Providence’s mischievous seagulls reminds locals that true design can spring from play, chaos, and humor.
9. CHIC WEEK PVD: Good Mourning Ladies
After a top tailor’s tragic death, three Providence fashion designers and an unsung seamstress save the city’s biggest runway event overnight, turning grief into triumph through teamwork.
10. Storefront Blight Turns Right
Three young women graduates from Providence transform abandoned downtown storefronts into vibrant showcases of art and optimism, reigniting civic pride and proving design can heal a city.
11. May Muses: A Strike in May
During a writers’ strike, nine mythic muses free themselves to inspire non-union creators, sparking a revolution of imagination that redefines creative freedom for all
2-Min Narrated Story
PVD Fashion Looms Big
PVD Fashion Looms Big
Weaving wonder without losing way
By AB Marcus
At 123 Dorrance Street on the 4th floor, A&C Fashions is a studio so small the iron steam fogs windows.
We see owners Allie and Cairn, two fresh RISD graduates of fashion hard at work. These two have talent, taste, and vision but the New England fashion scene always wants sameness. Their bold designs were treated like polite curiosities. Local New England buyers seemed to say: Not yet. Not like that.
And yes, they have two amazing dogs, Harley a 3-year-old French Bulldog and Maggie a 5-year-old Welsh Corgi, napping on fabric piles like they were clouds.
On one warm Summer day in July, Allie and Cairn took Harley and Maggie and drove to Newport, RI to see and breathe the salty air and take in the beauty of Narraganset Bay. While touring the Cliff Walk, they found and bought an old weaving loom at an estate sale near the Elms mansion.
The loom was made of ancient oak, iron gears with carved symbols of a four leaf clover, and a horseshoe on the top.
But when they wove on it back at their little Dorrance Street fashion shop, somehow the fabric patterns formed on their own like visions of possible futures.
Runways.
Applause.
Recognition.
But also darker paths: burnout, imitation, success without joy. The loom didn’t reveal fate it seemed to revealed choices.
Then suddenly and strangely, their pups soon got involved. Harley sometimes nudged Cairn when a pattern felt wrong. Maggie often pawed at Allie’s hand when the design strayed from their heart. Incredibly in some mysterious way their two dogs kept them grounded, reminding them what success was for.
Soon, major fashion houses came with offers.
Wealth.
Fame...
But they refused.
Instead, they continued to weave meaning into their classy colorful couture coats lined with poetry, scarves patterned like the Providence River, astounding new sleek dresses curvy like the Pawtucket S curves. Colorful, dynamic clothing people didn’t just wear but they felt.
And slowly, the city and New England changed its mind. Then New York. Then Paris.
But the real victory wasn’t fame.
It was that they rose without unraveling who they were.
Backstage at their first international Paris show, their little furry friends Harley and Maggie sat proudly with their tiny matching A&C Fashion bandanas.
“We chose the right pattern,” Cairn said.
“No,” Allie smiled.
“We wove it.”
The End
Narrated Story - 2 Min:
'REAL WORLD' Design
on Weybosset Street
'REAL WORLD' Design
on Weybosset Street
Every campaign AI produced felt hollow...
By AB Marcus
In the Creative Capital, even the traffic lights whisper in wavelengths of wonder.
Tony, Josie, and Jeff ran their small advertising agency from a brick building at the curve of Weybosset Street in downcity Providence where the walls were covered with ideas ~ half-sketched slogans, mood boards, and fragments of dreams.
Buddy, their golden-haired retriever and unofficial art director, slept beside the printer, which he distrusted less than the AI that now wrote half their headlines.
At first, the new “creative intelligence” had seemed miraculous. It generated concepts faster than coffee could cool. But soon, the trio began to notice something uncanny ~ every campaign it produced felt strangely hollow, as if the soul had been vacuum-sealed out of the work.
Just then the trio decided to stop relying on the AI algorithm. Instead, they began walking Providence streets and neighborhoods IRL, sketching signs, overhearing laughter outside AS220, photographing murals that bloomed on city walls. like secret, prayers. They rediscovered color through imperfection ~ the crack in a tile, the way rain altered a poster’s ink.
By afternoon a thunder storm burst sent them running back to their office. Lightning hit a transformer near the river, plunging downcity into desolate darkness. Buddy barked - sharply - as the computers powered down for good. Josie lit candles.
Finally, the rain and thunder stopped and there was a sudden quiet in their little design office. Now, they finally had time to think.
By dawn, Weybosset Street was awake again with chiming rebooted office computers and equipment. So they gathered the remains of their failed AI creative campaigns, and tossed them in the shredder.
They decided to launch a new kind of ad campaign - one not for products, but for possibilities.
And their tagline was handwritten, not typed. on a big poster in their front window that read:
“Creativity turns questions into blueprints.”
The next day, people stopped in front of their window to stare. Some smiled. One left a note: Thank you for remembering the human part.
Buddy wagged his tail and twirled in a left handed circle before dropping down for his afternoon nap. Providence glowed.
"Let's begin again, let's start fresh designs with enthusiasm and clever courageous creativity "In Real Life" from now on! " Jeff said.
"And real world Creativity will always be the bridge between wondering and building," Josie said.
The End.
A New Game
1:49 Sec ~ Narrated Story
Design Adventure Stories ~ Providence RI
A New Game
What Happened The Day They Left
By AB Marcus
The day the news broke, the air in Providence and Pawtucket and all over Rhode Island ... felt hollow.
The big toy company packed its boxes, dimmed the lights for the last time, and left for Boston.
For decades, Rhode Island’s heartbeat had been the rhythm of dice rattling, plastic pieces snapping into place, ideas tumbling like marbles across drawing boards.
Catherine watched from the sidewalk with a clenched jaw. Beside her, Robert muttered, “They never listened.
Every pitch I made ...dismissed. Like imagination had to pass through a corporate filter first.” Ashley folded her arms, eyes shining. “Well, maybe that corporate filter just left town.”
Freddy chuckled. “Then it’s our turn to play.”
That night, they gathered in an empty mill building - red brick, creaky beams, the scent of sawdust lingering from its former life in the old Providence Jewelry District where Eddy and Point Street meet.
On the table lay a single sheet of paper with two words scrawled in marker: A New Game.
Ideas poured like spilled Legos: clever puzzles, cooperative games for families, new twists on classics. Games that taught kindness, sparked laughter, and turned boredom into brilliance. For once, nobody said no. Every voice mattered.
Funding, though ... that was the big question. But this time Rhode Island was listening. Two Local investors stepped up, Jonathan & Joseph were proud to see creativity stay home, offered seed money. Suddenly a spark became a flame like a WaterFire Brazier at full lighting.
“What do we call it?” Catherine asked, pen hovering. Robert grinned. “Kidovo. Kids evolve. Ideas evolve.” Ashley tilted her head. “Or maybe USA Toys - proud and bold.” Freddy laughed. “Either way, it starts right here.”
And so a new company was born. Whether it was called KIDOVO or USA Toys mattered less than the truth beneath it: that the power of play belonged not to the corporation that left, but to the community that stayed.
When one game ends, another begins. And the truest design is not made in leaving, but in staying ~ to play again, together.
The End.
All Stories Rated G - All Ages!
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