Brown Town

Brown Town was the name given to the temporary housing for veterans of World War II which was erected in 1946 near Marvel Gymnasium on the city-owned Sessions Street playground at the corner of Elmgrove Avenue and Sessions Street. There were one hundred housing units in eight former Navy barracks which were brought in sections from the Coddington Point site in Newport and set up on cement posts. At one time the hundred families in Brown Town had a total of 120 children. Half of the apartment buildings were removed in 1950, and the rest were taken down in June 1951, when almost all the married veterans had finished their education.