So, what’s not to like about an organization called Green Drinks? Green Drinks meets on the third Thursday of every month in different local businesses and venues. It’s an opportunity to get inside some of the buildings you drive past every day, and see creative green architecture in good company.

This month’s meeting was sponsored by Farm Fresh R.I., which explains the fresh strawberries and pea pods in abundance. Newport Storm sponsored the drinks, including blueberry beer. Very summery.

The featured site was the Peerless Lofts. Amazing.

I am not quite old enough to have put on white gloves to go downtown, but I shopped at Peerless. Peerless was the place to go to get a bra that fits. The ladies would explain the mysteries of sizing and sell you an item that, in 2010 dollars, would approximate my rent back then. It was an investment. That’s before the entire garment industry fled overseas and came back thru Wal-Mart.

Peerless went the way of the other great anchor stores in the Downtown and lay vacant for years, but is now converted to loft apartments. The center of the building was opened up, the steel beams exposed, and a skylight illuminates a huge atrium that serves as an art gallery.

We met in the roof garden. I walked around the edge of the roof and looked down at Westminster Street. From that vantage Providence looked hilly and forested. Back in the day who would have imagined?

I wish I had my camera, but you can see a photo-essay about the Peerless Lofts at Art in Ruins.