The Fabre Line Club: Providence’s Cultural Camelot, 2007–2013
Patrick T. Conley
For a few brief shining years in the early part of this millenium, Dr. Patrick T. Conley’s “Camelot” on Allens Avenue in Providence hosted a Rectangular Table of historians, literati, and ordinary bedrock citizens of the Ocean State. Dubbed “The Fabre Line Club” in commemoration of the immigrants who debarked Fabre Line ships onto the Allens Avenue docks, the club presented lectures, cultural events, and entertainments both edifying and amusing to audiences from all walks of life — not to mention ethnic heritage buffets and dinners with a view of the harbor. Like Arthur’s court, the Fabre Line Club also vanished into legend, but lives on in this joyous and melancholy saga of seven years of culture, politics, and good times on the waterfront.