Call Renewed to Rename Thames and Green Intersection "JK Sullivan Square"

A successful Newport businessman who once paid the annual salary of every teacher to keep Newport schools open in 1913 might get the honor of a city square in his name.

Jeremiah Kirrian Sullivan, who died on March 8, 1939, paved Thames Street in 1908 and emblazoned his initials and date in Belgian-Block cobblestones near the intersection with Green Street, opposite the doorway of the former People’s Credit Union.

In 2011, George Brian Sullivan, on behalf of the Newportant Foundation and the J.K. Sullivan Square Committee, first brought the idea of renaming the square after Sullivan to the City Council. In a letter, he explained that Sullivan, born in 1857, possessed legendary generosity and was a self-made man.

A contractor, former city street commissioner, banker and one of the incorporators of the Newport-Navada Mining Company, Sullivan preferred to be called just “JK” and was instrumental in getting Thames Street paved in 1908, at a time when there were just 200 miles of paved road in the United States.

The Newport St. Patrick’s Day Parade makes its way along Thames Street and Sullivan is the ideal man to name the square, George Sullivan believes.

“The roadway JK built has been the customary parade route whereupon the marching feet of Irish-American celebrants have proudly paraded year after year on their destination to their beloved Fifth Ward,” Sullivan wrote in a 2011 letter to the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

The proposal includes plans to enhance the Belgian-Block Monogram JKS/1908 by painting JK’s 5- by 7-foot mosaic with an Irish green border and Gaelic gold letters “not dissimilar to the traditional green and gold mid-stripe colors painted down Broadway for the occasion,” Sullivan wrote.

The matter is set to be discussed at tonight’s City Council meeting (April 22).