Further back than any reader of today can recollect, Providence was once home to one of the nation’s more important sporting venues. Before the Dunk or the Rhode Island Auditorium were built, and even before the appearance of nearby Massachusetts sports centers like the Seekonk Speedway (“Action Track of the East”) and Gillette Stadium in nearby Foxboro, there was the Providence Cycledrome. Located on the Providence-Pawtucket line off North Main Street, it was host to exciting bicycle races at a time when bicycle racing was a major sport. Bicycle racing helped make famous two Providence Italian-Americans: sports entrepreneur Peter Laudati and professional champion cyclist Vincent Madonna.
The Cycledrome was considered the best bicycle stadium in the nation when it was built. As such, it drew the top names in cycling, but no name was greater than that of Vincent Madonna of Providence. Born in 1890 in Aversa, Italy, he came to the United States as a young man in 1909. Madonna had already made a name for himself long before the Providence Cycledrome was built. He started bicycling in 1914, winning his first race and the $50 purse. He won most of the races he entered. In a 1980 account published in the Providence Journal, Madonna recounted how when he first turned professional, the other racers were organized against him and attempted to slow him down by obstructing his path. Madonna said he felt that he had to prove himself. He peddled as fast as he could, not letting up. When the race was over, he learned he had lapped the rest of the field three times.
Madonna became a fan favorite, often cycling at the Cranston cycledrome to the cheers of “Poosh-a-Madon.” In 1921, he entered his first international competition and won. He would go on to win many races at the Cranston and Providence cycledromes, the Velodrome in New York City, and another track at Coney Island. One New York newspaper noted, “The Italians howled themselves hoarse, and they burned red fire in Mulberry Bend over the wonderful motor-paced riding of their idol, Vincent Madonna.”
While cycling in Philadelphia, Madonna set a record of 67 miles per hour. But he was more than a speed racer; he also entered endurance races. In 1917, the five-foot-two star peddled 900 miles in a 24-hour period. Perhaps his most outstanding achievement occurred in 1926 when he captured the championship at the New York Velodrome and, the succeeding day, won the “Golden Wheel” title at Providence’s Cycledrome. At one point in his career, he ran a winning streak of fifteen consecutive races. He was called the Babe Ruth of cycling in the 1920s. Warren Walden, the noted Rhode Island sportscaster of the mid-20th century, called Madonna “the greatest of all bike racers” and added that “He held a place in bicycle racing similar to that occupied by Joe DiMaggio in baseball in later years.”
When he raced in Providence, the fans came out. Earl Lofquist best said it in his newspaper column Inside-Out: “Madonna, the original ‘poosh em’up,’ was a particularly powerful figure at the gate, partly because he was a home product and Federal Hill’s greatest gift to the sports scene up to that time. Those who would not pay to see him win were quite willing to see him beaten. Either way, the cash came through the turnstiles.”
While the Providence Cycledrome was said to hold 10,000 patrons, it was often filled to overcapacity due to large numbers of Italian American immigrants from nearby Federal Hill, Silver Lake, Eagle Park, and elsewhere who came to see local Italo cyclists Vincent Madonna, Cranston standout Dan Piscione, and many others including the young Frank Madonna, nephew of Vincent Madonna.
By late 1929 Vincent Madonna was living on Long Island and seldom appeared in Providence. The withdrawal of Madonna and the Great Depression started by the stock market crash meant financial disaster for the Cycledrome. The stadium, in much need of repair, held on with dwindling attendance until 1934, as the Great Depression continued, when it finally closed. The property was put up for auction several times to pay back taxes, but no takers were willing to keep the stadium. The stadium was demolished in 1937.
Today, the Cycledrome is little remembered, but for a decade, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, it had the best seats in the state for Rhode Island sports fans. Vincent Madonna lived to be 95 years old, and when he was well into his 90s, he was still biking 20 to 25 miles each day. He died on May 7, 1986. He was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2023.