LA Dave

That number was from the KGRR website, based on deplanings/emplanings year to year.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but GRR's passenger volume is down 8.12 percent this year from 2007 levels.

Re: Seattle I drive in hell traffic every day, but even I was amazed how bad Seattle's was. The problem is that there is basically one north-south freeway (I-5) that is impossibly clogged when, i.e., Boeing is having a shift change. LA County has also (apparently) approved a sales tax increase to fund County transit projects. The vote is close, however and some ballots are still being counted. While I live in a city where some idiots don't even know that we have a subway, I take it almost weekly and it is quite crowded during rush hour. The Blue Line, a light rail line that goes from downtown to Long Beach, is quite heavily patronized. Trains have been lengthened from two to three cars to handle the passengers.

Agreed. Great points. The last thing Michigan needs right now is unenlightened cannabalism. The airline that GRR attracts today may well be the airline that LAN or KZO steals tomorrow.

Spectacular picture, using the tower motif and picking up Fountain Street Church's bell tower in the far distance. That Medical Mile shot absolutely floored me. If I were not a regular denizen of this board, and someone happened to put that picture in front of me and ask where it was taken, I would have absolutely no idea. The changes in this part of GR are astounding. It makes the urban renewal efforts of the 1960s look like a little minor renovation.

You're kidding, right? City Hall might not be the most thrilling building downtown, but it is a fine, albeit modest, example of mid-century modernism, courtesy of Skidmore Owings and Merrill. That MOB thing on Pill Hill looks like a Daverman Plan 13 retread. It was ugly when it was built, and it will be civic improvement when it is demolished. Now, the Federal Building looks like its ugly cousin, but given the state of the federal budget deficit, I don't expect demolition of that green-bricked monstrosity any time soon. The real crime here was the destruction of the 1888 City Hall. Just think of what could have been done with that building in the new downtown.

Yeah, that's why I have take my revenge in cutting remarks about buildings. "The horror . . . the horror ... " (Kurtz in "Heart of Darkness," no doubt referring to Michigan football this year.)

Good job, Immanuel Lutheran, on the new parish hall. A big improvement over the 1950s building that was there before. And, nice to see Little Brother's medical school topped off. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

You are probably right about the color of the PD building -- I don't know why I thought it was red brick. I also remember the "new" Hall of Justice, because the Safety Committee at Riverside Junior High got to tour the Hall, including the cell block, after it was opened. It was too small from the start, but it took 35 years for the State to finally appropriate enough money to get it replaced. I wonder how long it will be before other buildings in Vandenberg Center (does anyone still call it that?) get torn down and replaced. Do you remember the old County Jail? It was a real Victorian monstrosity, down by the Greyhound Station off of Market.

Well the memory was half-faded -- the brewery was on the southwest corner, but of Michigan and Ionia, as Dad thought. I checked it against an old aerial photograph in the GRPL collection.

Dad: My memories are fading, but I seem to recall that the brewery was on the southwest corner of Division and Michigan. In that great postcard, I think that the hill shown is Michigan street, dipping toward the river. Anybody else remember it? The building was torn down in the mid-1960s; I just remember a pile of red brick, the same color as the GRPD headquarters, which were on the same block.

Yeah, Dad, I think the last gasoline burner left that fleet in the 1950s. Do you remember when the buses had manual transmissions? And were painted green and yellow?

Actually, GRR became an international airport before it had regularly scheduled international flights. That was due to the establishment of a customs office in the 1970s. I recall that international charters used GRR before Air Canada showed up.

Spectacular shots! And I am so jealous -- a Trimotor. Is it one of the original Ford's? I understand that the Ford test track at Dearborn, across from Greenfield Village, was the old Ford airport and the location for the manufacturing plant. One big impression from the pictures -- Grand Rapids is really "tree city." You can't make out individual buildings through the forest canopy until you hit downtown and the taller structures.

Well, yes, but I think that the skyscraper is iconic in a way that St. Patrick's can never be, because it expresses the essence of New York -- a place to work, a place to make money, a place to aspire. I love St. Pat's, but when I think of an iconic structure in NYC, two others come to mind -- the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. In a country that has no state religion, there is no way, IMHO, that any church can represent a city or a region unless that church (i.e., the Alamo) has a history independent of its ecclesiastical function.

Boy, that's a great question. I love St. Adalbert's, but I am not sure that I would consider the "iconic" structure in GR. It is certainly representative of its time and place, a great and lovely temple of God built by old-world immigrants. There are a number of these kinds of churches in GR, such as St. Andrew's Cathedral, St. Mary's Church, St. James' Church, Sacred Heart Church and Immanuel Lutheran Church. But I never think of St. Adalbert's as representing Grand Rapids, the way that say, Notre Dame represents Paris or St. Paul's Cathedral represents London. In fact, with the exception of perhaps the Alamo as the iconic image of San Antonio, I cannot quickly think of any ecclesiastical structure as being the iconic structure of any major American city.

Hard as it is for this die-hard Wolverine to say it, I agree. The medical school is a great addition to Pill Hill and will bring a number of highly educated (and to-be highly educated) new residents into GR. The Medical Mile is a great example of how the Great Lakes states can diversify from their old manufacturing base. And, the news about MPI in Kalamazoo is also fantastic. The future for cities like GR and Kalamazoo is increasingly in the kind of high-tech, high-education facilities that are being built on Michigan Street. I only hope that the state recognizes that and does not cheat its education and higher education system in an effort to try to remain a manufacturing hub.

Maybe this is off topic (you guys need a "Coffee House" like the GR board), but what do people think of the Ann Arbor News series of Michigan athletics and academics?

Summer travel plans: We gave up on the GRR alternative early in the process, so the choice was between Northwest to DTW or JetBlue/American to ORD. American was more expensive than JetBlue(fares change by the hour -- check it out). Northwest was also somewhat more expensive but still in the running because it was closer to Ann Arbor, our first Michigan destination. However, given the uncomfortable option of being stuffed into a Northwest 757 for five hours (industry minimum seat pitch and no entertainment to keep a teenager occupied) plus the opportunity to spend some time in Chicago, one of our favorite cities, the choice was easy; we opted for JetBlue.

You are very welcome. Yeah, post World War II campus architecture is horrendous, whether in Cambridge, Westwood, East Lansing or Ann Arbor. Fortunately, the Michigan Business School, a building that I thought Albert Speer could have designed had he had a branch office in the States, was recently demolished. Unfortunately, South Quad and Bursley Hall remain to blight the Ann Arbor landscape.

I love those pics of the old part of the MSU campus. The campus really is lovely, and prettier than almost any part of the Central Campus of my alma mater in Ann Arbor.

The cost differential that we have looked at (flying in July or August) is somewhat greater than suggested by an earlier post, and there are three people flying. Plus, as someone else pointed out, there may be no seats available to GRR. Flying to ORD or DTW gives us a 767 or 757, depending on the carrier. Flying on to Grand Rapids means an RJ and possibly no decent connection. It would be great if GRR got a Jet Blue or AirTrans or Southwest. But don't count on that happening in the near future.

My wife is planning our family trip back to GR this summer. But guess what? No flight for us to KGRR. The prices are outrageous and the planes are too small. We anticipate either a pleasant rush hour jaunt through Chicagoland or a dreary ride from Wayne County. Seriously folks -- towns with minor airports are at a serious business disadvantage with competitors.

Taking a quick look at the on-line flights at Bishop, I was impressed by the number of "real" airplanes -- 717s, 737s, DC-9s -- instead of RJs. That's one of my biggest problems with GRR -- too many little RJs that really limit your options. Unlike some, I can't fly at odd hours but have to schedule my flights so as to maximize mom time and minimize time away from the office. Now, I wouldn't consider flying to Bishop (too much of a drive over really boring, flat mid-Michigan terrain) from LA, but I can see how people in northern metro Detroit would see it as a viable alternative to DTW.