Exile

I don't know anything about living in Portland, but I've stayed in Timberline Lodge and skied on the first day of summer on Mt. Hood. An absolutely beautiful place. And volcanoes are cool (until they erupt, of course).

That tower/pavilion must be a nod to the old train station?

"Greenville Theater". Is it no longer the "Little Theater"?

Just based on its appearance from above, and not any other considerations, my first thought is hospital campus.

When we lived in Orlando, we used to fly Allegiant out of Orlando to go on vacations in other places, e.g., skiing in the northeast. I don't know if that's a significant market for Allegiant or not, but LV has over 2 million people, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's a market for cheap flights out of LV to places like Kville and Chattanooga, etc., which are bigger tourist draws than GSP.

Winyah Bay is the official southern boundary of the Grand Strand. I put Litchfield, Pawley's & "Debbuh Doo" up against any residential beach that isn't at the foot of a mountain. As for Hunting Island, I've never been there, but I imagine it's gorgeous, at sunrise especially.

Bocelli is a big deal, but I imagine he draws more women than men.

It was gimmicky from the beginning, because all (as far as I know) First Federal branches were built in the same shape. As if there were no other way to know you were at a 1st Federal branch. I worked in that building for a time, and it was a bit toward the claustrophobic, especially compared to American Federal-now-Prisma, which was (still is?) open and spacious. Idle speculation, but I wonder if they did go for a gutting, if you could cost-effectively build the "missing" superstructure to make it rectangular? Truist across from Haywood Mall is one of those buildings, whose shape has been corrected (note the mismatched brick). But that's just one floor, of course.

There were two other A&P's that I knew of: at the south end of Lake Forest Shopping Ctr and on Easley Bridge Road at White Horse Rd. They pulled out of Greenville all at once by 1973 at the latest. Probably earlier. For years those two buildings were recognizable as former A&P's by the cupola on the roof. Don't know anything about Big Star.

I have a distinct memory of there being a WD and an A&P side by side on the lower level of the Bell Tower Mall, facing the movie theater. This would have been back in the day when grocery stores weren't large. Roughly the size of a current-day CVS or Walgreens.

And nice, high-res drone shots cover a multitude of sins. Though I haven't seen any of late.

Yes. And it's not at all unlikely that there are people in smaller nearby cities who are envying the way Greenville gets things done---Camperdown, One, numerous apt. buildings, etc.--that they want but can't get done.

Other than that Bloom on S. P'burg, this is the last freestanding grocery store I can think of. I imagine nobody does that anymore?? Well, Aldi & Lidl are exceptions. I guess I mean big boxes.

^^^This is correct. It was originally an HT. Built ca. 1996. Our main grocery store till we moved away in '97. Had a humidor and a great beer selection (this was before Total Wine). However, I recuse myself from any Gman controversy.

https://www.coworkingcafe.com/blog/the-best-cities-for-the-class-of-23/ Not *about* Greenville, but Greenville is prominently mentioned in this article that was just posted in the Charlotte forum. It's listing of the best places to begin a career after college, based on several criteria, including "leisure establishments/100k population." Greenville stands out as scoring huge in leisure establishments compared to just about everybody else except for Fort Lauderdale. What accounts for this? Also, it is odd to me that Raleigh counts as a large city, while Pittsburgh is mid-sized. Apparently only looking at population within city limits. But if so, then it's leisure establishments within city limits, which makes Greenville's numbers even more interesting.

I flew "around" a tornado-laden thunderstorm on some sort of prop-jet thing. This was decades ago. Man o man, can I tell you about wind shear. By my count, about 80% of the people on the flight threw up, including the flight attendant. For real. Never again.

Whatever else may be the case, the westward-facing side of that center (i.e., E. North to your left as you walk out the door, and the old Fresh Market off to your right across the parking lot) was most certainly a Rose's in the 70's and into the early 80's. I shopped there frequently when I was in college and before. It may have been replaced by WalMart before the latter went gargantuan. If so, that happened after I moved away. Incidentally, there are still Roses around the CLT area, but they are a pale shadow of what they were back in the day. And yes, Gman430, my memory goes back into the 60's, though I suspect Cabelagent's goes back even farther.

It was Rose's.

Back in the 70's and I guess earlier, very close to that intersection was Ye Olde Fireplace and another restaurant next door whose name I can't remember. Also Shakey's Pizza. Maybe that's what you were thinking when you mentioned mid-tier restaurants. Food Lion also opened one of their short-lived Blooms nearby. To attempt an answer to your question, though, I know a lot of people from that area gravitated over to Publix at McAlister Squ. Harris-Teeter's abrupt pullout of Greenville when Publix came in undoubtedly had something to do with that. And I assume the former BiLo at Laurens & Verdae (which is E. Parkins Mill extended) siphoned off traffic, too. Mauldin & P'burg always was grocery-store-heavy, at least from the time the Family Mart was built. But you're right. It's light-years different than it was back in the day.

Amen. The drone shots alone more than compensate for any annoyance.

That's interesting, because, starting in the late 70's, I've had a succession of friendships or acquaintances with people who relocated to Greenville from Pittsburgh. Anecdotal, but it has seemed to me there's been a pipeline.

AVL's attraction is obvious. Huntsville is in the exact opposite situation that GSP is in. No hubs anywhere near, the only airport in north AL, and it's located in a way that it can bleed off traffic from BHM, BNA, and maybe even some from CHA. But even so, it only has half the traffic of GSP. It won't be surpassing GSP anytime soon.

What distinguishes GSP from all those airports that you mention is the fact that GSP is hemmed in on two sides by fortress hubs that are both pretty easy to get to. Heck, when I lived in Concord, I once drove past CLT to take a flight from GSP because my wife found me a much cheaper deal (this was before the I-85 construction, of course). Yes, it did afford me the opportunity to visit family, but it at least points up the fact that it's really easy to travel up and down the Piedmont. Add in up-and-coming AVL, which is going to drain off some degree of potential traffic. Is there another airport with comparable challenges? Maybe in the northeast, or maybe Grand Rapids (but it's not as close to ORD). I'd say that under the circumstances GSP is doing pretty dang well.

This would be Air Canada's second try. As I remember, they had all but started service 20ish years ago, but pulled out after the dot.com bust and/or 9-11.