Exile

I haven't flown much in the last few years, but back in the day I remember a number of times pilots talking over the PA about our arrival in "Greer." Hopefully that's a custom that's passed into oblivion (no offense to any Greer residents).

The trusty old Google Earth ruler measures city hall footprint as 130 x 50, a mere 6500 sf per floor. Bowater is ~100,000 sf, and the floor plates are much larger, in the 25,000 sf range. That's at least; it's possibly a bit larger. It may be "old", but when it was built, it was a very nice class A building. It's definitely a step up.

It would be nice to get the control tower away from prime tarmac acreage; but boy that must be really expensive.

My last comment for the sake of clarity: I was not referring to the internationals or other faraway folks when I said I'd never heard anyone invoke BJU. I was referring to people, overwhelmingly from the Carolinas and NE GA, none of whom have ever brought it up. As for what's happened related to BJU since downtown turned around, I wasn't addressing that at all. You made the claim that before the turnaround, Greenville was primarily known as the home of BJU. I was addressing that claim only. I haven't lived in Greenville since the turnaround, so I have no opinion on it.

Well, it didn't seem to have any effect on investment. I wonder if there might have been intra-state rivalry thing, invoking BJU as a knock on Greenville or the "Upcountry," as we called it. All I know is that I honestly can't remember anyone ever bringing up BJU when they found out I was from Greenville.

I grew up here in the 60's-80's, and lived in Greenville a total of 27 years. In my memory, there were only a couple of times, both in the 80's, I think, when BJU got big-time national press: the tax-exemption court case they were involved in, and an interracial dating piece that had a fairly short-lived currency. I can't speak to earlier periods, but, while we were all aware of BJU's presence, I have very little memory of actual interactions with them or of the assertion of a BJU mindset upon the community. There were council members who seemed to come from the BJU crowd, but that's not unique to Greenville. You can find that kind of thing in lots of places. About the only time I'd see an identifiably BJU crowd was on Sunday morning the line of people walking from campus to Morningside Baptist Church, which used to be behind N. Hills Shopping Center on E. North St. What Greenville was known for was manufacturing, and not just textiles: Celanese, GE, and, of course, Michelin, who first located here in the mid-70's and not too much later brought their NA HQ here. The Textile Expo was truly international and drew several thousand attendees, not a few from overseas. I remember a drunk German rep having a head-on collision with a local woman in front of my house back in, say, '76. Nobody got hurt, thankfully, but both cars were totaled. One of our neighbors was Swiss. I knew some Russian expats. Various east Asians, Indians, etc. All the way back into the 70's, it was common to, say, get on an elevator and find yourself unable to understand the conversations you overheard: French and German usually, but not only. I remember the snickers from the Atlanta students when our marketing professor at Clemson called Greenville "cosmopolitan". I could understand their reaction; but he wasn't wrong: they just didn't know that a city a fraction the size of ATL could in fact be something of a melting pot. One more thing: even the near misses: e.g., the big Phillips Morris plant on the west side of I-95 as you drive into Richmond nearly went on a site near Donaldson. That competition made the news, and not just locally. That was also roughly mid-70's. I'm sure I'm forgetting more than I'm remembering. So, anyway, all to say that while it is true to say that BJU was known, in my experience it was never definitive for Greenville.

I don't know anything about the construction business, but could it be that these projects have contracts for materials at the old prices?

Didn't they actually pour the footings for the Peacock before they called it off? You never know: maybe one day it'll become a six or eight story box.

It 's as if they're incorporating features of the existing building into the retail office portion. That was originally a building on stilts, the ground level of which they built out in the 80's for Bowater, I think, before Bowater moved to 55 E. Camperdown. Not a fan.

Here's another one...two, actually. Two 10-story dorms, Curry and Frazer, at Longwood University in Farmville, VA. Really nicely done. http://www.longwood.edu/news/2017/curryfrazer/ These were totally gutted.

Imagine the cost of the plumbing alone.

Here's my attempt at an inventory. Other old-timers may remember more. 1) Curb Market 2) Carolina Theater (back of it) 3) Downtowner Motor Inn 4) Fox Theater (not the taller building) 5) Fidelity Federal (which became American Federal). Now Regions, with a MAJOR renovation back in the 80's some time, I think. Only Greenville recladding I can think of. They might have added a floor, too. 6) Woodside/SCN building 7) Textile Hall (another tragedy) 8) Belk Simpson (my preferred dept store all the way up till it closed) 9) City Hall, which would have been a great front for a major hotel project like Marriott that's there now 10) C&S drive-thru (C&S had a large branch bank building which, along with its parking lot, occupied the entire Bowater site) 11) Electric Warehouse(?). Anybody remember that place? It was over there somewhere. That and O'Sullivans in Taylors were basically the sum total of the city's big music/bar scene in the 70's, as far as I knew. 12) This "flatiron", I believe...

Thanks. I do now have a very vague recollection of it. I never went in there, but I assume the lobby would have had a restaurant and been circa Brady Bunch, or more likely It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. The only downtown motor hotel I remember distinctly is the Travelodge that was just north of Church and Beattie. Not so much because of the motel itself, but because of the sleepwalking bear billboard advertisement for it.

You can also see that there's no Beattie Place, and you can see the tail end of the curb market over there next to the cemetery. The Carolina is still over there catty-corner from the Daniel Bldg, and I have no memory of the mod-looking building next to it--which you might otherwise take for the Hyatt. What was that building? I'm drawing a total blank.

An obvious for this. But I gotta say that its also hard to look at, because there are some buildings there that should still be standing. Most prominently the old city hall. Can you believe they tore it down to build a very small parking garage? Yes, it had a "plaza" with a monolithic sculpture-fountain, but still. And all that destruction happened on Max Heller's watch.

There aren't any tributaries in this area, so Riverplace doesn't have any water that Unity Park won't. Doesn't seem to be any reason they can't mimic what's been done in Riverplace, where it gets >80 feet wide (per the Google Earth ruler). Still might not be enough to be focal, though. And since you speak of aqueducts, a bit of trivia. I just finished reading "The River of the Carolinas: The Santee" by Henry Savage (1957), and to my surprise discovered that the original Santee canal, which opened ~1801, included overpasses over creeks between the Santee and the Cooper Rivers. Had no idea they were able to do that kind of thing back then, even if on a small scale. It was a bit of a boondoggle, though. Greenville only gets one small mention in the book. The Saluda in general is the least covered headwater, and the Reedy isn't mentioned at all; but Piedmont and especially Pelzer get big mentions. Greenville actually gets more mention (but not that much) in the sister volume, "The Savannah" by Thomas Stokes (1951).

OK, we now know that the Daniel Building is not "Brutalist," but "New Formalist." A least there's that.....then as soon as I wrote that, I read the next sentence....simultaneously brutalist. Oh well. And I've long suspected that the 305' v. 325' difference is 1) a measure of the office building itself and 2) a measure from the lowest point of the entire structure, garage included. Google Earth indicates a 25' difference in elevation between the SE streetcorner (highest) and the NW streetcorner (lowest). That's my guess.

This is a good thing--for the banks. And that's really all that matters in these specific cases. They're beholden to their own preferences and their shareholders, not to your or my vision of what proper development ought to look like.

The bones were good, But the original lime green paint was pretty awful.

So Greenville actually HAS had a dome.

I think you're setting the bar way too high. If it must be a "masterpiece" to retain it, then there's nothing in Greenville worth keeping more than a few decades of "useful life", except maybe Broad Margin. But probably not even that. I'm grateful we've kept what we've still got, and also that the old mills are being repurposed. I also regret the loss of every building listed here. And what about this building? A little New Orleans flavor on Main St.? I wonder what it housed, and when and why it came down.

I'm going to throw in Greenville General Hospital. I was born there, and I worked there for a while. Since it was torn down, I've noticed in several other cities hospital buildings of the same basic design and era that are still operating (no pun intended). It had a lot of character. The original part of Memorial had character, too (less so), but that's been covered up by a series of bland boxes. But as for my top three, I'd have to say: 1) Old Record Bldg 2) Old City Hall 3) Woodside Building. If the Poinsett was resurrected from oblivion, and if the Old Chamber Bldg chugs along with its small footprint, there's no reason to think that the Woodside wouldn't have found its niche. Skyliner's right, too. With its footprint, it would have made for good residential, at least partially. Other than the obvious others already mentioned, I'd also add the Carolina Theater, which sat next to or very close to the Ottaray. The Carolina was mowed down to create Beattie Pl, that abominable road that orphaned the now much-lamented "Gateway Site."

Pretty sure it was a backdrop for scenes in Leatherheads.

I lived in Orlando; I only really knew Stetson. Here's hoping Bellini's survives.

And July, and September, and.... We lived in FL for eight years. First year we were there, we thought we'd have a rustic Thanksgiving in a cabin at Blue Spring, outside of Deland. Bonfires, roasted marshmallows, and all that. The low temperature that week was low 70's. The highs were near 90. All we wanted to do was go jump in the water. But for the manatees...and probably the law. I'll say this for FL: natives do not doubt that it's paradise on earth. "Your blood will thin out," they'd say. Mine never did. Was really glad to get back to Carolina.