Greenville and random call center advice

Gather GVL food court with people having fun and a peach sangria.

Last fall, I was on the phone with a call center agent who addressed me as ‘honey’. When I observed she wasn’t from my part of world she laughed, telling me that she lived in South Carolina. So of course I asked where we should go when visiting her neck of the woods and she volunteered Greenville. So here we are!

After a fun dinner at Gather GVL (a popular food court built out of containers), we wandered over to the Reedy River, which cascades right through the middle of downtown. This area surprised the heck out of Dinah, who until we reached the river could not figure out for the life of her why we were in Greenville — the outskirts where we spent the beginning of the day for visiting a distillery being pretty plain. Now she is clear!

Reedy River, just upstream from the falls with living quarters on the left and an old textile mill on the right.

Reedy River was a pretty classic American river story in that it was used to power textile mills, became highly polluted, and was nearly buried by urban development.

In the late 1960’s, the city and philanthropic community began working on reclaiming the river and slowly converted dozens of acres to parkland. 25 years ago, the city removed an ugly 1960’s bridge that crossed the river right on top of the cascades, added a 355 foot pedestrian bridge, and upgraded the core park and surrounding neighborhood. There are also now over 20 miles of trails along the Reedy river that connect to the Falls and what appear to be a healthy mix of nicely designed condos and apartments.

The area around Falls Park is now the heartbeat of the city, a regional draw, and chock full of people enjoying the place.