Spartanburg Off-Topic

[GvilleSC]

Here's another weird artsy thing for Spartanburg: A couple is going to live their lives downtown for a week: in public. "They will eat, drink, sleep, perform, paint and blog in front of anybody who walks by on Main Street... The goal, the two said Monday, is to promote downtown and its fledgling art scene, and to show in a unique way what urban life in downtown Spartanburg is like."

They say the biggest obstacle is the lack of a grocery store downtown. They do get to leave for meals if they want to... but they have to stay on Main Street between Spring St and Converse St.

Article

That's pretty neat! Spartanburg has some great things going on right now (developments and otherwise) judging by what I'm reading on here. It's also great to see that people have such pride in Spartanburg (and its downtown) to promote it in this way.

[Spartan]

^Indeed

So, it sounds like that window art thing we're talking about was successful. The people who lived in the window were shown how great it is to live in this community. Read more here.

[Spartan]

I went home on Friday night, and I went downtown with some friends. Downtown was very lively because of a Wofford Class of 1992 reunion. The Square was packed. They had a live band, and I assume other activities as well and all the restaurants and bars were crowded. It was very much like being in Five Points in Columbia or College St in Clemson... well, except with a lot more middle-aged people. But with the middle-aged crowd came a lot of younger people too. Anyway, it was fun to see downtown with so much activity. Its not every day I get to experience that

I've heard it more and more, downtown Spartanburg is becoming a destination to more people. We just need more critical mass to give people some options.

[heeldom05]

i know this is prob. a well documented problem in spartanburg due to all of our ice storms but today i had a tree limb fall and hit a transformer behind my house. well of course i lost power but the transformer blew and sparking up almost like miniature explosions for a while these are in some woods right around trees so i was worried and called and told them the important nature of the problem. well it ends up causing a fire in the woods right behind my house which could of easily caught this building or even my own house on fire and i have to call fire dept. who can only contain it until duke show up or pike. needless to say from the time i called til their response was around and hr. and half prob. would have been longer is the fire dept. didnt show up to call them. maybe understandable during an ice storm but during a normal day its ridiculous and put my life and much of our property at great risk.

[krazeeboi]

Oh cool. I thought it looked familiar. Did you submit it or did they steal it?

I released the shot to public domain through Wikipedia, so it's no biggie.

[Spartan]

Shamrock Lanes has completed a $300,000 upgrade in advance of the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. The Denny's PBA Tour Spartanburg Classic will be held Dec 12 - 16 of this year.

[hub-city]

National Geographic will be featuring BMW's Spartanburg plant this Thursday night at 9:00 on it's "Ultimate Factories" program. Great exposure!!!

Speaking of exposure, it was cool to see the CBS national news reporter standing in Morgan Square. (even though I'm not a Hillary fan) They actually spelled and pronounced Spartanburg correctly.

[Spartan]

I wish I had seen that. Its great that our city is becoming an unofficially required campaign stop for both parties.

[roads-scholar]

National Geographic will be featuring BMW's Spartanburg plant this Thursday night at 9:00 on it's "Ultimate Factories" program. Great exposure!!!

Speaking of exposure, it was cool to see the CBS national news reporter standing in Morgan Square. (even though I'm not a Hillary fan) They actually spelled and pronounced Spartanburg correctly.

I viewed the segment and, you're right, the correspondent did pronounce Spartanburg correctly. My only beef was that only a slice of Morgan Square was actually shown.

[Spartan]

Online video is awesome

Here is the shot:

I wish they had gotten the angle of the south side of the square so you could see the Denny's Tower.

Here is the link to the clip:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/27/...ce=search_story

[hub-city]

I watched some of the bowling championships live from Spartanburg today on ESPN and it was great to see so much exposure for our city. That along with the Shrine bowl made for a great tourism week.

[Spartan]

I was wondering how that went. Did they show any shots from around town?

[hub-city]

When I tuned in it wasa in the 6th frame of the championship match, so they didn't even go to a commercial. They did mention Spartanburg a lot and had "Spartanburg Classic" everywhere.

[Spartan]

Sooo..... what's going on these days in Spartanburg? Its been quiet on the new developments front.

[hub-city]

Someone asked about the new building that looks like a restaurant across from the Lowes on Blackstock. That is a new Verizon Wireless store.

[Spartan]

This bit of news came as a bit of a surprise to me. Spartanburg has a lot of vacancies in many of its boards and commissions that many of readers of UP might be interested in.

• Board of architectural design and historic review (four positions)
  
• Board of zoning appeals (one position)
  
• Housing authority (one position)
  
• Planning commission (two positions)
  

This is a great opportunity to have some influence over Spartanburg's future. I hope somebody will jump on these positions quickly. I put in bold the ones that would probably be of most interest give our normal topics here. Call Ms. McIntyre at 596-2019 if interested. You only have to be a resident of the City of Spartanburg to apply. The full list is a bit larger, and it can be found at the end of this article in the Herald-Journal.

[Spartan]

Whats up with GoUpstate.com these days? I know its a slow news period of Spartanburg but the new layout seems to be more of a crime blotter for Spartanburg, rather than a means of conveying news. I'm aware the crime happens in any city, but most of it is not front page news, and I'm fairly certain the print edition does not have the same problem. I wish the Herald-Journal would either have a crime section or at least use some sense in posting these things to the website in such a way that it doesn't appear that crime is the only thing happening in Spartanburg. The old layout of the site did a much better job of this.

[Jael]

Whats up with GoUpstate.com these days? I know its a slow news period of Spartanburg but the new layout seems to be more of a crime blotter for Spartanburg, rather than a means of conveying news. I'm aware the crime happens in any city, but most of it is not front page news, and I'm fairly certain the print edition does not have the same problem. I wish the Herald-Journal would either have a crime section or at least use some sense in posting these things to the website in such a way that it doesn't appear that crime is the only thing happening in Spartanburg. The old layout of the site did a much better job of this.

I read it via RSS, and the feeds have very little local news compared to the recycled articles from the NYTimes. Didn't their web guy leave recently?

[Spartan]

I dont know about their web guy, but it might explain a lot. Its just frustrating when I can't get local news, and more importantly when the only news is some stupid crime story. Its sort of like they've become the ambulance chasers of the newspaper world. I just want an easy way to get the local news. Half of the news stories are fed form the Gville News or the Anderson Independent Mail. I'm all about this "one upstate" thing that we seem to be pushing, but at least put the Spartanburg news at the top.

[hub-city]

The hydrogen car tour is making a stop in Spartanburg. This is a trip from Maine to California with the 10 vehicles making 31 stops along the way. The will be at the BMW Zentrum this Sat. from 10:30-12:30. They will offer test drives.

[Spartan]

Cool! Thanks for the info

[Sparkleman]

According to the following they are finally gonna get the traffic lights synchronized in Boiling Springs.

BS Traffic

What I want to know is who is the city traffic planner and is he even on the job? Traffic should move through the city at a steady pace especially in the mornings and afternoons. Memo to the city traffic planner- It doesn't and its not even close. The lights on St John, Main, & Henry should all be in sync and stay green for at least 2 minutes before the pidly roads (Oakland, Dean, Magnolia, etc.) should be allowed to move. I am pretty sure I catch the light at Dean every morning and there is never even a car going the other way. Is this an effort to slow down traffic in the city? If so, I am going to have to start drinking Bloody Mary's on the way to work and brew on the way home to keep my sanity. Another fine job by the "SC" city government.

[Spartan]

haha, I had to snicker at your link "BS Traffic"

Its good that they are finally getting around to doing that. On corridors like Hwy 9, it can be an effective way to manage traffic. I suspect that traffic signals in the city are managed by Spartanburg County government. I don't know that for sure though. If you're serious about it you can always contact someone at the City or County Manger's office and they can direct you to the right people. If you have a complaint about the way things are working you should call the government and complain. Do it tactfully and in a respectful way and you should at the very least get a response explaining why things are they way they are. Local government is there to serve you.

That light at Dean St is pretty annoying.

[breed]

According to the following they are finally gonna get the traffic lights synchronized in Boiling Springs.

BS Traffic

What I want to know is who is the city traffic planner and is he even on the job? Traffic should move through the city at a steady pace especially in the mornings and afternoons. Memo to the city traffic planner- It doesn't and its not even close. The lights on St John, Main, & Henry should all be in sync and stay green for at least 2 minutes before the pidly roads (Oakland, Dean, Magnolia, etc.) should be allowed to move. I am pretty sure I catch the light at Dean every morning and there is never even a car going the other way. Is this an effort to slow down traffic in the city? If so, I am going to have to start drinking Bloody Mary's on the way to work and brew on the way home to keep my sanity. Another fine job by the "SC" city government.

While it's easy to blame government for traffic ills, it is inaccurate locally. While it's true that government can make a positive impact on development and resultant traffic, the single most important tool they need (zoning) isn't allowed in most of Spartanburg County, and while the government is ultimately responsible for these things, it is the citizenry that refuses to allow an expansion of meaningful zoning in the county. So, your beef shouldn't be aimed at local government, but at the people who refuse to allow them the basic tools to do their jobs.

The fact is, there aren't any "traffic planners" as you would call it. Local governments do not have the resources to keep one on staff.

[Spartan]

Thats not entirely accurate. The County has "transportation planners" via SPATS, which plan for new roads, widened roads, road diets, sidewalks, bike lanes, greenways, etc. This group usually includes staff that manages traffic signals, their timing and coordination. Its entirely possible that they are just not doing a good job. However, I think that's probably not the case. Spartanburg does not get enough money to pay for the infrastructure it has, much less all of the new infrastructure that is needed. You are right, however, that the lack of zoning does play a large role in that growth cannot be managed due to the fact that zoning does not exist. I agree that the anti-zoning population is to blame more than the county government.