Location: Greenville, SC - "Birthplace of the light switch rave"
Posts: 13,416
Asheville, NC: Living through history sucks
My husband and I went out this past Tuesday to take a look at the murals that have been painted downtown on the plywood that stores and restaurants were using to protect their businesses from damage. Protests in Asheville got out of hand quickly last week, with the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters a few nights in a row, businesses having their windows smashed or shot out, and someone driving around downtown shooting at protesters.
I didn't have fun taking these. We went out on Tuesday evening around 5:30 to take these, the start of the supper rush in a tourist town... Where what few places were accepting dine-in customers required a reservation, and where the pandemic and protests have ensured there aren't any tourists. Downtown was a boarded up ghost town, just like it used to be in the 80's. You can tell a lot of places are waiting for things to settle down before they spring up again... but a lot of places aren't coming back at all. Truth be told, I cried a lot when I was editing these to put up on here. This year has really sucked.
(I'll apologize in advance for the half-hour informercial that YouTube will attempt to force you to watch before you can access this thread's theme music.)
__________________ "To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947
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