South Carolina has one in every of finest locations to journey in fall

CNN weighed in on 10 locations worth visiting this fall and leaned in on what former Greenville City Council member Russell Stall said about his hometown.

“A Southern city’s ‘50-year overnight success story,’” the headline reads.

“Greenville is No. 3 on the list thanks to a lively downtown, its trails and parks and a growing food scene,” CNN said in an expansive look at what the city has become.

Most lists that Greenville has been on — and there have been many in recent years — are sort of drive bys, a short synopsis of what the city offers.

CNN’s story reads like someone actually spent time there, reveling in a cool baseball stadium with a replica of Boston’s Green Monster scoreboard, concerts, and of course food.

“It’s a scene that many American towns are starving for — a return to the vibrant street life that died in the second half of the 20th century as downtowns hollowed out with the growth of the suburbs and their air-conditioned shopping malls,” CNN said.

Greenville was one of those cities.

Stall told CNN downtown revitalization began in the 1970s under the leadership of Mayor Max Heller, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria in the 1930s and in what can only be called serendipity ended up in Greenville owning a shirt manufacturing plant.

He is considered the “Father of Modern Greenville,” Stall said.

Some years after Heller left city government, along came current mayor, Knox White, who over the past 31 years has truly remade Greenville, bringing an internationally acclaimed pedestrian bridge over the Reedy River, the ballpark, ushering in a host of new businesses and the development of two parks — Falls Park downtown and the much larger Unity Park, both along the Reedy River.

“Greenville’s got a Main Street that lives up to its name, at the heart of a lively downtown connected to other parts of the city by the Swamp Rabbit Trail, a 28-mile pedestrian and bike network lined with parks and local businesses,” CNN said.

CNN also mentions Grand Bohemian Lodge; Plant Stella, a combination plant store, café and terrarium bar; Local Honey Coffee Co; the Hyatt Regency, the key to the beginning of downtown revitalization; and the Peace Center for the Performing Arts.

“It’s far cry from the 1980s,” CNN said.

Stall told them the Reedy was once called the “Rainbow Reedy because of dyes and chemicals from the textile industry that polluted its waters. Once known as the “Textile Capital of the World,” Greenville’s booming mills started to fall silent in the 1970s. Now, several former mills house loft apartments.”

Restaurants mentioned were Topsoil, Upcountry Provisions, Swamp Rabbit Brewery, Swamp Rabbit Café & Grocery and of course Scoundrel, awarded one Michelin star last year.

Chef Joe Cash, a Greenville native who has cooked at Per Se in New York and Noma in Copenhagen, told CNN “it made sense for me to come back.”

Also The Commons food hall, Jones Oyster Co., Soby’s and Coffee Underground.

“Festivals and a farmer’s market add to the weekend street life,” CNN said.

CNN also praised the Village of West Greenville, with its art galleries and restaurants.

Other cities on the list were:

1. Sarasota, Florida

2. New Haven, Connecticut

4. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

5. Fort Collins, Colorado

6. Burlington, Vermont

7. Juneau, Alaska

8. Iowa City, Iowa

9. Lawrence, Kansas

10. Roanoke, Virginia