Sunday, July 24, 2005

Downtown Last Night

Laurette and I snuck out at about 10 for a late-night snack at Natty Greene's on South Elm last night, and I was just astounded by the street life there.

The sidewalks were shoulder-to-shoulder with people, and the streets were bumper-to-bumper with vehicles -- including a number of magnificently chopped Harleys that just about ruptured our eardrums as we sat on the terrace at Natty's. (But I didn't mind: I have to confess a new, secret admiration for custom-built motorcycles. Been watching too much Discovery Channel, I guess.)

As we walked back to our car, we followed a pair of tipsy young ladies, one of whom was wearing an alarmingly flirty skirt with her string underwear riding up visibly on her hips. She and her friend wandered into a bush as they were talking and laughing, and Laurette & I joked with them about the aggressive foliage.

"You people in Greensboro are sooooo nice!" she giggled. I hope they made it home OK. But it struck me that downtown Greensboro has gotten so popular that twentysomethings from other cities are now coming here to go clubbing.

When I think of the empty downtown streetscapes that I knew from just a few years ago -- well, it's just amazing.

3 comments:

Billy Jones said...

What, no Bobbleheads? ;-)

Anonymous said...

I was one of the throng of people downtown last night as the finish line for the 48 Hour Film Project was at the Next Door Tavern. After crossing the finishe line on time and under budget our team wandered over to McCouls for a Wrap party that lasted well past my bedtime. I had a great time and only one truly strange thing happened.

Sara and I were walking together to McCouls when we were approached by a man who whipped out his panhandler's liscense like an FBI badge and hit us up for money. It never occured to me that they would use their liscenses in quite that way.

Anonymous said...

Greensboro has been a hot-spot for night life for a few decades now. Professor Ken Anthony once told me that while he was in high school in Rockingham County in the 1970s, that he and his friends considered Greensboro to be a tremendous place and that they would often come to town to dance at the Club Four Seasons, and that he was once flabbergasted by some store clerk in Greensboro who complained that the city was so small that there was nothing to do.

John Rouse