The first of two visits to Grenada. Twenty-one thousand souls.

What?

It had to be a motel lobby. Next door:

Can’t find proof, though.

No retail jobs, but at least someone gets paid to trim the topiary.

Nothing going on in Suki’s world these days.

Used to be something else, of course; those aren’t beauty-supply windows.

“Heart’s Desires”

The most cursory know-how of reading the old downtowns tells you that this City Hall was a bank.

You can tell by the rehab and the clock on the corner. God knows what’s under that mask.

Someone please offer to sandblast the entirety of Grenada

And deBuckaroo it while you’re at it.

It's off-center, but that's because it put the second-floor entrance on the left . . . except it seems to be in the center.

I bet it was lovely once.

"Friend of the owner" wouldn’t be a bad guess for the artist

Weathered wood is never a sign of downtown vitality, but you knew that, too.

Now, to the center of town, with the usual statue for Johnny Reb:

In the fall, the tableau is less interesting, and a bit depressing.

The Mansard-Buckaroo combo, for maximum downward pressure

Larry, Curly, Moe

I don’t think they’ve redone the window frames since the building went up.

And you can’t help wonder if someone didn’t break every bone in his body when the other balcony fell. If there was one.

Standard-issue post-war civic modernism, on the cheap:

Don't think about the location of the trees too much.

Uh oh. The blurry 2007 / 09 street view usually foretells bad things . . .

Yep

Another view from the Paleolithic age of Google Street View:

Again, rare original windows on the second floor.

All the rehab money went into fixing the ground floor. Well, better than the rest, that’s for certain.

Okay, that brings a certain note of interest to downtown, if only to ask "when?" and "what happened?"

And, of course, "what was it?" but you'll never get the full story on that one.

Another proud commercial building chopped up with paint, for some reason.

"How are things, Kent?"

"Don't ask"

God help the town that had a minor boom in the 60s and 70s, and the merchants decided to upgrade their exteriors. It ruined them all for good.

There’s another installment. Does it improve? We’ll see.