Amazing....and where were you "the day the music died"? I was at home....and read with disbelief the paper the next morning.
about 17 years ago or so I had the privilege of meeting one of the original Crickets.

mt4k-
That was great! Thank you for posting that.
Ann

I don't know if I should admit I knew all the words to that song.

Wow, that is terrific. Grand Rapids sure has a lot of cooperative people living there. It's a pretty downtown, too.

Loved it. I think I even recognized a few of the buildings from when we lived in Grand Rapids.

Ann

Yes, that's definitely Grand Rapids, it's the "big city" where I go to shop. (grin) And it does look just like that, with the three bridges over the river downtown.

We tend to be cooperative people and I think the entire town of 775,000 people (if you count the surrounding suburbs) was ticked off when Newsweek pronounced it a "dying city".

Roger Ebert also loved the video, said it was the "greatest video ever made". I don't know about that, but it certainly is Grand Rapids and it's how we all react. We won't just take criticism quietly, but we'll be nice about proving you wrong, LOL.

Annie

Great song and a cool vid! Thanks for sharing it! I've only been to GR once and that was with friends from the forum. G.B. Russoo @ Son and Penzeys come to mind. What a great weekend!!

David

Yes, it was...

Yes, it WAS a great weekend. If Cathy/Mustangs checks out the video she'll recognize the area where the pillow fight was is very close to San Chez, where we ate Tapas with Sherry and Peppi too.

And, of course, unless you're local, you won't know the guy that sang "no verdict was returned" was a pretty well known local lawyer, LOL.

Annie

Such a good weekend and a great video!

I would not be the least bit surprised if the Newsweek reporter got GR mixed up with Flint, and even that's beating a dead horse, we've all heard that enough, get over it and move on. GR a dying town?? Only someone who was totally unfamiliar with MICHIGAN, let alone Grand Rapids, would have the naivete to print something that dumb. Lived there for 8 years, that was my old neighborhood since I worked for the Public Museum and went to Grand Valley State University. Those Newsweek people don't know diddly. They think the whole state of Michigan is one big suburb of Detroit and they have probably not even been to Detroit! Plus, they need to wake up and realize the whole country is struggling so the whole "dying" story is yesterdays news! Besides "dying" is not the whole story and just another excuse to kick a city when its down and not have to take any action to be part of the rebirth. You're either part of the solution or part of the problem in life. Boy, sorry, but it really ticks me off when "out of town" journalists who just sit in their offices all day, gossip and mouth each other's banalities write about things they actually know NOTHING about as if they did. I believe that is called "sophmoric" and I've taught enough sophmores to recognize it!!

Remarkably tongue in cheek for GR. I'll bet they shot it during the wonderful spring downtown arts festival. Or on a Sunday . . . sorry, I couldn't resist that one, :) Gotta be a Grand Rapidian . . .

I'm so glad you saw this post Annie!

Grand Rapids look like such a lovely town...I couldn't believe it was called a dying city.

Everyone in the video was ABC's "Person of the Week" on World News tonight. That was cool...I'm pretty sure I'd like Grand Rapids. Thanks for sharing this Deb.

I finally had a chance to seek out the original Newsweek article. Just as I suspected. Turns out Newsweek's definition of "dying" constitutes small declines in overall population coupled with declines in number of people under 18, also relatively small. All of which could be turned around rapidly. Or maybe these cities were over crowded to begin with. Or maybe it's just that people in general are having fewer children. Heck, all of Europe may be dying if that's your only metric. I'm not sure that having a growing population should be considered a definition of "living" either. It could also be a cause of stress. Many cities in S. America are in horrible shape and they have tons of young people.

Don't get me wrong, I know that MI was one of the only states that lost overall population in the last ten years according to the recent census. That's the impetus for these articles. But there's also a principle known as "how to lie with statistics" or in this case, how to overreach. I'm one of the ones who left. Thousands of young people are leaving due to not being able to have jobs. But MI has so much going for it, as this video suggests. Those tough folks who manage to stick it out will create a new future under the new circumstances. I almost hate to tell everyone how nice MI is because then you'll all want to go there and live. Michiganders actually like to keep that our little secret. Yeah, dying state, total rust belt, wouldn't want to come here and crowd all our beaches and roads and parking lots and public facilities and stores and drive up home prices. Just drive on by, nothing to see here. Um hello, being relatively uncrowded and not filled up with people is exactly why Grand Rapids is such a nice place. All the big city amenities, much less of the hassles. If you manage to get to live in West Michigan, you are PRIVLEDGED, not dying.

Thank you L, for that advertisement from the Pure Michigan campaign, LOL.

We are a peninsula state, no one goes through Michigan to get to anywhere else, unless you're going to Canada, LOL. We have water on three sides, more coastline than any state except Alaska with our 3200 plus miles of beaches and water frontage. But you can drive from Maine to Florida, or from Massachusetts to California and never have to go through Michigan, so we don't get a bunch of transient traffic. Ah well.

Grand Rapids is definitely not a dying town and even Newsweek apologized, saying they would have never used that formula. Anyone who has been there knows that it's vibrant and growing and prospering.

Michigan Avenue has become Medical Mile, and Grand Rapids-based Spectrum Health has been named one of the nation's top 10 health systems in the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Health Systems Benchmarks study.

I was sad to see the 1913 Room at the Amway Grand close though, it was the only AAA five diamond restaurant in Michigan, and by September it'll be a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Sigh.

And it doesn't have a Trader Joe's or a Whole foods either. Hey, but we have a Penzey's and GB Russo's!

Annie

Deb, thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. Loved the song and I remember Don McClain singing it at the Troubador in L.A. many, many moons ago. GR was a wonderful, fun filled, foodie memory for me too!! As shown in the video, it's a beautiful city and I hope it never becomes the urban nightmare that we call Los Angeles! LOL!