“Uptown got its hustlers. Bowery got its bums.” Just as the late Jim Croce sang, cities have their personalities. Musgrove Street is Clinton’s comeback champion. Lydia Mill is Clinton’s journeyman fighter.
The two are converging this week, in this issue of The Clinton Chronicle.
You know Musgrove Street’s story - the horrific fire of August 27, 2024; the displacement of businesses and the uncertainty of employment and their return; the moves that the businesses underwent and, now, two of them are back - House of Pizza officially re-opening earlier this month and Hoyt Hanvey Jewelers back in its building last Wednesday. As for Lydia Mill, it has a Town Hall-style meeting set for TOMORROW (July 24) ... Clinton City Council Member Anita Williams hopes for a great turnout, to provide some important information for the people who live in this once-vibrant, textiles-heritage community.
This is a crucial time for Clinton. City officials have recruited a developer who has proposed a “game-changer” development on the land that The State gifted to Clinton - the “surplus” land of Whitten Center. As the census there has declined (because the prevailing thought these days is that the people who lived there now need to live at home) the houses in the village became less occupied and the land was more than South Carolina cared to maintain. But it never has made sense to us why this living space at Whitten Center couldn’t be re-purposed - to house the homeless (many of whom are veterans), for instance. In any event, Clinton has decisions to make about selling off a huge chunk of this property while - at the same time - FOUR other subdivisions were presenting plans to the Clinton Planning Commission for their development. That’s in addition to the DR Horton development beside Eastside Elementary, developments in proximity to the new Recreation Center, and a proposed development on North Adair Street.
How do we keep our character as a great small city and accommodate this development?
THAT is the heady question before the City Council - indeed, before ALL our citizens -- right now. We do it by talking to each other. We do it by celebrating each other. We do it with concerts, and ball games, and parks and splash pads (you should seen all the people at Vance Park last Sunday!!), we do it with a great new Library. We do it by attending “visioning sessions” that will be upcoming soon to receive ideas about what ought to be done about that gaping hole that the fire caused in the middle of our business district. Our idea (and this is not original but something to which we have given some thought) is for an Amphitheater flexible enough to be re-purposed in case an investor wants to build a hotel in the middle of our city. Laurens is proposing one - and they don’t even have a college, and all the events that a college generates.
With regard to Lydia Mill, we get so wrapped up sometimes in what things WERE that we lose sight of what things ARE -- Lydia Mill has the Laurens County Humane Society and it soon will open a brand new spay/neuter clinic with services provided by a top-notch vet. Lydia Mill has the Laurens County United Way, and the wonderful gardens and playground that it has developed. Lydia Mill has a great municipal park, which needs a little more monitoring to provide evening security. Lydia Mill - extended - has a college, the University of South Carolina-Union in the historic Bell Street School, and a wonderful community garden across the street from Friendship AME Church (Presbyterian College uses it as a living example of community service).
From Musgrove to Lydia, and all places in between, we sell ourselves short when we ask, “Why are they building all those houses? Who wants to live here?” If we RENOVATE current houses and add to our inventory, we will find the people who want to help us shoulder our municipal burden and share our valuable space.
