Residents in Greenville, SC, know how to welcome spring. Starting Friday, April 6, downtown’s Main Street Jazz series will pick up again. Since 1995, locals have enjoyed this musical spring secret in the courtyard in front of the Hyatt.

Musicians perform while patrons listen from one of many outdoor dining options. Main Street is closed to auto traffic during the event, which runs from 5:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. every Friday.

If jazz isn’t your thing, try Downtown Alive starting March 9. This is another weekly music series with local and regional bands performing on Main Street on Thursdays. Past guests include The Blue Dogs, Delta Moon and The Whigs.

Both of these events are sponsored by Greenville Events, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to planning fun things in downtown Greenville. For more information call 864-467-5780.

Along with Greenville Events, the city as a whole has been working for the past 25 years to revitalize its downtown. The work has paid off.

With more than 60 restaurants and pubs centered around Main Street, Greenville’s Downtown offers the greatest concentration of dining options in the Upstate area. Also nearby is the Peace Center for the Performing Arts, the Greenville County Art Museum.
But one of the best features to this thriving revival is its 40-foot waterfall in downtown’s Falls Park  - a mini-imitator of New York City’s Central Park.

Historical Tours
Plus, Greenville History Tours can fill you in on lots of downtown’s secrets – like the story behind the carved rooster that is imbedded in the top of one of the buildings near Coffee and Main Street.

The Reedy River/West End tour begins at the birthplace of Greenville – Falls Park and the newest downtown icon, the Liberty Bridge, a pedestrian suspension bridge. The tour also will swing you by some of the oldest buildings still existing along the banks of the river, including the 1882 Huguenot Mill and the Gower, Cox and Markley Carriage factory buildings.

Greenville History Tours also will take you on a trip from City Hall to Piazza Bergamo. This one includes a stop by the 1918 Courthouse, which also witnessed the trial case of the last lynching in South Carolina.

Be sure to ask tour company Director John Nolan about new tours for 2007. He’s currently working on forming a cemetery tour to include a stop at Springwood Cemetery, which has a burial dating back to 1812, before the cemetery officially opened.