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Post by elaine on Apr 14, 2016 22:43:05 GMT
I just finished binge watching Hart of Dixie (loved it!). The way the town square, the Rammer Jammer (bar), Fancies (Restaurant), the Clinic and other places were all central to the town events was quaint; kind of reminded me of Gilmore Girls. It got me thinking... are there any "real-life" towns like this? Is this a true Southern thing that we don't have up in the Pacific Northwest? We have small towns and a lot of them have unique town events but none that I can think of with a true town square. (And yes, I got a little too invested in thinking about BlueBell! ) Healdsburg in Northern CA in Wine Country has a beautiful town square.
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Post by elaine on Apr 14, 2016 22:44:13 GMT
Arcata, CA has a true town square. So does either Napa or Sonoma (can't remember which one). And Healdsburg, north of SF.
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Post by kellybelly77 on Apr 14, 2016 22:47:32 GMT
We have a facility in Centerville Iowa with a cute little town square and shopping area. I only got to spend the day once for work but I wanted to go exploring!
The whole town is named after its most famous resident. Some NY publishing gazillionaire. Morgan Klein I believe. In fact, we bought our facility from his estate.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2016 23:10:57 GMT
I live in Massachusetts and pretty much all the towns around me are like that. We have an historic library, the fire dept and police dept, town hall, post office, elementary school, bank, pizza place, two churches, and a couple shops in the same few blocks. We even have a town common behind the town hall. It has a bandstand, a playground, and a soccer field.
I can't go anywhere without running into people I know. I love it here.
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Post by deekaye on Apr 14, 2016 23:12:34 GMT
Whoohoo! DH and I are transporting a car to Southern California at the end of the month. 'Off to look at a map and figure out how to include Healdsburg and Arcata in our whirlwind trip. DH is going to be sooooo impressed because he wants to make it from our house to Ontario, California in one day.... 'nope, not gonna happen honey, I need to see a real-life town square! (And if I happen to run in to George, or Lavon, or Wade when we are there <swoon>.... oh geez, I gotta find another series to fixate on.... )
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Post by deekaye on Apr 14, 2016 23:15:20 GMT
I live in Massachusetts and pretty much all the towns around me are like that. We have an historic library, the fire dept and police dept, town hall, post office, elementary school, bank, pizza place, two churches, and a couple shops in the same few blocks. We even have a town common behind the town hall. It has a bandstand, a playground, and a soccer field. I can't go anywhere without running into people I know. I love it here. Awww, that sounds like heaven!! I have always lived in medium to smaller towns and I always run in to people I know (which can be a good OR bad thing sometimes!). Towns in Washington all seem to spread out, with the towns hugging the ocean, or the harbor, or the river, or the sound... water is a big thing here.
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Post by deekaye on Apr 14, 2016 23:24:55 GMT
I LOVED Hart of Dixie!! I HATED how it ended. I could imagine myself living there, who my friends would be, what business I'd own (lol) and where I'd live! Oh, me too! I would be the owner of the Butter Stick Bakery (uh, yeah, can't really bake in real life), and I already know that AnnaBeth and I would be BFFs! I loved how it ended. Everyone in love, married, and even though it was corny, everyone singing their lil' hearts out in the town square!!
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Post by airforcemomof1 on Apr 14, 2016 23:26:11 GMT
Lynchburg, TN has a town square. The famous Miss Mary Bobo's boarding house and restaurant is in the square. Lynchburg is the home of Jack Daniels whiskey.
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Post by refugeepea on Apr 14, 2016 23:28:26 GMT
Lynchburg, TN has a town square. The famous Miss Mary Bobo's boarding house and restaurant is in the square. Lynchburg is the home of Jack Daniels whiskey. Isn't it a dry county? I thought I read that somewhere and thought it was hilarious!
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Post by ntsf on Apr 14, 2016 23:30:23 GMT
deekaye.. just go down I-5 to grants pass, then swing over through the redwoods and go down the coast on Hiway 1..you will pass right by arcata, just south of crescent city. then you can end up on 101 S..and not far off the road is healdsburg and sonoma (that has town square I think).. then you can go down 101 to socal..much prettier drive than I-5
two days.
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Post by deekaye on Apr 14, 2016 23:31:26 GMT
As for Hart of Dixie - where are ya'll watching it? I missed the last 2 seasons and would love to finish the show. Netflix
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PLurker
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Post by PLurker on Apr 14, 2016 23:31:50 GMT
I know there are some down where my mom comes from, south of Kansas City. I'm sure they are scattered throughout the US though, just small towns we don't know about.
The one that came to mind when you mentioned this is Woodstock IL. It is where Groundhog Day the movie was filmed. It is just south of the IL/WI border and it pretty much looks the same as the movie.
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Post by deekaye on Apr 14, 2016 23:33:30 GMT
deekaye.. just go down I-5 to grants pass, then swing over through the redwoods and go down the coast on Hiway 1..you will pass right by arcata, just south of crescent city. then you can end up on 101 S..and not far off the road is healdsburg and sonoma (that has town square I think).. then you can go down 101 to socal..much prettier drive than I-5 two days. Thank you, that's a plan!!! (I wanted to do the Coastal Highway anyway but DH is a get-er-done kind of guy when we are on road trips for business! )
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Post by birukitty on Apr 14, 2016 23:34:36 GMT
I live in Annapolis, MD. and we have a historical, real life down town that's a harbor. It's not a "square" per say, because it runs down to an actual harbor. I suppose you could say it's a square shape in front of the harbor itself, but there's a Main Street that runs up from the harbor built of cobblestones (DS used to call it the street with the bricks when he was young). On either side of the street are shops, restaurants and the like. In the Spring there are hanging baskets of flowers hanging from the decorative lampposts along this street, with flags on some of the posts.
I love the harbor area. But I stay away from the down town area during the summer-tourist season because it gets jam packed with people.
I moved here 23 years ago after moving around every 2-3 years my entire life (I'm 55) and it's now become home. I love it here.
Debbie in MD.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Apr 14, 2016 23:59:02 GMT
It was actually a requirement for Spanish towns to be laid out in a square around a plaza. I came across an actual Spanish document for required size of plaza - blocks etc. it was amazingly detailed. Historic towns in CA, CO, AZ, NM and TX which have retained their original structure were all set up around a plaza.
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Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Apr 15, 2016 0:04:19 GMT
There are many little towns like that throughout the south.
Nearby to me is a quaint little town called Abbeville that has an iconic town square complete with an old opera house that still offers live performances, as well as a bed & breakfast, shopping, dining, banking, churches, and more.
From Wikipedia: "Abbeville has the unique distinction of being both the birthplace and the deathbed of the Confederacy. On November 22, 1860, a meeting was held at Abbeville, at a site since dubbed "Secession Hill", to launch South Carolina's secession from the Union; one month later, the state of South Carolina became the first state to secede.
At the end of the Civil War, with the Confederacy in shambles, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond, Virginia, and headed south, stopping for a night in Abbeville at the home of his friend Armistead Burt. It was on May 2, 1865, in the front parlor of what is now known as the Burt-Stark Mansion that Jefferson Davis officially acknowledged the dissolution of the Confederate government, in the last official cabinet meeting."
The Burt-Stark mansion still stands and I have been to many a party and fundraiser there over the years. When I was in college nearby many moons ago, we had a party there for several years called "Moonlight, Magnolias, and Mint Juleps" and I actually bought a dress with a hoop skirt that I wore to the party. Lol. We do love our sweet little backwards history in the south.
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Peamac
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Post by Peamac on Apr 15, 2016 0:06:11 GMT
Aspen, CO has what I consider a town square~ a big grassy square are in town, gazebo in the middle. The town Christmas tree is lit up there in December and they have concerts often.
I would imagine a lot of older towns have (or had) them, just because it was common a hundred years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2016 0:11:15 GMT
Hanover square, horseheads, ny.
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Post by refugeepea on Apr 15, 2016 0:16:16 GMT
deekaye.. just go down I-5 to grants pass, then swing over through the redwoods and go down the coast on Hiway 1..you will pass right by arcata, just south of crescent city. then you can end up on 101 S..and not far off the road is healdsburg and sonoma (that has town square I think).. then you can go down 101 to socal..much prettier drive than I-5 two days.
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Post by Linda on Apr 15, 2016 0:29:30 GMT
The town we live on the outskirts of has a town square although we call it a park - events are held there or one block down by the lake (city hall and the county building are between the square and the lake). The shopping/restaurant area is kind of run down but they're working on revitalising it at the moment and it's already looking better
I'm in north-central Florida
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Post by ntsf on Apr 15, 2016 0:37:15 GMT
but I used norcal terms...go down I-5.....etc...not the socal..take the 10 to the 101 .....
I did love the californians though....
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Post by refugeepea on Apr 15, 2016 1:35:43 GMT
but I used norcal terms...go down I-5.....etc...not the socal..take the 10 to the 101 ..... I did love the californians though.... After I posted it, I realized it was more of a Southern California thing. I love them too.
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Post by stampinbetsy on Apr 15, 2016 1:51:11 GMT
Most of the places I can think of that have a town square are also the county seat and have a courthouse. The city north of me has a fairly large square with lots of restaurants and antique shops (and probably some other things that I don't know about because I don't go up there often). The city I live in and the city I grew up in (one city south of where I live now) both have an old "downtown," but one of them doesn't have a lot of businesses, and the other one would never have been what I would call a square.
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Post by lisae on Apr 15, 2016 2:02:04 GMT
I don't think any town could host as many events as Blue Bell. Ha!
We have a town square with the courthouse at the center and the businesses surrounding as do some of the other towns in the area. The only real event we have is the Apple Festival in October. However it isn't nearly as quaint as on TV. It is fairly commercial and now attracts a huge crowd. Still you can't go without running into people you know. One of the local churches makes fried apple pies on site and people stand in line for an hour or two to buy some.
You won't find people milling around running into each other during a regular workday. We drive everywhere like everyone else. I'm guilty, too. I drive from the bank to the library even though it is only 3 blocks.
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Post by bc2ca on Apr 15, 2016 2:13:40 GMT
I just finished binge watching Hart of Dixie (loved it!). The way the town square, the Rammer Jammer (bar), Fancies (Restaurant), the Clinic and other places were all central to the town events was quaint; kind of reminded me of Gilmore Girls.
It got me thinking... are there any "real-life" towns like this? Is this a true Southern thing that we don't have up in the Pacific Northwest? We have small towns and a lot of them have unique town events but none that I can think of with a true town square. (And yes, I got a little too invested in thinking about BlueBell! ) Hart of Dixie and Gilmore Girls were both filmed at Warner Brothers using the same exterior sets. Before or after your trip to Ontario, detour to Burbank for the studio tour and you will walk through the town square from the shows. If you are coming down the 5, Warner Brothers is only a few miles west off the 134.
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Post by alexa11 on Apr 15, 2016 2:53:29 GMT
Yes- we do- I live in Anderson, SC. The Courthouse is the center. It's not what it was years ago, but there's been a big push to revitalize it in the last few years. We do have some good restaurants/bars, but the shopping- nah.
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Post by monicad on Apr 15, 2016 3:28:25 GMT
Arcata, CA has a true town square. So does either Napa or Sonoma (can't remember which one). My son goes to Sonoma State; everything in downtown Sonoma is centered around the "square." Super cute home/clothing stores, restaurants, tasting rooms and my favorite: ice cream shops. He just started school in August and I've already been three times (it's about a two hour drive). It's really, really cute. We have some family friends that live near the square...I'm jealous.
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Post by katybee on Apr 15, 2016 3:30:30 GMT
Georgetown,TX, north of Austin has a lovely town square. Lots of shopping and a few good restaurants.
Franklin, TN has a historic and beautiful town square.
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Post by leeny on Apr 15, 2016 4:03:53 GMT
deekaye.. just go down I-5 to grants pass, then swing over through the redwoods and go down the coast on Hiway 1..you will pass right by arcata, just south of crescent city. then you can end up on 101 S..and not far off the road is healdsburg and sonoma (that has town square I think).. then you can go down 101 to socal..much prettier drive than I-5 two days. 101 goes right through Healdsburg, but Sonoma is about 25 miles east of 101. Santa Rosa has a town square that has been divided by a main road, but the City is going to "reunite" it.
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Apr 15, 2016 4:32:35 GMT
It was actually a requirement for Spanish towns to be laid out in a square around a plaza. I came across an actual Spanish document for required size of plaza - blocks etc. it was amazingly detailed. Historic towns in CA, CO, AZ, NM and TX which have retained their original structure were all set up around a plaza. ^^^ THAT is a really cool fact! it totally makes sense then, why Sedona and some of the older towns in AZ are set up like that. Thanks for sharing!!
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