Prior to annexation, Bessemer was the most economically viable community in the entire Piedmont Triad until the Greensboro City Council voted to bulldoze 3 miles of East Market St from Murrow Blvd to Burlington Rd to destroy the community and drive Bessemer's business downtown just 2 years after annexation. From the City of Greensboro website:
"This lively community began to wind down in the late 1950s and 1960s when, under the guise of "urban renewal," thousands of people and more than 80 businesses (many minority-owned) were displaced. Most of those businesses never reestablished."
That was the beginning of the first of 3 rounds of downtown rejuvenation over the course of my lifetime with the end result of each round being the need for yet another round of downtown rejuvenation. The building of the downtown Greensboro performing arts center represents the beginning of round 4.
This time we knock them out!
