Traverse City is still a small town, or is it?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Whatever the
case may be, this is McDowell's
World number four thirty three for Thanksgiving
twenty twenty five.
I guess it's officially the twenty seventh.
And
today, I want first off, I wanna
say a happy Thanksgiving.

(00:22):
You know, it's Thanksgiving in The United States,
so hopefully,
you find some good food somewhere and
and some good family camaraderie and and whatnot.
This is
gonna be kind of a rough one for
us in some ways because it's the first
Thanksgiving without my dad,

(00:42):
who passed away a couple weeks after Thanksgiving
last year.
So,
yeah,
we're gonna leave an empty chair at the
table for him and,
yeah,
kinda kinda rough around the edges. But what
I wanted to talk about today is how
Traverse City still has the feeling of a
small town.

(01:02):
And I kinda preface that with saying, sort
of.
You know, we've had a couple of
interesting crimes around here lately. I'm sure you're
you know, well, maybe you didn't, maybe you
did. But we had a big,
stabbing incident at the Walmart here in Traverse
City, this summer.
And
just
here last week or so, we had a

(01:25):
murder,
and, you know, a couple of kids, were
were breaking into cars. And, anyway, they shot
a
parking deck worker. And, of course, when I
say the word parking deck,
that also sort of denotes that Traverse City
isn't that small anymore,
but, I'll get to that.
And,

(01:45):
also,
just yesterday, I think it was or maybe
the day before,
over at the Meijer gas station,
somebody tried to abduct a woman and, you
know, he got stopped, but
still, you know, that kind of stuff normally
doesn't happen here and when it does, it's
it's definitely a big deal. So I guess

(02:06):
that that puts it in the in the
realm of small town,
but you know Traverse City still has that
small town feel
sometimes.
You know, around Cherry Festival, it's definitely not.
Let me give you some statistics.
Traverse City, the actual
city of Traverse City,
which,

(02:27):
you know, encompasses,
you know, downtown and a few neighborhoods around.
So it's not, you know, physically too small.
But,
you know, in the 2020
census, we were just shy of 16,000
people living in
the city of Traverse City. Now the metropolitan

(02:47):
area, which covers about four counties, I believe
they count
Grand Traverse County, which is Traverse City, Leelanau
County, Benzie County,
and I believe it's Kalkaska
County that they, also count.
And that's at a 153,000,
hundred fifty

(03:08):
three five hundred, something like that.
And so, you know, think think of a
small city
with a 100 and some odd thousand people,
but only 15,016
in this in the city limits.
I'm just outside the city limits and literally
I'm a half a block away from

(03:29):
the airport property, which,
is
considered city.
And about a half a mile
to the west of me,
is considered the city limits.
So I'm in what's called East Bay Township,
and it's a it's a metropolitan
township. It's not really rural. I mean parts

(03:50):
of it are, of course, but where I'm
at it, it's not. I, you know, I'm
on a double city lot in the woods,
so it seems sort of rural, but
again
not really because, you know, half mile from
the airport,
so you get airplanes and helicopters.
I get, you know, not that far from
the bay, so I get that traffic

(04:12):
and I'm on a five lane road.
So,
you know, not exactly oh, and there's a
train track going through, but not a lot
of trains,
you know, half a block away.
So, you know, I I get it. You
know, I'm not really in the country, not
really in the city,
but, you know, I consider myself part of
Traverse City and my address is Traverse City.

(04:35):
But,
but Traverse City does have kind of a
small town feel to it still.
And that's,
you know, something that, it's gonna take a
while to go away if it ever does
go away.
There's some distinct neighborhoods. And, of course, there's
the downtown district,
which I talked all about in two episodes
in this, this month.

(04:57):
And then there's the Traverse Heights area, which
is kind of
on the East Side of Boardman Lake,
from,
you know, US 31 out to
South Airport Road, I guess, would be considered
the heights.
There's the
the Old Town District along,

(05:18):
Union Street,
and there's the,
they call it, the central neighborhoods,
which is on the West Side of downtown.
You know, west and a little bit south
of downtown, and then, you know, there's
a couple other areas in Greylockville, which is

(05:39):
actually
in Leelanau County,
but part of Traverse City,
at least the the little part of of
the of Greylockville.
And on the East Side, there's Acme, which
is has its own ZIP code and, you
know, and all that, but, you know, I
consider that part of the city. And then
there's what we call a Miracle Mile, which

(06:00):
is about three or four miles of hotels
and
all touristy stuff along the bay.
Hotels, restaurants,
motels, you you name it.
It's
just a, you know, a big long stretch
of that kind of thing.
But you go somewhere here in the wintertime

(06:22):
and, you know, there is some winter tourism
now.
Not as much as,
you know, in the summer obviously, but there
is some winter tourism.
Here, snowmobilers
come up here, skiers come up here, cross
country skiers,
you know, there's a lot to to do,
ice fishermen,
all that. There's stuff to do here in

(06:42):
the winter.
But, you know, I can walk into a
bar downtown, you know, right downtown, walk into
Union Street Station or Sledders or,
you know, whatever bar and, you know, it's
the the typical small town
sort of feel to it. Whereas,
you know, in the in the summertime it's

(07:04):
a lot of tourists. Of course, there's a
lot of,
you know, a lot of locals around too
in the summer, of course, but you know,
I don't know. It just feels still like
a small town. We have,
I guess, officially
four high schools.
We got the Catholic schools, you know, we

(07:24):
have a high school, and then there's
three
public schools.
There's
Central
West
and then there's one just called Traverse City
High School, which was kind of the alternative
school, but
you know they're actually they're the closest one
to me. Just literally up the street here.

(07:45):
The home of the Mavericks,
but they're a small, you know, niche school,
but it's a public school.
And
then we got the two main high schools,
the Trojans and the Titans. When I was
going to school, there was just one.
Well, the Catholic school though, it's still been
around, but

(08:05):
you know, it was just one Traverse City
Senior High School, which turned into Central.
And then they built one out west of
town, kind of out by my folks place,
in Long Lake Township. Well, actually, it's in
Garfield Township. It's in the Long Lake area
on North Long Lake Road.
And that school was built around the same

(08:26):
time as the Columbine
shootings there in Colorado.
I'm sure you guys remember that or maybe
you don't. But, whenever they were showing aerial
shots of the Columbine
High School,
it looks exactly like Traverse City West.
That building is
I I I think the same guy designed

(08:47):
it or something because every time I saw
that on TV, I said, that looks like
West,
which, like I said,
was under construction or just done, and they,
you know, hadn't started having classes in there
at the time. But, you know, it's a
very prominent
building going along North Long Lake Road, so
it was easy to see the resemblance

(09:10):
of the buildings.
But, you know, the old Central High School
downtown
or well,
it's at the base of the peninsula.
It's still more or less in the same
configuration
it was back when I went to school.
One thing interesting about Traverse City Schools, both

(09:30):
the West,
what we call junior high, now they call
it West
Middle School,
and the one Central School that's, you know,
back then was senior high.
They had separate buildings,
and you had to go between the buildings
and they had covered walkways. But, you know,

(09:50):
something like that should should not be in
an area where it snows and and gets
really cold because you had to go out
into the weather to, you know, switch classes.
You know? And, now they've connected all the
buildings together. They've enclosed those walkways and built
buildings kind of in between buildings and, you
know, so it's configured a little different. The

(10:10):
layout's the same.
But, and I understand they're tearing down the
original gym
at the Central
High School if they haven't already, and, they're
remodeling and putting in a new gym and
all that. And it was, you know, well
overdue.
I mean, my folks went to that school
in the sixties,
early sixties. And,

(10:33):
you know, it hadn't really changed a whole
lot in the eighties when I went. And,
now it's, yeah, they are changing it up
again
a little bit. But, you know, it still
kinda has
that that old,
that that that small town feel to it.
The, you know, the the school, anyway, does,

(10:53):
or did. You know, maybe not now. I
don't know.
One thing of interest that's completely not about
Traverse City being a small town, but whenever
I'm flying and I use Runway 18,
I turn my base to final turn pretty
much right over that high school.
That's kind of, you know, kind of a

(11:14):
landmark there,
when you turn base to final,
on 18
in Traverse City, but, I digress.
Let's see what else kinda gives it that
small town feel. Yeah. There is not a
lot of paid parking
around Traverse City. Now in Traverse City, downtown,

(11:37):
especially,
there's always been parking meters.
You know, as long as I can remember
when I was a kid, you know, I
had to feed the meter,
you know. So, you know, right downtown, there
was parking meters. And and nowadays, the parking
meters are all digital. You gotta have an
app on your phone and you pay that
way. I think the ones right on front
street, though, still take coins,

(11:58):
maybe on State Street,
the kind of the two main drags downtown.
And,
you know, and then there's parking decks. There's
two or three or four or five of
them around here.
See, I'm thinking of one. There's the Hardy,
but the Hardy Parking Deck, that's where the
murder happened,
here recently.

(12:19):
But that there's that one that's,
kind of off of state and park
in front, you know, kinda in that block
right near the Paul Bunyan Building where WTCM
radio is.
But, that parking deck there is a paid
parking deck. There's one on the West Side
now, I believe, but I don't remember where.

(12:41):
There's a couple of surface lots
across the river from downtown
that you have to have a permit to
park in. It's mainly for the workers down
there, but you can also pay to park,
you know, when tourist season's on.
And they still have a big farm market
down there in the in this summer,
which is kinda nice. They clear out one

(13:03):
of the big parking lots, and, it's a
big farm market.
During Cherry Festival, that whole area is is
the midway, you know, with all the, you
know, carnival rides and and games and
food carts
and gibby fries. Oh my gosh. Gibby fries.
That's, that's actually a local thing. They travel

(13:24):
around the country
going to fairs and and festivals and whatnot,
but, it's a French fry
cart. The cart, I don't know. It's like
a big trailer,
a bunch of it. I think they have
multiples, but they are based right here in
Traverse City and they are always in Traverse
City when there's any kind of festival going
on, especially the Cherry Festival

(13:46):
or the, Northwest Michigan Fair. That's the two
places I remember going. It's the first time
I had fries with malt vinegar on them,
and, oh my gosh. You know, every year,
at least once during Cherry Festival, I have
to sneak down there through the crowds and
get my Gibby's fries.
But,

(14:07):
yeah, actually, the carnival
people do the rides and stuff. That's based
actually well, not right in Traverse City, but,
in Acme, Arnold Amusements.
And, you know, if you're anywhere in Michigan
at a at a place that puts up
a carnival,
well, that's
that's usually Arnold Entertainment or Arnold Amusements.

(14:30):
You know, they they kinda nomadic carnies, you
know, but based right here.
Let's see. What else kinda gives it the
old the the the
small time town feel. You know, you go,
certain places. I don't know if this works
this way in big cities, but,
in Traverse City at a certain time of

(14:50):
the night,
it's usually, I think, 10:00.
The traffic lights all go into blink mode
or at least a majority of them.
Of course, now a lot of the traffic
lights have been replaced with roundabouts or or
whatever you call them. And you know, that's
a sort of a controversy. I kinda like
them.
As I talked about in the Iceland episode,

(15:12):
the first time I ever saw one was
in Reykjavik.
Well, the second time I ever dealt with
one
was when they built the first one here
and now there's several.
And,
yeah. So, you know, that's that's kind of
a a tick against being still a small
town. One of the other things that's strange

(15:33):
for a small town,
we have
right now two Meijer stores.
Meijer's, as I I think I mentioned in
another episode, is a, you know, kind of
a Walmart sized grocery,
and, other you know, pretty much an everything
store, but it's a
kind of regional chain in the Midwest,

(15:53):
mostly Michigan, Ohio, Indiana.
I think they're into Kentucky and maybe Illinois,
but, you know, they're not a national chain
like like Walmart,
and they're no relation to the Fred Meyer's
out West,
although they're very similar stores.
I I found that to be interesting when
I was researching that,

(16:15):
but there's going to be a third
Meijer store
in the area,
and they got one, you know, this the
the main one, the first one, was right
along the The US 31 Highway and Silver
Lake Road
area, kind of by West Middle School,
and that one's been around since the seventies.

(16:37):
You know, I started about the seventy eight
storm. That's where my uncle and I went
in the jeep to mire,
you know, to get the first supplies after
the roads got cleared.
But that Meyer has been there. It's been,
you know, tore down and rebuilt two or
three times
over the years, but, it's it's still there.
And,

(16:57):
oh, another side note.
I saw the original Star Wars
in the Meyer parking lot. There they had
a twin theater, and that was a big
thing back in the day. But,
we went to the to the original Star
Wars at that theater that was in the
Meyer parking lot there, but now that's gone
and that's where the Meyer gas station is

(17:18):
where the the lady almost got a duck
abducted the other night. So
kind of mixed memories.
But, the second one is out in Acme,
Williamsburg to be exact, but they call it
the Acme Meyers,
but it's in Williamsburg.
And
what's kind of interesting to me, anyway, I

(17:38):
know I'm weird,
it's at ex exactly the same distance for
me to drive to the original Meijer store
as it is to for me to drive
to the Acme store,
and they're building a third one.
They just built a big Amazon warehouse out
there too, at Chum's Corners. That's kind of
a,
I guess a neighborhood, but it's South Of

(17:59):
Traverse City along the highways,
on the way south out of town
or coming into town depending on the direction
of travel,
but they're building another Meijer store out there,
Chum's Corners.
So we're gonna have three Meijer stores. Now
we're a small town, at least I think
it in my head,

(18:20):
but there'll be a third one. And also,
ironically, that one is exactly the same distance
as the other two are for me. So
I'm kinda in the middle between three three
Meijer stores.
Kinda
kinda strange, I guess. I guess maybe only
I think that's interesting.
But, hey. My show. Deal with it.

(18:42):
But,
you know, that it definitely seems
smallish. You know? I talked about the airport
a lot. Again, the airport.
One thing about going to the airport is
I know most of the counter people at
most of the airlines there. I know the
TSA people.
It takes me, you know, four minutes to

(19:03):
get through TSA,
there because
it's not super busy. Now we just had
our record year of airline passengers,
but it's still nothing compared to most
even midsize towns airports.
So and, you know, one thing we don't
have up here yet and we, you know,

(19:23):
I guess I'm not
too worried about us getting it is train
service. You know Amtrak doesn't come here.
The closest closest to Amtrak, I think,
is either Grand Rapids or Holland.
And, you know, I would utilize Amtrak if
it was up here. You know? And I
go to Chicago,
I do utilize Amtrak,

(19:43):
if I don't go to Manistee Airport and
fly a little jumper down.
But,
you know, if I if, you you know,
if I had the option of taking the
train, I would. You know, what I normally
do when I have to go to Chicago,
for something in Chicago,
I'll drive down to New Buffalo, Michigan, which

(20:04):
is right in the far
Southwest corner
of the Lower Peninsula.
And they have an Amtrak
station there. You get free parking. It's a
small town.
And then it's about an hour ride into
Chicago, and you don't have to deal with
parking your car and
the traffic and all that stuff. So I've
done that a few times going to Chicago,

(20:26):
you know, if, if I'm not flying through
Chicago.
But,
anyway so, yeah. I like to still think
this is a small town again. Maybe,
maybe by definition, it really isn't, but
yeah. You know? And and another thing about
Traverse City that a lot of people will
notice is we're not
super big on chain restaurants.

(20:47):
We have our chain restaurants, of course.
I've got a couple of McDonald's,
but two McDonald's in the area went out
of business. I've never even heard of that
anywhere else.
So I think we're down to,
who is it,
there's one
Yes. There's one on 31. There's one at,
at,

(21:09):
Chum's Corners.
There's one in downtown.
There's one on Airport Road, and there's one
in Acme. So there's five McDonald's, and at
one time, I think we had seven or
eight. I think it was seven because there
was one in the mall
and there was one in, Greylockville,
but, those went out of business. You just
don't hear that. Same with Burger King. You
know, we've got, you know, three, four, maybe

(21:31):
five Burger Kings,
but the the biggest one, the one that's
been around the longest,
just went out of business.
We've had Arby's go out of business. We
had,
I think we at one time had three
Arby's, and now we're down to one.
You know, we have, I think two Taco
Bell no, three Taco Bells.

(21:52):
So, but like I said, there's no there's
no five guys. There's no,
you know, there's a lot of fast food
that we don't get here, which is fine
because we have some really awesome local places,
even for burgers.
You know, we've got,
what is it, Slabtown Burgers, I think it's

(22:12):
probably my favorite in town. There's also Bubba's
downtown.
There's one
in Eastfield, that's another neighborhood
along 8th Street. There's one there called
the proper burger. I forget what the Bergstrom's,
no Bergstrom's
burgers up by Chumps Corners. There's another,

(22:33):
it's called Proper Burger,
and
I gotta be completely honest with you, they
suck, but that's between you, me, and the
fence post. But, hey, you know, we've got
some local places,
and same thing with like,
Ruby Tuesday's. Now I don't know if they've
they've had trouble
nationwide, but ours went out of business. We

(22:54):
had a Hooters. They went out of business.
We've had we do have a Chili's and
a Applebee's.
They're, they're still going, but we have another
restaurant in that same area where Chili's and
Applebee's are
that, definitely
isn't doing so good. It's, Opa. It's a
local place.

(23:15):
Well, I don't say I guess they're doing
okay. They're still there,
but
they don't seem as busy as some of
the others. We do have a Chick fil
A,
and that's a recent addition. And it was
kind of funny when they first opened it.
They, had police out there directing traffic and
all that. Now it's just, you know, normal,

(23:36):
but they have, you know, they do have
a Chick fil A Chick fil A here.
I guess I could do a whole show
about fast food. In fact, I used to
do a whole show about fast food called
Fast Food History,
but, I digress.
But yeah, a lot of chain restaurants
don't make it here or are not super

(23:57):
popular here.
You know, we have a couple of local
Mexican
places.
La Senorita
is one, and,
I forget what the other one is. Again,
they don't make big impressions on me. I'm
not a super big
Mexican food fan, but,

(24:17):
but, you know, it's still like I said,
I still get the small town feel. You
know, I I don't feel at all
concerned when I walk around the neighborhood
here in Traverse City. The traffic does get
a little ridiculous
sometimes,
but,
you know, that's just being in a tourist
town, not so bad in the off season.

(24:39):
You know, I can still get all the
way across town in fifteen minutes,
which, you know, considering how many traffic lights
and that there's only, like, three
viable ways around Boardman Lake to get from
east to west,
that
that's not bad. Not too bad at all.
So anyway, I've beaten that dead horse enough.

(25:00):
Hope hopefully,
you don't overeat
on this Thanksgiving
or, if you've already eaten and you're listening
to this later, I hope you didn't overeat.
I hope you got your fill and, got
your camaraderie
and and everything else that goes along with
the holiday.
I'm just thankful that I can do a
podcast
every day

(25:21):
here at NAPOD POMO.
Anyway, catch me tomorrow.

All Episodes

Topics Covered

Thanksgiving Reflections

Is Traverse City Still a Small Town?

Population & Geography

Neighborhoods & Areas Mentioned

Tourism & Seasons

Traverse City Schools

Airports & Travel

Parking & Downtown Life

Roundabouts, Traffic, and Small-Town Quirks

Fast Food in Traverse City – A Unique Landscape

Local Dining Identity

Closing Thoughts

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Traverse City is still a small town, or is it?