Apartment Choice

Regions › Southwest Virginia April 27, 2017  |  Print this page by Tim Thornton Marion is seeing an apartment boom. Photo courtesy The Town of Marion For nearly a century, Marion College sat on Marion’s Main Street. It closed in 1967. For much of the 20th century, R.T. Greer and Co. was a national leader in crude botanicals — roots and herbs collected and sold to pharmaceutical companies — and Marion was the center of Greer’s operations. But the business shrank as drug companies turned to other ingredients. Greer was gone by 1968. Textile companies in Marion also provided steady employment for decades, but by the early 1990s many of those jobs had disappeared. Town Manager Bill Rush says Marion “took some blows,” but it didn’t fall. One of the town’s old sewing factories is about to be converted into an apartment building. The old herb warehouse is, too. Two other downtown buildings have been or are about to be transformed into apartments. Ken Heath, executive director of Mar...

When Johnny came marching home again, there were lots of hurrahs, but precious few apartments. So it was in September 1946 that war veteran Daily Newsman Charles McHarry , who had been living in a hotel room for the five months since his discharge from the Army, reported on Everyman's search for a good $75-a-month apartment, not including bribes to doormen and supers. McHarry figured he could slip somebody $20, but a doorman in the East 50s demanded $75 upfront for the promise of a furnished three-room flat. And the rent would be $125, take it or leave it. McHarry passed . Eventually, a bartender steered him to another place, at just $100, and McHarry quickly accepted . Most of the city's other conquering heroes  and there were 765,000 of them  weren't so lucky. Many found themselves moving back in with their folks, and sometimes they brought new brides with them, sometimes even babies. Others had to make do with whatever they could find  cheap hot...