I don't think I realized just how far Vertigo Music was from my hotel when I decided to walk there last Wednesday. I had just rolled into town for a conference and after getting settled into my hotel, I decided to take a stroll through Downtown Grand Rapids, MI and find Vertigo Music.
I'll be the first to admit that I had to check Google Maps more than once on my way to the store. The downtown area of Grand Rapids is quite small compared to most other big cities and while it is extremely walkable, there are a lot of twists and turns to mess with your sense of direction.
Typically, as long as you know where the river is, you can figure pretty much anything out. As you can see, the rest of the week the weather wasn't so great while I was in Grand Rapids, so getting the chance to walk the city on Wednesday was quite nice. As I mentioned, this walk took place last Wednesday, but I am sharing it today as a #wednesdaywalk post for 
As I said, compared to most cities, Grand Rapids isn't that big, but it still has that big city feel to it when you are walking around. The food scene is pretty impressive and there are lots of arts and culture stops in between all that too. On top of that, it's also a college town, so there is an energy about the place that just makes you feel a bit more alive.
For the most part it is also quite safe. Sure, you have some isolated incidents, but for the most part I have never felt uneasy walking around Grand Rapids at night.
Like many cities, Grand Rapids has some stark contrasts between the old and the new. While just a few blocks from this location are the shiny skyscrapers, you can also see the old church in the distance and the brick streets. It's kind of a warm and welcoming feeling walking around GR. Oddly enough, that guy crossing on the other side seemed to be in his own world and was talking very loudly to himself.
At first I thought he was on his phone, but it soon became quite clear he was either high or mentally unstable. Lucky for me, my stop was just up the sidewalk a bit. One of the few times I have felt uneasy. I was a bit worried about how he might react with me taking a photo in his direction.
While the space for Vertigo Music isn't huge, it's bigger than some record stores I have been in. However, like most record stores, they make use of every bit of space they can. There wasn't a square inch of empty space in this place. If it wasn't stacks of records it was bins for you to browse through.
I was also impressed with the number of Jazz records they had in stock. I think the owner was a bit of a jazz fan because they were playing jazz in the background which you don't typically find in record stores. Usually they are playing that obscure indie band that no one has heard of before, but they carry all their albums.
When I notice the large amount of Jazz and more specifically Japanese Jazz they had in stock, I quickly reached out to 
While certain parts of Grand Rapids feel new and shinny, there are also areas like the one around Vertigo Music that remind you of typically small town main street America. They have the old signs like you see above and unfortunately, empty storefronts. I have a feeling that is becoming more and more common these days.
The next shots are just buildings that I thought were cool. This one reminded me of the Flat Iron building in New York though I know there are several buildings in Chicago with the same profile. What I failed to realize at the time was just how interesting the clouds looked. If you look to the right, you can also see the sky walk that I talked about in my post on Monday. It seems pretty much everywhere in Grand Rapids is connected by the sky walk.
This is one of the taller buildings in the city. If I had to guess the tallest one probably isn't over 30 to 35 stories though. The main reason I snapped a shot of this one was because it had a cool kind of pinnacle on the top of it. You cant really see it from here, but trust me it is there. It was chilly out when I took this walk, but the sun was out and by the time I was finished, I was sweating pretty badly. In fact, I had to cut my record searching short because I was sweating so bad.
This is an older building just across the street from the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. What I liked about it was the fact that it had a stone nameplate at the top of it. You can't read it in this photo, but it says "Goodspeed". I don't know what that refers to, I am sure I could Google it, but I always thought it was kind of cool when buildings had names like that. Especially old ones.
Finally, I found myself back near the conference area. If you look really closely in the distance, you can see a gray building that says Michigan State University Research Center on it. While Grand Valley State University is the big school in town, several of the larger universities in the state also have satellite campuses here.
If you ever get the chance to visit Grand Rapids, I highly recommend it. It's probably my favorite large city in the state and it is also known as the beer capital of Michigan. I'll share more about that in a later post though!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or 