Local mom Anna Artz reviews the newly redesigned garden at Greenville-Spartanburg Airport. This beautiful space is a fun place to wait with children and watch the aircraft before flights.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
We have come to enjoy flying in and out of Greenville Spartanburg Airport’s newly renovated terminals which are brightly lit and spacious. But what took us by surprise is the redesigned Airside Garden which opened up to a beautiful water and sculpture garden with benches and cafe tables artfully surrounded by a grove of trees and hedges. Both kids and adults chuckled with glee as we were greeted by a joyful sculpture of a boy and a girl, holding hands, caught in the middle of a game. A wonderful invitation to come and sit, walk and amble along before one’s flight.
The Vision behind Airside Garden
The Airside Garden is not new to GSP, it’s been around thanks to the late textile magnate Roger Milliken of Spartanburg founder and long-time GSP chairman. Having visited an outdoor garden in Germany, Milliken decided that it would be a great addition to the airport beautification efforts. Since then, the Airside Garden has been through a couple of redesigns, changing with the times and now, most recently, is one of the fantastic results of the ongoing terminal improvement program project called WINGPSAN.
Children at Play
Ticketed passengers now have the wonderful option of waiting in this lovely oasis designed for ambling around paths surrounded by fountains and dotted with bronze sculptures of children playing. The sculptures were commissioned by Milliken and helps highlight the garden’s water features. Created by Colorado-based artist, Dennis Smith, each sculpture is of a child in play, positioned as if leaping, dancing and skipping around the fountains. My daughter insisted copying each pose, visibly enjoying the gifts of this place. Smith’s Boy Aviator, is one of the seven art installations all around the new terminals.
GSP, A Family Friendly Place
The GSP’s Airside Garden is certainly unique. It also marks how GSP is forever transforming itself to a welcoming space for family travelers. The new concessions including Chick-fil-A and array of soon to open sit-down restaurants, offer a nice range of places to eat. A nice local touch is the King-of-Pops vending machine. With nothing to do but wait for our flight, we bought our sandwiches and sat at the cafe tables at the garden. We watched the airplanes land and take off on the runway, and simply enjoyed the view.
Have you ever visited GSP’s Airside Garden?
A Greenville transplant, Anna, is a former fundraiser for art museums and charities in NY and NJ. Before heading south, her husband’s job brought them to Pune, Shanghai and her hometown, Manila. She and her family are happy to settle in Greenville and enjoy hiking the beautiful parks of the Upstate, visiting museums and historic places, and last but not least, hunting for the best BBQ in town.