Passing by almost unnoticed today is the news that the Greenbrier, the famous White Sulphur Springs resort retreat for Congress and whose Presidential Suite has been the host of every President since Dwight Eisenhower, has slipped quietly under the dark waves of insolvency.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation (GHC), owner of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, announced today that it has sought Chapter 11 protection to help ensure the viability of the resort.
The ordinary is made interesting when one realizes that the Greenbrier was for years the location of the secret Congressional emergency relocation facility. Complete with medical facility, meeting rooms, generators, cafeteria, long-term living quarters and the like, the underground bunker was designed to keep Congress alive and able to continue running the country into the ground long after a devastating nuclear attack (the ultimate sign of a failure in leadership).
No word on whether the bunker will now accept Marriott Rewards points.
The Greenbrier Files Chapter 11, Signs Agreement With Marriott Hotel Services, Inc. [PRNewswire] via Alea
wasn’t the greenbrier just a subsidized perk of CSX for years and years? it’s not that the place ever really operated at a profit and that was never really the point for CSX.
I doubt this very much.
Remember the Twilight Zone episode where the guy just wants to be left alone to read all the books in the world? Somehow (I don’t remember how) this does occur, and just as he’s getting ready to open the first book, his glasses fall and shatter.
It would be like that, but much more Lord of the Flies-esque. It almost makes me hopeful.
Pass the conch.
“Remember the Twilight Zone episode where the guy just wants to be left alone to read all the books in the world? Somehow (I don’t remember how) this does occur,”
He works in a bank, and the blast comes when he’s in the vault, and it knocks the door closed.
@2–sucks to your ass-mar!
@1 – yes. It was also used during WWII as the internment location of Axis diplomats and as a hospital. They now offer tours of the bunker – it’s pretty neat – but I would have no objection to reopening it to relocate Barney Frank on a permanent basis.
Did I totally butcher that story? Now I don’t even remember if everyone dies and he’s the only one left standing. I feel like I totally fucked this up.
“Did I totally butcher that story? Now I don’t even remember if everyone dies and he’s the only one left standing. I feel like I totally fucked this up.”
No, you had it right. He wants to be alone because everyone bugs him at work, etc. He just wants to be left alone to read books. Nuclear war… boom… he is saved in the vault… amid the rubble of the library he has all the books he could ever want. Breaks glasses… cries… “There was time now… there was time…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last
@6 and 7, and then those blue guys move all the scenery around, right?
@4, I have the conch!
On Who Want’s To Be A Millionaire Norm McDonald was set to win it all and Regis talked him out of it…Greenbrier was the final answer and Regis convinced him to take the 500k
the place was/is a pain to get to (now that j. mack, vik p, et al don’t have use of the private jets) and wreaks of “good ol’ boy” traditions (I thought we were all populists now?). the golf courses could use a little updating too. and do we really want a reason to visit w. va?
West Virginia is for lovers?
Why would you want to keep congress alive?