Have you met Greensboro Mayor Keith McManus?
GREENSBORO – Standing in the doorway of what was once Betty Longo’s store on Front Street, Greensboro Mayor Keith McManus tuned his banjo and got ready to play.
Early morning light glinted on the old store logo, a reminder of the history that its new owner is helping to preserve. Inside, the nostalgia of 20th century memorabilia – posters, toys and stuffed trophies – mingled with racks of instruments, objet d’art and pottery, from original Greensboro crocks to the works of clay artists that McManus has collected over the years.
“It’s all for sale and you can get music lessons here too. One of these days we’ll be making milkshakes again, just like Betty did,” McManus said with a grin as he finished running through a few tunes that his band Stewed Mulligan has taken to festivals from here to North Carolina, Poland, Australia and Mexico.
McManus, a professional musician from Doddridge County, W.Va., has been playing old time string band music, the precursor to bluegrass, with Stewed Mulligan for nearly 40 years. By afternoon he would be on the road again, heading to a festival in North Carolina, then back to Greensboro to continue hammering away on the many projects he, his son Shane and a handful of apprentice potters and other artisans have taken on to restore and repurpose the old buildings McManus bought and is determined to save.
Next door to Longo’s store, the freshly painted façade of what was once the Davis Theater, then for decades Steve Kalafksy’s grocery store was another work in progress. Lofts, workstations and gallery space were under construction inside and an open-air kiln was in the back yard. Muscular metal sculptures edged the wall of the last building on the block – a restaurant-bar that is being converted into hostel space for those who come to help McManus build a destination for working artists, lifelong learners and river paddling visitors to Greensboro.
There’s a feeling of history lurking around every corner of this little river town once famous for its functional, now very collectible stoneware. People walk to a restored log cabin at the end of town to vote and the borough council gathers there for monthly meetings. A few more steps and the Monongahela River laps, ready for a canoe or a kayak to join the wild ducks and coal barges floating by.
McManus discovered Greensboro in 2004 when his wife at the time, Peggy Pings, an outdoor recreation planner for the National Parks Service, came to town to help the community’s Nathanael Greene Historical Foundation get its nonprofit status and apply for funds to build a walking trail from Mon View Park to Lock #7.
In the 1970s, he apprenticed with the National Historic Trust for Restoration and Preservation to restore the Jay Gould Gothic Revival country house in Tarrytown New York. When he came to Greensboro, he talked to the older people and saw that little grocery store looking dilapidated.
“Folks thought I was crazy when I bought it,” he said.
The historical foundation partnered with the county to do a Creative Communities Conference and have its first Art Blast on the Mon Festival in 2006.
“We wanted to bring in people to appreciate our historic town and see its potential as an artist community,” Nat Greene President Mary Shine said.
Artists took note and some began buying properties. The festival became a yearly celebration of the arts over Labor Day weekend and in 2010 McManus bought Kalafsky’s little grocery store and took up residence.
McManus had his skills as a woodworker and as a hard rock miner in Colorado in his younger days to draw from. He also knew from his 10 years as technical instructor in the arts at West Virginia University that art majors, unless they went into teaching, struggled to make a career of their craft.
“Only 2 percent stay with it. They told me they lost their studio, lost their environment and it slipped away. I’ve had this vision in my head for years to have a place where they could continue to work,” McManus said.
Emerging artists help McManus build walls, shore up foundations and restore old tin ceilings in exchange for a place to stay and a chance to throw pots, cut glass, paint or build environmentally sound products like bamboo framed bicycles.
When old friend Vince Farsetta, two-time National Old Time Banjo champion, bought a house in town, he joined his neighbors McManus, Shane, Mitch Hall and Gabe Acita as the Red Turtle String Snappers to bring string band music to Art Blast and do weekly jam sessions at Betty Longo’s old store.
In the midst of all this hard work and good music, politics came calling.
When Mayor Arnie Bowser died in 2013, the borough had to appoint a mayor within 30 days.
“Keith seemed like a friendly guy, always doing things for the town,” Shane recalled. The council asked and McManus said yes.
After serving out Bowser’s term, McManus ran for office and was elected to serve a full term as mayor of Greensboro.
“Mayors don’t have real power – the borough council does,” McManus pointed out. “Quakers always try to find consensus, so at meetings I listen and then offer my opinion. I can talk to anyone and I’m the first to apologize. Sometimes it’s hard to decide the best thing to do, so someone will turn to me and say ‘What do you think, Mr. Mayor?’ It has to be for the good of the people.”
Borough councils attend to the infrastructure of a small town, from signage to sewage, McManus explained. As mayor, he meets with commissioners and state representatives, finding grants for needed projects and is a cheerleader for the place he now calls home.
There is still work to be done, but Greensboro has become a destination for artists and its population is growing as its reputation spreads. He touts summer classes that have attracted people from as far away as Sweden, and a new wheelchair accessible ramp for kayakers to enjoy the river.
“I’ve always loved this town,” McManus said.