Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I'm not totally sure this is the storefront I want, but I think I remember that angled main entrance, and if it wasn't this building, it was somewhere nearby, but anyway when I was small, there was a pet store here.

I generally can't go in pet stores now, they make me too sad, but when I was a kid, I didn't think about the "big picture" and was just fascinated by all the animals. Pet stores were all over. There was one with puppies in Columbia Mall, one at Trenholm Plaza and even Woolworth's had fish, turtles and gerbils. If I recall correctly, the one on Devine had lots of fish, but the real reason we liked to walk down there after piano lessons at Haven's Music was because of the bird.

I'm not sure what kind of bird it was now, but it sat on a high perch just inside the front door, and could talk. Sometimes it would volunteer something as you walked into the shop, at other times you had to prompt it, which you could do by saying "Pretty boy, pretty boy" in a sing-song cadance. Generally after you had done this a few times, it would perk up and say "Awk! Pretty Boy! Pretty Boy!" back at you.

I don't believe the bird was for sale, I had the impression that he was the personal pet of the shop owner. From time to time I've wondered what happened to him. Given how long some birds live, he could still be "pretty boy"-ing up a storm somewhere in the midlands..

UPDATE: Commenter Dennis supplies the name of the place as "The Aquarium and Pet Shop II", so I'm updating the title of this post to reflect that.

UPDATE 31 March 2009: Added the 1970 Southern Bell Yellow Page ad (which does not have the "II" suffix on the name).

Dillard's started out as a Belk's when Columbia Mall opened in the 1970s and was one of the original anchor stores (along with Sears, Penny's and RIch's).

Since I considered Belk's mainly a "clothes store" and I hated shopping for clothes, in the usual course of events, I would not have gone there often. However in one of those odd little bits of department-store whimsey (nut counters, lunch rooms, hair salons..) that were common in pre-mall days and had yet to be abandoned, they had an area on the second floor near the kitchen-ware which was leased out to a local record store. I knew the name of it before I started this post, but I find it has completely escaped me at the moment. At any rate, it was a small area and the selection of regular LPs was not deep by any means, but they frequently had incredible finds for anyone willing to root through the cut-out bins. Being broke and somewhat obsessive, that was me. I know I still have a number of LPs from there, with the standout being a two disc Jan & Dean collection which had all the hits (which were otherwise pretty unavailable at the time) and a number of the tracks cut by Dean after Jan's accident under the names Laughing Gravy (a fun cover of The Beach Boys' "Vegetables") and The Legendary Masked Surfers (the infectious "Sunshine Music"). The liner notes promised that all the tracks were in "quasi-moto monaural" and if you experienced any problems to "take a shower with a friend".

Aside from browsing the record cut-outs (and kitchen gadgets from time to time) my other favorite thing to do in the store was to ride the small capsule-like elevator. This managed to look both futuristic and a bit art-deco at the same time, and allowed you to look out over the whole store as you ascended or fell.

I forget all the details, but at some point in the late 70s or 80s, Belk left the Columbia market for a while. I think it might have been a family inheritance struggle over management of the chain, but it's very fuzzy. At any rate, after the store space closed as a Belks, it reopened as a Dillards.

I can't say very much about Dillards -- it had no music section so I think I only went in there a few times and found nothing that struck my fancy. I'm pretty sure I never purchased an item there. The chain has been hurting in recent years, and though I don't find any news suggesting the chain itself is in danger, they have been closing underperforming stores, one of which was apparently the Columbia Mall store.

I recall a story in The State mentioning the (then) upcoming closing and interviewing the mall owners who allowed that you (approx) "seldom had the opportunity to replace two anchor stores" (Steve & Barry is also leaving). I was reminded of the old Pogo quote:

We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities!

I took these pictures in October. I would have taken more, but one of the floorwalkers politely inquired as to what I was doing, and it always sounds pretty lame when I try to explain it. Jan & Dean in "Submarine Races" mode would have been much more persuasive!

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This post comes from reader Dennis. I know of the building, but that area wasn't really in our orbit growing up, and I don't think we ever stopped at Ailes':

I took these photos today. Not really a timely "Closing," just some nostalgic rambling.

This building at 3123 Beltline was Roche Brothers last summer, and is now Taste of Jamaica, but it will always be Ailes' Market to me. I lived about two blocks away from about 1967 to 1979, from ages 10 to 22, and Mr. Ailes lived right around the corner from us. My mother didn't drive, and didn't have a car even if she could have, so I was almost daily sent to Ailes' to get something or another. I didn't mind at all. It was a chance to get out of the house, and Ailes' had a wonderful candy aisle. It was understood that when I went on a errand there, some of the change would get spent on candy. We also did a lot of wash at the laundromat that was directly across Beltline; same building that is now a sad looking office center. That laundromat was dim and dirty, loud and hot (no A.C.) but only a block from the house.

Ailes' was a typical general store/gas station of the time, before giant national conglomerates put a Fast Fare or a Pantry (like the one to the left of it now) on every corner. Also before I-77 was even thought of, so a LOT of big semi-trucks rattled down Beltline day and night. Mr. Ailes alone decided what he would sell, and he had a little bit of everything. Rat traps to onions. Velveeta to plastic model kits. Spark plugs to tampons. Of interest to a kid like me, in addition to the candy, was the fireworks he had, the excellent comic book rack, the baked snacks like Little Debbie's and Mickey's and Sweet Sixteen donuts that were always fresh and delicious, not like the awful mess you often get today.

Mr. Ailes held court at the front, on the left as you came in, on a wooden bar stool behind his cash register. He had an anti-burglary shotgun prominently displayed on the wall behind him, right next to that sign about "We made a deal with the bank - they don't sell beer and we don't cash checks." There was also a board of shame displaying checks written to the store that had bounced, and of course the faded Polaroids of regular customers holding fish they had caught using his worms.

On the other side of the counter, also on wooden bar stools, were three or four men who were either unemployed or retired or had the greatest unsupervised jobs in the world, because they were always there, chain smoking and drinking beer. I guess one of them was his gas attendant. On the counter was the requisite gallon jar of homemade pickled eggs and a clipboard with a college football parlay card on it. One dollar per square. Also on the counter was this big can-opening device that pierced two perfect triangles in steel beer cans (I know -- I'm old.) The beer came out of one of three big, old, heavy coolers with solid steel lids. If you opened one and "shopped" too long you'd get yelled at to close it. In addition to popsicles and the menfolks' PBR and Old Milwaukee, they had ICE cold Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew (in the green glass bottle with the hillbilly moonshiner on it), Nehi, Fanta, Patio, and Crush.

Next to his seated entourage Mr. Ailes had three or four old fashioned pinball machines -- not fun games with flippers, but just a bunch of holes for the balls to fall into. If you won you got 5¢ (or was it a penny?) per point right out of the cash register. I never understood it and it was clear that they were for adults only.

Speaking of adults only, while I was in the right front corner reading comics, and MAD, and Cracked, and Sick, and later National Lampoon, (He didn't care how long I loitered in the store) I soon discovered a section of the trashiest, sleaziest black & white smut magazines imaginable, which he would yell at me not to look at, but of course many times I did anyway. Warped for life.

In the back left corner was a snack bar that had decent fries, burgers and dogs, cooked up by a nice little old man with the sweats and the shakes who was clearly a struggling alcoholic. We went there on hot summer days after swimming across the street at the Bradley Terrace Pool (Restricted -- Whites only) which was where that small nursing home is now. I remember seeing my first microwave oven at that snack bar.

If you went outside to the right there was a pretty nice two chair barbershop way in the back corner of the building (see the door in the photo?). The building next door was Diamond Xanthakis' liquor store, or a "red dot" store to us.

A Hess station was built on the other side of the store, overnight it seemed, and as you might expect it killed Ailes' gas sales and he got rid of his two pumps. Not sure what year Mr. Ailes sold the store. It struggled on for a long time as a out of date convenience store.

Thanks, Dennis -- Ted

This building, at the entrance to Trenholm Park and now apparently a hair salon called Hair Works once housed a small independant convenience store. I am nearly sure it was called Campbell's, and I think it was the place to go for kids wanting a snack coming in or out of the park. It had all the standard soft drink, pork rind and motor oil options as well as magazines you wouldn't take home to mom, but there were no gas pumps.

I am guessing that it pre-dated the nearby Covenant Road Piggly Wiggly since otherwise it's hard to see what market it served, especially since (unless I'm recalling wrongly) it wasn't open particularly late at night. I imagine that the decline of kids coming and going unescorted as childhood as we knew it disappeared didn't help, but the final blow had to have been the opening of a chain store across the street (now a BP) with all the same stuff, chain purchasing power and gas pumps.

Well, given the events of last Friday, I suppose it's time to do a closing on South Carolina's biggest white elephant. That's the date that Hard Rock Park "chose" to move from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. Why?

The park, which said it was worth $400 million when it opened in April, was unable to attract any bidders willing to pay at least $35 million for the park at a Dec. 15 auction, according to court documents.

I find that amazing, even with all the other financial beef-wittery that has come to light lately. The Sun News's stories on the park are filled with comments from the locals to the effect that they could have told the owners what was going to happen, although it also appears that many people did tell them. One of the articles (which I don't have a link to right now) detailed the park's origins: Apparently the pitchmen were thrown for a loop when they were told that the Hard Rock empire was approachable for branding the rock-and-roll park they were pitching. The problem was that they weren't pitching a rock-and-roll park, but a "standard" amusement park, and weren't planning to pitch to Hard Rock, but they brainstormed some rock-related ride names on a lunch napkin and sold the concept. That's the kind of story that becomes a legend if a venture succeeds, and a cautionary tale if it doesn't...

In the event it seemed that the owners were better at promoting to corporations than to tourists, and aside from the unforseeable blunder of trying to launch a venture in the annus horribilis of 2008, they priced tickets too high ($50 + $10 parking), didn't advertise, and didn't promote with local hotels.

I had two chances to visit the park. The first was on the Fourth of July 2008, when I was taking pictures of Waccamaw Pottery. As I was standing in the parking lot, I could see the Led Zeppelin roller-coaster running in the distance, but it was about lunch time, and after that, I ended of taking a helicopter ride over the beach instead. I also had a week to myself at the beach in August, and thought about taking in the park then, but it was hot, I didn't feel like getting on 501 in tourist season, and I figured it would be better in October, but that was not to be as the doors closed in September.

Oh well, it's only rock and roll!

UPDATE: Here's a link from commenter "Beach Guy" that has the origin details I mentioned.

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The French Quarter Deli was the replacement restaurant at the original location of The Keg O'Nails Deli. I'm still not entirely sure I understand the sequence of events that led to the Keg moving and The French Quarter being established, but it was a big brou-ha-ha and made the paper several times back in the day. You can read some comments at the Keg O'Nails closiing made by people who know more about it than I do.

At any rate, while I did finally get around to eating at the Keg after it moved, I never did get to try The French Quarter before it closed. I'm not sure why it closed either. It is in an odd little section of Rosewood, rather removed from where you would expect a restaurant. I know I would hesitate to fire up a cook stove next to Jim Casey's!

These two green spaces, one beside the Russell House on the east side of the Thomas Cooper Library reflection pool, and the other on the west side of the pool were once USC parking lots. It was almost impossible to find a spot in either lot, but if you could, it was your best shot for actually being able to park "near" to the library.

The parking situation at USC has always been fluid, and it is not unusual for a lot to vanish, but it is unusual for said lot not to be replaced with a building. There used to be a parking lots behind and in front of the Welsh building, for example, but they have all now been built over.

I believe the lot by the Russell House vanished first, perhaps at the time Green Street was closed. I think the west lot lasted a good bit past that. At any rate, if you have checkout privileges at the library, you're going to be be toting those books a couple blocks in most cases!

Electrolux makes a good vacuum. Or at least they did make a good one -- I can't speak to their current models since the 35 year old one I inherited from my mother still works fine.

In fact, the only problem the basic unit ever had that I can recall is that at some point in the late 60s, I think, one of the wheels broke off. I don't recall the circumstances, but I would be surprised if I or my sister weren't involved somehow. My mother was very reluctant to try and have it fixed because she didn't want to be without her vacuum while it was shipped back to Sweden or whatever, and because she figured it would be expensive as well as time-consuming. We must have dragged that vacuum around limping on its three wheels for seven or eight years. Sometime in the 70s, I finally convinced her to take it to the shop. As I recall, once we got it there, the guy set it on the counter, went "hmm", pulled a wheel out of a bin, snapped it on and said that will be $5. We were in and out in ten minutes. I guess there's some sort of life-lesson there.

The Electrolux store was on Devine Street in the space now occupied by a wig shop. They closed sometime in the 70s and the current store is out on Broad River Road at St. Andrews. I don't know if it is the same operation or completely separate, but the one time I went in, it seemed to have a really different attitude -- I just wanted to buy some bags, and I felt like the salesman wasn't going to let me out of there without buying a new unit!

UPDATE 24 March 2011: Added full street address to post title.