Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I did a closing for the Two Notch Catherine's back in 2020, and thought I had done one for this one, but apparently had not. As far as I can determine, all Catherine's are now closed. Although the company was bought after it went bankrupt, the new owners have elected to keep the brand alive online, but not run any actual stores.

Recently the church owning Intersection Center announced the purchase of Dutch Square, and it's unclear to me what that will mean for the future of retail there. They may elect to use the vacant slots, like this, for church functions and keep the current retail renters on (in fact there is still some retail at Intersection Center), or perhaps the will use the whole mall as leases expire. We will have to see.

Curiously, this property came up in the comments just after I got some pictures of it last weekend while I was at the H. Rubin site. It looks like both the businesses here had been here a good while. In the case of Boost Mobile, that goes all the way back to when it was Suncom. As far as I can tell by looking at Google Streetview, both businesses apparently lasted into 2023. Curiously, Streetview does not have the color scheme that LoopNet has for the phone side of the storefront.

To me the building looks very much like it began life as a convenience store, but I have no memory of that.

(Hat tip to commenter Gypsie)

Well the State Fair has come and gone. No big surprises this year. The retro swing ride at the intersection of the central way and the North Midway corridor is still gone. I guess it won't be coming back. Somehow the baby duck slide survived another year, and we had some new greasy goodness with doughnut-burgers and Wisconsin fried cheese curds. Aprt from the sky ride, the Bumper Cars were the only place I spent my tickets this year, and there's (somewhat badly focused) video of that below. Those issues (really time for a new camera) are apparent in the skyway video above as well, but I think it gets the spirit of things.

As for the rest, if you've followed these posts, you know what I like, and I liked the same things this year. It's always nice to be out and about on the grounds after sundown!

Next year is coming..

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As far as I can tell Graham's TV in Triangle City started in 1985 and closed sometime in or not long after 2011. You can see their archived web page here. Looking at Google Streetview from August 2023, it appears this storefront is currently vacant.

I just ran across these pictures of Tabu at 700 Gervais Street, and realized I hadn't seen that locomotive in a good while. I believe the spot is now occupied by Tsunami, though I could be behind on that as well.

There's not a lot of information online, but the place is referred to in the past tense in this 2016 State article, so it was definitely gone by then. This Free Times article suggests that the club shared ownership with the now demolished Pure Ultra Lounge on Berryhill and featured an Urban playlist.

Before I-20 came in, we would take US-1 through Camden whenever we would go to visit relatives in Hartsville. Often on those trips (or whenever we could nag successfully enough) our parents would let us stop for lunch at the Burger Family restaurant. In retrospect, there was nothing special about it, it was a standard hamburger stand in a town that didn't yet have a McDonald's, but it was someplace different, and that's what mattered. At this point, I can only recall three things about it: The manager had a hearing aide; the burger names were family themed: Papa Burger (the largest) , Mama Burger (more "normal" sized) and some kind of kids burger, the cute name of which I can't recall, and they always got something about the order wrong. It became a running joke with us.

After Burger Family closed, we switched to Hermes, which was sort of a Hardee's knock-off in a town that didn't have one of those either. Then, of course, I-20 came in, and we started taking that to Bishopville instead.

I am not absolutely sure this is the right building, but I have looked a number of times in Camden over the years, and this is the only one in about the right place, looking like it could have been there then, and have been a restaurant then, and which tickles vague memories. I could be wrong -- it was a *long* time ago.

Sticking with Wells Fargo for another day, the company recently announced that they will close this administrative center on Greystone Boulevard next summer. The State has the story, along with the astounding statistic that they have laid off 40,000 people over the last few years. It is certainly a shame that so many folks have to suffer for a number of bone-headed and unethical stunts management has pulled over the last decade.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)

Continuing the recent theme of abandoned (or demolished) walk-up ATMs, this one at the Dutch Square Wells Fargo has been closed for a good while.

The adajacent branch continues to be open, and people in the parking lot can, of course, walk up to the drive-through ATM, and in fact somebody did that just before I took these picture.

Does anyone know what is going on here?

They have forced Two Notch down to one lane turning onto Fontaine and one lane for through traffic and have had barrels up for at least six months, but even though I drive by there quite often, and frequently during prime work hours, I have never actually seen any crews or construction going on -- It's like they just plugged up the road for fun. I know the folks at China Hut & Ace Glass must be pretty sick of it by now.

While we were talking about the Walk-up BOA ATM on Saint Andrews, I recalled this one on Greystone, and was curious to see if it were still there. It's not, and the Google Reviews suggest it probably closed around 2020. I think that if a place is not a natural foot-traffic spot, people are increasingly reluctant to get out of their cars and box themselves into one of these..