Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I'm not sure if Video Solutions & Satellite Connection were two different businesses or two "DBA"-es for the same company. What I am sure of is that there have been many other businesses in this striking little building on Covenant Road just across from the former Piggly Wiggly and just down from Trenholm Park over the years, going back at least into the 60s. Unfortunately, I can't now recall any of them, though I'm pretty sure it started as a drycleaner's.

I put 2005 as the date for the last operations there due to this document, which appears to be related to a creditors' take-over of some *other* satellite company. There's not much information in the header part, but I'm thinking since Satellite Connection was apparently one of the creditors, they may have paid money for equipment they did not get, which is not a good situation for a small business to be in. I could be totally wrong.

Anyway, according to the construction permit, the building has been taken over by Harmony School which is the small school more or less behind this building. Since these pictures were taken, they have implemented the "Parliment" option and have torn the roof off that sucker.

UPDATE 22 July 2009: Added Sunshine Cleaners to the post title in response to indetifications from the comments.

UPDATE 7 July 2010 -- It appears that work on the building is nearly done:

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011: Correction -- it was never a Sunshine but it was Custom Cleaners & Laundry (at least from 1970 - 1976 according to the city directories) and was a Brinson Laundry & Cleaners from 1977-1984. I don't have dates for the other operations.

I can't find the web page right now, but at one time when I was googling around for Columbia Drive-Ins, I found a site claiming that one had been out on the Sumter Highway. A few weeks ago, I went looking for it, driving down the Sumter Highway from I-77 to US-601.

As we used to drive that way to the beach all the time, I was not surprised to find no definitely identifiable drive-in (since that's the kind of thing that sticks in a kids memory), but I saw several spots that I felt could have housed a drive-in at one time. This one struck me as the most likely. It's on the right side of the road if you are headed towards Sumter, and I believe it is closer to US-601 than I-77.

The reason it looked most likely to me was that I could almost see the remaining building on the lot as some sort of ticket booth, with the burned down building behind it as a concession stand, and the vacant swath as the parking area, with the screen being back by the woods.

Am I completely off base here? Is anyone familiar with this lot?

(If it turns out it was a drive-in, I'll adjust the post title later).

A casualty of the digital revolution, I guess. I would notice Champagne Color from time to time over the years, and would always imagine it as the sort of place where instead of just running your film through the machine and printing whatever came out, they would check each print and dodge and burn-in each exposure as necessary, and if that wasn't true, it should have been.

I myself held on to 35mm for most of my pictures for years after it became clear that digital was not only winning, but had already won. When I started this site, I knew I had to go digital at least in part because I would be at Ritz or the drug-store every day -- it would just take too long, and cost too much.

Closing-Cam 1.0 didn't displace my old Fujica because the resolution was still too low, but Closing-Cam 2.0 (a Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3) pretty much has. My guess would be that this happened to Champagne's customers over the course of several years, and that without the resources of a national chain, they couldn't make the transition to full digital.

At any rate, whether that's a good guess or not, the building has been empty for a long time now. The location is not very easy to get into or good for parking (especially if you are coming from the Dutch Square direction) and I think you would need a "destination" store there to make it viable.

Here's a storefront on Harden Street next to Groucho's that I can't really ever recall seeing before. I suppose that's mainly due to the subject matter -- my eyes tend to glide right over decor stores. My kitchen has a 50 year old sink and counters with a 30 year old stove, and they seem to work just fine..

I'm guessing from the name of this place that it was once on Devine Street, but I don't recall it from there either.

When I was taking pictures for the (final) closing of Stevie B's Pizza at the Forest Drive Wal Mart strip mall, I noticed that its next door neighbor, Check 'N Go had checked and went to 7358 Two Notch. That makes three recent vacancies in this strip, which can't be good (though I expect having Wal-Mart as the anchor makes it more resiliant than a non ahchored strip).

Welcome to all the folks coming in from The State! Be sure to check out the Alphabetical Closings for a list of other places you might remember.

This defunct I-26 adult entertainment complex apparently occupies two lots in Cayce off of Old Dunbar Road. The front lot is 1995 Old Dunbar Road, and the back lot is off the adjacent side street at 115 Overland Drive.

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This is probably the second most searched for closing, after The Bounty. As with The Bounty, I've held off doing a post because the place is completely gone, I don't have any pictures of it, and I don't have any personal memories to relate.

I was thinking that I could do some research at the RCPL and at least come up with an old Yellow Pages ad to hang a post on, but when I finally got a chance to check it out, I found that The Zoom Flume never had a Yellow Pages entry, at least under any category that made sense to me. In fact, they were only listed in the white pages for two years.

So here's what I know about the waterslide: The Zoom Flume was located at 107 Calvin Drive (unless you believe a city directory entry which puts it at 5959 Two Notch Road), which is a small street off of Two Notch Road in between Arcadia Lakes Drive and Fontaine Road. Calvin Drive starts perpendicular to Two Notch, then turns off parallel to Two Notch and Shakespeare Road and runs behind Freedom Suziki. 107 Calvin Drive is now a vacant lot behind Dixie Trophies, Inc.. The slide would, I assume, have been situated up the hill that elevates Shakespeare Road above Two Notch. Currently, for no reason I can discern, the empty lot is surrounded with a formidable looking 7000 volt electrical fence.

People have talked about The Zoom Flume in the comments sections of other posts from time to time, with the most solid information coming from commenter Captain Dave who said:

The one on Two Notch was indeed “The Zoom Flume”. I remember it well because they were a major sponsor at WZLD-FM where I worked. It’s heyday was the summer of 1979. We gave away free passes all the time. Ithink we tied it in with “The Ramblin’ Raft Race” on the Congaree River.

So that's pretty much it. Not a great post, but hopefully it will provide a place for people who actually went to the Flume to add comments. If anybody has pictures of themselves playing there back in the day, I'll gladly post those as well.

UPDATE 16 Dec 2010: Commenter Tonkatoy sends in this 1984 yearbook ad for Super Slide And Arcade which was apparently another incarnation of The Zoom Flume. It was slated to open in May of 1984. I don't recall that one at all. I've added Super Slide to the post title.

UPDATE 27 April 2017 -- I'm told that if you Facebook, there is a Zoom Flume photo here

Well, it appears that the Po Folks curse has struck again, and the building at 6246 Two Notch will need another new tenant. The phone is not yet disconnected (just constantly "busy"), but it seems that the Moore For Less used car dealership is gone. I would think that in this economy, used cars would be a sure bet, but perhaps the overall bank mess has affected financing, or people are holding on to what they have and not even getting new used cars...

UPDATE 13 March 2011 -- Well, in the last week they've knocked down the building and cleared the lot:

UPDATE 21 April 2011 -- It's to be a Dollar General and construction has already started:

UPDATE 25 June 2011 -- The Dollar General is open:

UPDATE 29 June 2021: Adding tags & map icon.

OK, here's something a little different for a Friday evening: Ads and jingles I saw and heard growing up. You may have had a different mix if you listened to different stations. Some were for local firms, some for national ones. I wish I could convey how catchy some of these jingles were, but I don't have any recordings, and I'm sure not going to try to sing them here!

Marion Bunside Dodge:

Mar-i-on is the name to remember,
7201 on the Sumter High-Way!
M-- "More Service"
A-- "Able to Serve You"
R-- "Real Value"
I-- "something something!"
O--"something something!"
N--"something something!"
Today!

Commercial Office Furniture:

Your next desk
Wil come from C-O-F!

The Captain's Kitchen:

Come to The Captain's Kitchen for 'Treasures of the Sea'!

The whole Carpet Wholesaler's series of TV commercials with Nevin Broome and Joe Pinner: "Save! Save! Save". My favorite though was the one where Joe comes upon Nevin who is tied up.

Joe: What happened Nevin!?
Broome: My competitors tied me up, Joe. They don't want folks to SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!
Broome: Untie me Joe!
Joe: I don't think so, Nevin (filches cigar from Broomes shirt pocket and walks off set).

McDonalds:

McDonalds is your kind of place!

which we always rendered:

McDonald's is your kind of place.
They steal your parking space!
Hamburgers out your nose,
French Fries between your toes!

And don't forget those groovy shakes
They're make from polluted lakes!
McDonalds is your kind of place.

Burger King:

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
Special orders don't upset us!

The Tons O' Toys elf:

With tons of toys for girls & boys,
Toodly-oop!

Time For Sounds a daytime ETV program which ran while I was in elementary school. The hostess had a "magic chalk board" which was drawn with a music stave and which would play whatever notes she wrote on it. There was also a semi-animated classical re-working of "Pop Goes The Weasel" featuring "Super Weasel" which she played several times (or we just saw that episode several times). The main thing though was the opening theme which though it had no lyrics I always heard as It's really time for sounds, it's really time for sounds!

Ellison Insurance:

The El-is-son, The El-is-son,
Insurance agency, INSURANCE AGENCY!

The Contenential Sound girl:

Sounds real good!

Kaminer Heating & Air (sung in 1940s close harmony, like the Modernaires or Merry Macs):

Put comfort in your home
The Kaminer way.
Call Kaminer,
(boom, boom)
Right away!

Koolies:

Koo-Koo-Koolie
Orange Koolie
Lemon Koolie
Koolie Fruit Punch
Koolie in the morning
Koolie at lunch
Natural fruit flavors
Orange... lemon... PUNCH!

UPDATE 18 April 2024 -- Turns out that the fruit punch was Coolie not Koolie, and I finally found the commercial:

UPDATE 16 May 2010 -- The Kaminer jingle can be heard at the end of this commercial:

This Sears Service Center used to mail out "lawn mower tuneup" cards every spring, and I took my mower there several times. In fact they mailed out one this spring and I was considering it though I ended up using the AARO Rental Center on Two Notch instead.

Really, when I think about it, I'm not sure why the place lasted as long as it did. Sears at the mall certainly has the space in the auto bay to do that sort of repair work there if they want to, and I'll bet the same is true of K-Mart as well -- there really wasn't a good reason for having three seperate buildings on Parklane.

I notice that Sears still refers to Columbia Mall rather than Columbia Place -- good for them!

UPDATE 29 February 2020: Add tags, map icon.