Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

First let me note that although no description of Myrtle Square Mall would be complete without the famous clock, I did not take that picture. It appears in the Wikipedia entry for the mall, and has been explicitly released into the public domain.

What can I say about Myrtle Square Mall? For many years, it was the mall on the Grand Strand and the "general" shopping destination on any beach trip. To be sure, there were outlet and specialty malls like Waccamaw Pottery, but MSM was the "it" place.

As kids, of course, The Pavilion was first in our hearts and minds, but over the years we took many trips to the mall as well.

It had a different mix of retail than anything in Columbia, with anchor stores I never saw elsewhere like Peebles as well as standard stores like Sears and Eckerds. For me, the main attraction was the book store just off the clock court. I cannot now recall the name, but it was either completely independant, or part of a small chain that never opened in Columbia, and I found that it had an interesting selection of science fiction books that I didn't see elsewhere. Recall that in those days the only books you knew about were the ones you saw on the shelves -- there was no Amazon where you could search for any book in the world, or that would recommend books to you based on your previous purchases. I can particularly recall finding there a a Virgil Finlay collection I had never heard of, and had no clue existed. Finlay was an old-school SF pulp illustrator who had an amazing black & white line and stipple style that was unsurpassed (in my opinion) until Stephen Fabian came on the scene, and in retrospect I think Finlay's work has aged better than Fabian's. Anyway -- I bought the book :-)

The record store (whose name I have also forgotten) seemed to have slightly different selections than the Columbia stores as well.

Apart from the stores, obviously I have to say something about the clock. It sat above the central court, and was a marvel of conceptual design. The version pictured above is in fact one of the later versions -- the first version had 60 colored balls suspended from the ceiling in a circle with suspened numbers (similar to those pictured) at every five minute mark. The bulk of the balls were one color, with the ones at the five second intervals being another. As ever second passed, another ball would illuminate until all 60 were lit at which point they would all go dark and the next numeral would be illuminated for the current minute. Hmm, or maybe the numerals were for the hours and there were seperate balls for the minutes. At any rate, you could sit there and watch the time pass before your eyes so to speak. It was not a particularly easy clock to read -- it always seemed to take a minute to figure out just what was lit, but it was a fun clock to read.

I remember a number of interesting solo trips to the mall. The first was when I had just started to drive. My mother and I had gone to the beach to winterize the beach house, and having done that, she agreed to let me drive while she walked on the beach. Well, that's an always risky permission to give to a teenager, and I headed straight to the mall, despite it being a 25 mile drive one way. I had no particular goal other than I was, by gosh, going to drive, but I did end up getting some Trixie Belden books for my sister's birthday from Sears of all places. Needless to say my mother was not pleased at being ditched for three hours longer than she had planned to be...

Another trip to Sears years later (and near the end of the store's life) for dryer parts also yielded a trove of retro flashlights of the kind I grew up with, and which I thought were no longer being made -- I still have four or five.

I'm unsure why Burroughs & Chapin decided to deep six the mall. Certainly it was somewhat dated, but that could have been fixed by a remodel. I suppose access was an issue, but it's not like there's an Interstate in Myrtle Beach, -- the replacement mall at Coastal Grand may have slightly better traffic at US-17 bypass and US-501, but it's not a slam dunk.

At any rate, by 2005 most of the stores had made the transition, and in 2006 they started knocking Myrtle Square Mall down. The fact that B&C owned the replacement mall meant that Myrtle Square never went through the "death of the old mall as the new mall draws stores and traffic" phase. It was not in B&C's interest to eake rents out of Myrtle Square while firing up Coastal Grand.

On the other hand, they seem not to have had any Plan B for the Myrtle Square Mall site. Currently the huge tract bounded by 23rd & 27th Avenues North on the north and south sides and Kings Highway and Oak Street on the east and west sides stands vacant (as does the other large B&C tract at the old Pavilion site). It's hard to believe that two such prime tracts in the heart of Myrtle Beach have sat vacant for so long. (Well, not completely vacant -- there's still an Office Depot which must have had a long term lease, and I saw signs of homeless presence in the bushes).

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I hardly ever drive down this stretch of Harden Street, so sometime last summer, I saw this place for the first time. My reaction was "Huh. Had no idea that was here -- looks pretty nice."

I think if I had read these stories from WIS and The State about the store opening on 14 November 2008, I might have had another reaction, like "Hmm, better take some pictures now..".

That's because, frankly, they show all the signs of a well intentioned Bad Idea about to be put into practice. In particular:

The housing authority tried to recruit a grocery store to the area for nearly five years. It courted large grocery store chains that already had a presence in the Midlands but couldn’t find anyone interested, Walker said.

That should have been a pretty big hint right there that the commercial prospects weren't that good. There's also this:

Plus, the housing authority’s shopping plaza offers a smaller space than what most chains seek for new stores, Walker said.

“All of the big chains that we have gone to want 30,000 to 40,000 square feet,” he said. “Our whole shopping center isn’t that big.”

Little IGA-type stores can be successful in small towns and rural areas, but not, I think, a mile from a full-sized Food Lion..

The State article noting the passing of the store also mentions that the pharmacy listed on the roadside marquee is also already gone:

A drugstore in the shopping plaza closed earlier this year after the sole pharmacist moved to Louisville, Ky.,

There's also this gem

The store had been a source of pride for Columbia City Council and the Columbia Housing Authority, two public bodies that worked hard to recruit a grocery to the neighborhood near the heart of downtown Columbia.

But the store became another victim of the Great Recession and was not making a profit, said Gilbert Walker, executive director of the Columbia Housing Authority.

“The grocery store business is a tough business, especially when you don’t have a name brand,” Walker said.

Well then, perhaps it was a bad idea to open one?

I don't want to sound too testy here, so let me be clear -- I'm sorry for the people who lost their jobs, and for the nearby residents who lost a grocery store -- that doesn't mean it was a good idea.

I actually had Colony House's going-out-of-busines circular given to me by my sister a few weeks ago and of course put it "somewhere I can't possibly forget it", meaning it has completely vanished for now.

As I recall, it was a bit vague about when Colony House would actually close its doors, but I believe it should be done by now. Apparently the store was founded in 1945, so that was a pretty good run. I can't actually say much about the store from personal experience as I've only bought one new piece of furniture in my life, and it wasn't from there. Colony House is across Garners Ferry from San Jose about where Pelham Drive comes out and it's a nice brick building though the parking lot is a bit hard to get in and out of.

As of now, the web site is still up, though it has no mention of the closing, and indeed seems not to have been updated since 2008.

UPDATE 2 Feb 2011 -- Well, I jumped the gun a little bit, as of 29 Jan, it's still open, though apparently winding down:

Updated the post title date to "Feb 2011" rather than "Jan 2011"

UPDATE 28 June 2016 -- The building has been razed, and the site is now in preparation to be a Discount Tire:

I don't know what was wrong with the old ones -- I used them just a month or so ago, and they seemed fine, but the Kangaroo Express in front of Trenholm Park (and across from Keith's K&A Automotive) spent several days taking out the old ones and putting in these. Maybe they needed something that goes above $9.99 per gallon..

UPDATE 10 May 2016 -- Well, I'm not going to post about every Kangaroo becoming a Circle K, but since I already had this post, I thought I would note the transition:

Wonder what happened to all the people who paid for the "'Roo Mugs" promotion?

Here's a vacant building I noticed driving I-20 westbound, and seems to have had a number of car-related operations in it over the years.

The name that comes up most often in google searches on 217 Plumbers Road is T O C Classic Cars & Trailer Sales (with some variations on the name). The name is always written with spaces between the 'T', 'O', & 'C', so presumably it stands for something, but I never saw it expanded. One of the google hits gave me their old URL, and I was able to find an archived version of their site from 2005 here, giving their mission as:

T.O.C. Classic specializes in restoring the 1967 to 1973 Camaro.

They were in the 2008 phonebook (printed Feb 2007) but not the 2009, so presumably they closed during 2008. Perhaps they fixed all the Camaros..

All I know about Summit Muscle Cars is that they took out an ad on the autabuy site which is still up, but which basically says nothing about the companay at all, though it does have a pretty cool flaming logo graphic.

Rock Hill Public Auto Auction is actually the first google hit for 217 Plumbers Road. The name makes its line of business pretty clear, though it is a bit mystifying why it was not in, you know, Rock Hill..

And finally Schroeder's Towing does not show up in google at all, despite still having a sign on the building window. Given that the whole lot is surrounded by a scary electric fence, my conjecture is that it was the most recent operation in the location and needed some deterrent to people attempting to untow their cars.

UPDATE 29 March 2014 -- It's now Berkeley Outdoors, which seems to be a boat store:

This isn't quite the post I thought I would be making. Here's the thing: I remember a local restaurant that was on this side of Rosewood Drive for many, many years. It was on my "someday" list though I didn't get to it and it was torn down after I moved out of town. The only anecdote I can remember about it right now was that in the late 80s, or maybe the 90s, USC had a famous football coach (whose name I can't remember, let's call him Freddie) commit to come coach the Gamecocks. The whole town was in a commotion, and this restaurant put up on their signboard: Freddie heard about our food!.

Then, of course, the Chicken Curse struck, and he reneged on the deal and decided not to come to Carolina -- leaving the restaurant flat-footed for a couple of days with a very ironic sign.

Anyway, I was pretty sure this was the spot, but the only thing I can see before the old building was torn down to put up the Eckerd's which became Rite Aid is a pool hall called Charlie's which tried several times (apparently with success in the end to get a liquor license).

UPDATE 7 Dec 2010: Updated post title to Charlie's Cue & Cushion based on the coments.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: I have not noted it previously, but this Rite Aid closed as all the others did, and is now a Walgreens. Also added map icon, added Rite Aid to the title, updated tags.

This is a country store in the city.

I really have no idea when this place closed. Looking inside the back add-on section, it appears to have been in disrepair for a while. On the other hand, the ice company has not taken the ice lockers back yet. I wish SC would put dates on the "A" restaurant ratings stickers! Honestly, if you told me the place had closed in 1953 or that it was still open some days, I would probably believe either.

This Richland County conservation report PDF says the place was built in the 1920s and

There are nine commercial buildings in the Olympia village. Most of these date from the early twentieth century and are similar to Nix's Olympia Grocery, a one- story, gable-front building with a brick facade and stepped parapet. These small commercial buildings were community-gathering spots and supplied operatives with a place to socialize and purchase needed items.

You can see that at some point the Nix's appelation was dropped and the place became simply Olympia Grocery. The sign itself was apparently supplied by Coke, something once exceedingly common (with the Coke advertisement often as big or biger than the store name), but not seen now on new stores.

The first time I went to take pictures of the place, it was a nice sunny afternoon, but in the event, I couldn't get near Nix's since the laundry down the road was burning, and the street was blocked off by fire engines. By the time I got back out that way, it was the rather grey day you see here. (And the laundry looks like it may be salveagable)

UPDATE 28 March 2011 -- Well, it's gone:

Boardwalk Plaza was an odd little shopping center down the hill from Dutch Square on Bush River Road. At this point, my memories of the place are very hazy (for instance, I distinctly remember a Book Dispensary location there which I cannot verify in any directory..). However, my memory is that the "boardwalk" part of the name came from the fact that the "plaza" was really a bunch of trailers which sat above street level and so were connected with a wooden walkway rather than concrete sidewalks.

None of these pictures are actually the Boardwalk site. As far as I can tell, the address 1023 no longer exists on Bush River Road. The last block before I-26 is 900, with the Days Inn / Comfort Inn at 911 Bush River Road apparently being the last building before I-26. That leads me to think that I-26 coming through blew away the 1000 block. However, my memory is that I-26 was completed well before 1984.. Also, I used to walk to Boardwalk from Dutch Square, and thought it was closer than that.

Anyway, the 1973 City Directory, only listed one business at 1023 Bush RIver Road: Ray C. Parker Package Stores, Inc.

By the next year, while 1023 had no shopping center name attached to it, the sole listing for Ray C. Parker Package Stores, Inc. had expanded to:

Ray C. Parker Package Stores, Inc.
Bicycle Center of Columbia
Etc Bath & Boudoir
Leaf 'n 'petal
Trulas-West
Whit-Ash Furnishings
World Of Sounds & Sights Inc

In the 1975 City Directory, 1023 Bush River road is first identified by the name Boardwalk Plaza and has building numbers identified. It had the following tenants:

Ray C. Parker Package Stores, Inc.
3) Leaf & Petal
4) Orange Owl gifts
5) World Of Sound & Sights Inc
World Of Turquoise & Imports
7) Vacant
8) Bicycle Center
10)Aquarium Pools Of Columbia
The Different Drummer ("joke products")
12) Vacant
15) Dutchbrook Interiors
16) Dan Dee Toys & Gifts
17) Vacant
18) Design Studio Inc

By 1979, the City Directory indicates a nearly total turnover:

1) Ray C. Parker Package Stores, Inc.
2) Cheap Joe's Jeans & Sportswear
4) The Final Touch
5) Vacant
6) Adams Tailor & Alterations Shop
7) Underwater Works Ltd
8) Muldrows Bar-B-Que
10) Muldrows (Overflow)
11) Vamps
12) Vacant
13) Vacant
14) Shamrock Hair Design
15) Rosco Recreation Store
16) Vacant
17) Bum's Shirt Factory Outlet
18) Korner Keg
19) Celsios Foam Insulation

1984 is the last City Directory to have an entry for Boardwalk Plaza at this point, the founding store, Ray C. Parker was gone. The tenant list was:

1) Vacant
2) Bum's Bummers shirt outlet
4) Wise Floor Covering Inc
5) Vacant
6) Adams Tailoring & Alteration Shop
7) Underwater Works Limited
8) Vacant
10) Columbia Shaver & Appliance Service
11) Vacant
12) Sims Music
13) Columbia Flag & Banner
14) Shamrock Hair Cutters
15) Direct Mailing Service
16) Vacant
17) Vacant
18) State Farm Insurance
19) Quick Print Center
The Frame Shop

I would have still been living in Columbia at this point, prior to taking a job in North Carolina in September of 1985, so you would think I would have some memory of the place closing and being torn down, but apart from radio ads for Bum's Bummers it was apparently totally off my radar screen..

UPDATE 15 March 2011: Folks, I am able to present this major picture update courtesy of one of the owners of Bum's Bummers, Barbara Summers, and the good offices of her son Lane. All these photos are property of Barbara Summers, and I use them with her kind permission. (I see in "preview" it turned out a bit confusing -- the captions for a set of pictures come after those pictures). [D'Oh! Had "Lane" as daughter rather than son -- fixed!]

Here's the plaza sign. At this point, the plaza's original entrance had been blocked off by construction of the motel that would replace the plaza.

Here are various views of the old plaza itself, already in somewhat of a disassembled state in some of the shots.

Here is Barbara herself standing on the boardwalk which gave the plaza its name.

Here is Bum's Bummers getting ready to go to 2700 Broad River Road.

Bum's is on the move, heading out then crossing I-20 moving north. Note the "Coming Soon" sign -- no kidding! Finally touchdown at the new location. (Also note the classic look Rush's in the background of two shots).

Here are Bum's and Shamrock in their new location.

Here's some notices of the move. (Note the Broad River Road Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.)

Business resumes after the move.

Construction starts on the permanent buildings at 2700 Broad River

I have to admit I'm drawing a blank on this building. It's on Covenant Road just below the final Forest Lake TV location, and just above the former Danielle Le Shay Gallerie. In fact, google searches on "3618 Covenant Road" turn up the Danielle Le Shay name, but that was 3620.

Anyway I'm sure I've driven past it hundreds of times since 1969 and must have seen it in operation as a number of different businesses over the years, but none of them is coming to me now. I will say that it has a cleaner-ish look to it.

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011 -- OK, I spent some time with the city directories, though I only got up to 1995 before the library closed, but here's what I have for this building:

1970 -1972 -- Powers 60 Minute Cleaners
1973 -- Boland's One Hour Martinizing
1974 -1977 -- Vacant
1978 -- The clock Doctor
1979 -- Vacant
1980 - 1981 -- Brinson's Quality Cleaners
1982 - 1984 -- Vacant
1985 -- Haywood Electrical Corp
1986 -1987 -- B C Bike Inc
1988 - 1990 -- Vacant
1991 -- Jomacies Cafeteria (hard to read my handwriting, but I think that's it)
1992 - 1995 Vacant (I did not have time to check past 1995)

I believe The Clock Doctor is still around in that little strip of trailers across from the Two Notch K Mart.

UPDATE 3 February 2021: This building and the one next door were razed in December 2020:

Also updating tags and adding map icon.

I posted before about bygone Columbia grocery chain Edens. After I located one of the buildings on Rosewood, I have been looking for some of the others from time to time when I remember. I didn't have any luck with the two Main Street locations, but here is the Harden Street one.

Growing up, this was always Eckerd's to me, and it never really occurred to me that it had not been built as a pharmacy. Looking at it now though, I'm pretty sure this must be the original grocery building from the 1950s. In particular, I don't think anyone would site the doors on the street instead of the parking lot on any building newer than that. In fact, thinking about it, I'm surprised nobody ever changed that.

UPDATE 24 Nov 2010: Added Greenbax Stamps and Thrift Store to post title based on comments.

UPDATE 30 Nov 2010: Changed "Thrift Store" to "Community Thrift" based on Dennis's comment.

UPDATE 26 November 2019 -- This place is now Pet Supermarket:

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Update tags, change Eckerd's in post title to Eckerd Drugs.