Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The first two pictures above come from a post noting changes in the surrounding plaza that I made last November.

At the time the whole plaza was for sale apparently as a bank forclosure. Since then, the place has been bought by East Point Academy charter school: "The first South Carolina Chinese Immersion Elementary School". (I'm not sure how that kid on their home page really feels about that Panda -- I'm reminded of a South Park episode..). Anyway, as a result, Sandy's and whoever else was still in the plaza had to get out.

Sandy's Facebook page calls this location Cherry Park, which I had never heard before, and notes that "we will open a new location soon", which I take to mean in the same general area.

(Hat tip to commenter tonkatoy)

UPDATE 5 April 2012 -- The Chinese immersion charter school which took over the whole plaza is now up and running:

UPDATE 22 January 2020: Update tags, add map icon.

I don't really know anything about Cayce School. I'm guessing that given the name, it was the school in Cayce at one time. The (Guignard?) brick architecture could easily go back to the 1940s I suppose. The pictures don't really make it clear, but as this aerial view from google maps shows, the school is really just one building with several different wings:

View Larger Map

Of course it's a building that takes up a block of its own, being bounded by 3rd Avenue, Lexington Avenue (on which it fronts), Poplar Street and 8th Street.

At some point it appears that it stopped being a "school" as such and was taken over by Lexington District Two as a "Learning Center". (I have to say that the picture with the sign indicating such would make a good funny email to forward around Mississippi education circles..).

The building has obviously been out of use for a good while, and I think only the fact that it is in the middle of a residential area has kept it from being vandalized and tagged to a fare-thee-well. Certainly it is decrepit, which can be seen in the google view (which can be zoomed) as well as my pictures. Signs around the school indicate that the lot is to become luxury townhomes in a gated community, so I suppose the building will be demolished at some point, though with the current real-estate market, I doubt the developers will be in a big hurry.

(Hat tip to commenter tonkatoy)

Read the rest of this entry »

Here's a nice square little brick building at the corner of Frink and James Streets in Cayce. You can read the sign on the door if you click through to the high-res version, but the gist is that this beauty shop moved to 1816 Frink Street. Now, I find Salon 2000 listed at 1816 Frink in the February 2007 phonebook (one of those I have without going to the library), but not afterwards, so a) I guess this place could have moved any time before that, and b) apparently it did not last too long there. (There is also a Salon 2000 currently listed in Forest Acres, but since they were both listed in the Feb 2007 book, I don't think they are the same).

Notice the nice graphic of the lady's head in the last picture. The one you are probably looking at is actually a shadow cast by the one painted onto the window. It's a nice effect:

Update 25 November 2012 -- As mentioned in the comments, the windows are now boarded up:

This LoopNet listing says that this building on the South side of Frink Street west of 12th was originally a grocery, and that is especially clear in side views. I don't know what chain it was, but the LoopNet statement that it was built in 1995 looks wrong to me -- I would put it in the 1960s.

Since then it has apparently been a lot of things: Two different churches, a construction company, a bingo parlor and a cellphone store. It is currently vacant, but as you can see, there is a building permit in the door, so presumably it will soon undergo yet another incarnation.

UPDATE 6 July 2011: Changed the post title from "Grocery" to "Piggly Wiggly" based on the comments. Also added "Ace Hardware" to the list of tenants.

UPATE 5 June 2014: Added Red & White to the post title based on the comments.

The champagne of bottle beer -- is that like The Cadillac of Fords? It just seems an odd comparison..

Obviously this building in Cayce at the corner of Frink & Ferguson Streets has been there a long time, and has probably been many things. The only two I can turn up in google however are Frink Street Tavern and Frink Street Pub, and in fact I'm not entirely sure those are two separate businesses instead of a variant name or mis-listing. If the are two separate operations, then Frink Street Tavern came first with Frink Street Pub opening and closing in 2007.

I say that because the myspace page given on the street sign still exists (after correcting the backward-slash vs forward-slash typo), and proudly proclaims an opening date of 25 February 2007 (while still looking for bartenders and "Kareoke" performers on 18 February..), giving this description:

We are a local pub located at 904 frink street cayce south carolina ...We have pool tables , golden tee , silver strike bowling and many other games ...we have the lowest price drinks anywhere , most beer is only a buck most liqour is only 2 bucks .....we do Kareoke ... live music ,juke boxes ,and like to have a good ole time ...We play country music , classic rock, and other good music ,we are open monday thru saturday from 2pm until ...and available for private party rentals on sundays .....Please stop by and enjoy an ice cold beer and get to know us ...you will have a great time !!!!!!!!! call us at 803-791-5875

However, the place is not listed in my Feb07-Feb08 or Feb08-Feb09 phonebooks, so I surmise that it did not make it through the year.

The various real estate listings all make clear that at this point this particular "track" of land is being sold with the building as more of a afterthought than an asset.

UPDATE 6 February 2012: Added Mote's Store to the post title based on the comments (which you should read). Apparently it was a little-bit-of-everything type old-time store.

UPDATE 25 November 2012 -- Looks like somebody has bought the property and is doing some work:

Back to Frink Street! Google only turns up one hit for Thayer Prop Shop on Frink, but from the name, presumably it specialized in theatrical props. It doesn't seem to me that would be a large market in the Columbia area, so perhaps they did a wider business both geographically and in the definition of what a "prop" is. On the other hand, I could be completely off base, and they might have sold bass-boat or airplane propellors..

At any rate, they apparently came before P & R On Frink as that operation's sign is what is still on the building. I can say with a little more certainty that this was a used car operation, though setting the closing date as 2010 is a total guess. I did not find any hit which told what the 'P' & the 'R' stood for either.

I have to admit that when commenter badger mentioned this place (at the corner of State & Frink Streets) was closed, I had never even heard of Frink Street. As it turns out, I have crossed over it on my way down the 12th Street extension to I-77, but I'm pretty sure I had never actually been on it before this last Sunday. In terms of this blog, it presents something of a "target rich environment". Does anyone know where the interesting (and fun-to-say) name comes from?

From the look at the layers on the roadside sign, I'm guessing this place was a Philips 66 before anything else in the list, with that name being painted over for the Bait & Tackle name. The Secretary of State's web site says that Cayce Bait & Tackle went under in 2004, in some sort of forfeiture, and was followed by the Frink Street Social Club which has never been officially dissolved. I'm not sure if B & B would be the connected with the club or not, but kudos to them for not using the trendy (and incorrect) Grille spelling in their name..

(As an aside, the "look" of this building would tend to validate this one as a Philips 66).

(Hat tip to commenter badger).

UPDATE 12 June 2011: Commenter badger sends in this picture of the "Lizard Woman" mural that once graced Cayce Bait & Tackle:

Thanks!

But of course, I must remind folks of the real story of South Carolina's lizard infestation, related by my sister (who changed names to protect the innocent) in her book, The Lizard Man of Crabtree County

UPDATE 6 February 2012: Added Cayce Lunch to the post title based on information from commenter Sid whose family used to own the place -- be sure to read the comments! Also, apparently the Philips 66 was a separate building (now gone?).

This small nursery was on The Charleston Highway before it joins up with Knox Abbott Drive. These pictures are from mid September, and the going out of business sign is already up, but it seems to me that activity continued there for several more months -- I had some later pictures, but I can't put my hands on them right now.

The few times I've wanted to buy some plants, the first thing that always occurs to me is the garden department at Lowe's or Home Depot, and I suspect those big-box operations have really hurt these independent operations.

UPDATE 13 July 2012 -- Here's a few more pictures of the place I just found hiding on my drive:

Here's another defunct cash advance place, this one on Knox Abbott Drive just down from Tony's Pizza. As is a fixture on (fairly) newly closed businesses this time of year, you can see the new, uncollected, phonebook in a bag by the door. (The same is true for Master Tire if you look closely.)

When I was in high school, a new radio station came to town, with a new concept: "Album Rock".

The station was WZLD (or "Z-96") and operated out of Cayce, first from a little storefront (apparently now vacant) to the left of a barber shop on State Street, and later from an odd looking building out on Airport Boulevard (at least I think that's where I remember seeing the sign).

I'll admit that the concept of "album rock" confused me a bit. I had only discovered rock music in 1976, and I was still a little iffy about all the definitions. For instance, I thought "acid rock" was the same thing as "heavy metal" since the only acid I had heard about was sulphuric, and I could imagine heavy metal dissolving stuff in the same way.

So, to make a full confession, I kind of took the promos about how "we play album cuts, not just singles" to heart and was deeply disappointed that they were not playing tracks from my then current favorite album, Billy Joel's "The Stranger". In fact, I went so far as to write them a deeply embarassing post card (in retrospect..) complaining that they were playing Van Morrison's "Wavelength" which was a Top-40 hit, and not "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". I'm sure the DJs had a good laugh at it, and I've come to the point where I'm a huge Van Morrison fan nowdays (he can be very inconsistent in shows, but tore up the place in Atlanta last May..)

From what I've been able to gather from looking at old phonebooks down at the library, WZLD first showed up in the December 1974 Southern Bell phonebook. I don't think they were "album rock" at that time, or at least I didn't hear of them as such until later, but they were already at 1303 State Street, and already had their long-running phone numbers of 796-8896 business and 796-9996 for the contest line.

In the Janurary 1983 phonebook, their address changed to 2334 Airport Boulevard, and in the Jan 1984 phonebook, they took out their first yellow pages ad which rebranded them as "Number 1 Hit -- Kicker". Now, that phrase, "hit-kicker" is very similar to a non-radio-friendly phrase sometimes used to describe Country music, so I'm wondering if they underwent a change to a Country format at that time. I was still living in town at the time, but I don't think I was listening to them very much, and have no memory of it one way or another.

At any rate that catch phrase didn't last very long, and the yellow pages ad in the Feb 1985 phonebook described them as "Red Hot Radio 1". That also didn't last too long, and while the Feb 1988 phone book did not have a full ad, the tagline in their listing for that year was "All Hit".

They were not listed in the Jan 1989 phonebook and seem to have left the airwaves at that time.

Along the way, they did some memorable promos, with the most famous probably being the annual "Ramblin' Raft Race" on the Congaree. At this remove, sponsoring something like that seems as though it would be an insurance nightmare, but in those olden days, apparently encouraging tipsy people to navigate was OK..

Here's a few WZLD comments we've had here from time to time:

UPDATE 2 July 2012 -- As mentioned in the comments, the A-frame looking building I have pictured above is not the Airport Boulevard location for WZLD. The correct building is next door, and I have finally gotten a picture of it:

UPDATE 27 September 2017 -- The Airport Boulevard building has now been razed and is a vacant lot:

UPDATE 17 November 2017 -- Commenter Rick sends in this picture of a picture showing a WZLD remote (circa 1981) at Roger's Car Stereo:

Rick identifies the fellow on the left, enthusiastic about being in a picture, as radio personality "Mountain Man", the young lady as another WZLD DJ, name unknown, the guy in the checked shirt a WZLD program manager or salesman and the third man unknown. Be warned, the click-through picture is not blurred.