Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

OK, I'll admit that I'm not 100% sure that the Asian Market on Diamond Lane is the same one that opened recently across from Dutch Square at 1221 Bakersfield Road, but given the timing and the same marquee description, I think it's a pretty good bet (and I'm sure someone will set me straight otherwise).

I used to notice this place when I would cut through the mostly dead Intersection Center to see what remained and marvel that it was still in business. I guess part of that is that it's a destination -- if you need something that's historically exotic to SC and that you can't just hop-to-the-pig for, it doesn't matter if the store is off the beaten track. Still, I was glad to see them move to a better location. (Though believe it or not, a few stores are still have their doors open on Diamond Lane!). I got the Hong Chang Hang part of the name from here, as Chinese is Greek to me :-)

I was a bit surprised to see the address of the new store as Bakersfield Road -- if you had asked me I would have said the street was Dutch Square Boulevard all the way from Broad River Road to Bush River Road.

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

I find this Rite Aid closing interesting because it happened so soon after the conversion from Eckerd's, so in 2007, they paid a lot of money to redo all the signage and branding, interior and exterior, and then in 2009, closed the store.

I think it was a classy touch to transfer the store's perscriptions across the street to their competitors at CVS rather than sending customers to a Rite Aid further away. I hope the building can be re-used, it's still fairly new and appears quite nice.

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The last time I posted about a car lot, it was one which had gone under on Two Notch Road, as have several others I've posted about here. This one has actually moved to Two Notch, albeit to a tonier area out near The Village at Sandhill.

In fact, Broad River Road itself seems a bit like the distressed stretch of Two Notch Road. It's hard to think of a part of it that's doing really well. With the almost total demise of Intersection Center and the decline of Dutch Square the whole corridor is hurting. The part with the new Food LIon down towards Greystone seems to be doing OK, and maybe way out in Irmo there are some thriving areas, but it seems like a major road with such good Interstate access (I-20 direct, I-26 from Bush River & St. Andrews Road, I-126 from Greystone) should be doing better.

UPDATE 4 March 2010 -- It's now Pro Bowl Motors:

I already wrote about the S & K closing at the Two Notch Road store, so I don't have a lot to say about the Bush River Road closing. I'm still happy with the belt I got at the other store and didn't need to go inside this location, which is good as it was late Sunday and closed anyway.

I will say that if I were going too keep one Columbia store and close the other, I would keep Two Notch and close this one based solely on parking and ease of access. This little strip (which also contains a closed Sounds Familar location) is at the corner of Bush River Road and Colonial Life Boulevard. There is no parking on the Bush River side, and it's not great on the Colonial Life side. Of course, they are closing both stores so the point is moot.

UPDATE 4 June 2012 -- It's now Fashion's Unlimited:

Here's another empty car lot on Two Notch Road (this one is near Beltline). It would be interesting to count them all up some time. If you include Beltline and Decker, I'm sure you could get around a dozen. On the other hand, new ones pop up, and old ones come back, so it's not all doom and gloom.

UPDATE 30 Sep 2010 -- Well, they've knocked down the building now:

UPDATE 25 Feb 2011 -- Well, the new building on this spot is going up pretty quickly. It seems to have car service bays:

UPDATE 11 September 2011 -- It's a car-wash, and it's open:

Well, that will teach me a lesson.

Reed's Jewelers was on the upper level of Columbia Mall, just out the door from Macy's heading towards Sears. I don't own any jewelery, but I do have a watch which needs a battery change about once a year. The last time it stopped running, I went by Reed's to have the battery replaced, and made the mistake of letting the salesman upsell me the "lifetime" battery change option. Sure it was a few dollars more, but they would continue to change it every year for the life of the watch at no additional charge.

I should have suspected that the life of the watch would be longer than the life of the store..

I've written about Waldenbooks at Columbia Mall, and the other book store at Dutch Square Browz-a-Bit, but I've not said anything about the Dutch Square Waldenbooks, which for several years was my main book store.

Waldenbooks actually had two different locations in Dutch Square. The first one was sort of odd in that it was behind the corner of the main corridor and the first crosswalk, but not on the corner. There were two entrances to the store. One was on the crosswalk corrider before coming to the corner (where the Great Steak & Potato Co is today) and the other was on the main corridor just below Tapps (now the theaters), but the actual corner, Steak & Potato slot was another store.

The main corridor also goes markedly up hill from the crosswallk to Tapps, so the Walden's was a split-level store. If you call the crosswalk entrance the "front" (and that makes sense as they later closed off the exit to the main corridor), then the front of the store was on the ground and the back of the store was built on a platform that was, I believe, two steps up from the ground. My main interest was the science fiction rack, which was parallel to the main corridor and butted up against the raised platform forming the back of the store.

For at least one year, possibly two, I would spend one afternoon a week in the Dutch Square area while my mother would take my sister to piano lessons a couple of miles away. I had only a $0.60 weekly allowance, supplemented by $3.00 for mowing the lawn, so any actual purchase was a matter of careful deliberation and agonized tax calculation and penny counting (though it certainly helped that mass market paperbacks were still under a dollar in those years). In my hour or so of time, I would sometimes walk down to Boardwalk Plaza to peruse the Book Dispensary, but mainly I would circulate between Walden's and Browz-A-Bit trying to make up my mind.

I have strong memories of some of the books I bought at this Walden's (and in fact still have the books themselves in most cases). I recall in particular getting all of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, one at a time, with awful 70s covers, and Pyramid editions of all of Doc Smith's Skylark and Lensman books (with bad [what was it with the 70s and loss of design sense?!] but better covers as well). Covers aside, I must have read each of those books at least 20 times.

I also liked the humor section though I rarely bought anything there. One book in particular made a great impression on me as a 13 or 14 year old. I was amazed that it sat right out there in the open, and always wished I had the courage to pick it up. Buying it was out of the question, of course :-)

Later when I could drive on my own, Columbia Mall became my book hangout of choice what with Walden's on one end and B. Dalton on the other. I sort of lost track of the Dutch Square Walden's. I did know they had moved down the main corridor from their original location. The reason I heard was that the split-level store was not ADA compatible, but I don't know if that is true or not. At any rate, I found their new location less interesting than the original. What with that, moving out of town and the advent of "big box" bookstores, I doubt I was in the new store more than a dozen or so times. I didn't even hear about it when the store closed.

After Walden's, Fashion's Unlimited went into their slot, and I find it amusing to see how they stock the men's dress shirts in the old Walden's magazine display rack.

I've never really been in the market for a wig, but I have noticed this store on Beltline between Two Notch and Farrow off and on over the years. The name never really registered with me, but this time when I saw it closed, I finally made the connection with the store which took over the Two Notch location of Floor It Now -- I'm pretty sure it moved from here to there.

Guess you could say it flipped its wig..

UPDATE 27 Feb 2013 -- It's now One Love convenience store:

(The State 15 April 1973)

To the best of my memory, I had never been on Atlas Road until last month when I was looking for that huge flag that flies by I-77 in-between Bluff & Shop Roads. After finding Atlas Road back there, I recalled some comments in "Have Your Say" to the effect that Boozer Lumber had been located there, so I went back later to take a look.

I had heard of Boozer Lumber over the years but really had no idea where it was or how big a place it had been. The complex is huge, and appears to have taken in at least three related Boozer enterprises. I didn't notice any "for sale" signs on the lots, and the company web page seems to imply that the site is still owned by it. It will be interesting to see what happens to the property in the future.

I've never seen the appeal of birds as pets. Herman the parrot was fascinating to me as a kid, but in my mind he was a pet store fixture -- I had no desire to take him home. Parking your car under the wrong tree will illustrate possibly the main reason I feel that way, but different squids for different kids. Parrot Phernalia was a store for those who do like birds, and I would notice it from time to time as I would cut over from Bush River Road to Harbison Boulevard and I'm pretty sure I saw it open very recently. This real estate listing suggests the storefront was built in 1970, so I'm sure it has been other things as well, but I don't recall anything from before Parrot Phernalia (certainly there was nothing with a more memorable name..). Anyway, I guess Polly will have to look elsewhere for her cracker!

UPDATE 9 June 2009:

I turns out this place has moved and is still in business, and sounds like a really nice place (though I still have no desire to have a bird!) -- by all means read The State story found by commenter Kc.

Also, I've added some of the building's previous incarnations to the post title line.