Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I believe that over the years, I was only in Corma's once, to get some barley malt syrup for a bagel recipie. They had it, and I was saved a trip over to the Rosewood Market. What with the ongoing renovations to Trenholm Plaza, if you want that syrup, or some Flower Essences, you need to head towards the Fort a block or so and check them out in their new location, the site of the old Wally & Crumb cookie store next to Ed Robinson Laundry and Cleaners.

I had noticed this salon off and on for a number of years. It was what I took to be an office strip mall on Two Notch Road near Very's and across the road from Dentsville Baptist Church. I noticed earlier this month that it had closed up, but when I stopped to take some pictures of it, I found that the "strip mall", Dentsville Office Mall was actually more interesting.

I had never realized it, but it's obvious once you go back into the parking lot for the place that it used to be one of the many US 1 roadside motels in Columbia. The old guest rooms form a "U" shaped court with a two story Office/Lobby in the center. I don't know what it was called as a motel, or exactly when it closed, but you can tell from a couple of these shots something that was confirmed by a gentleman who came out to chat with me: The grassy plot in front is actually the former swimming pool area. Once you know it was a motel, even the main sign looks like it's a 50s design with the panels relabeled.

As you can also see here, some of the guest rooms behind Touch of Joy have been fire damaged in recent years, and the plan is apparently to convert them into a number of self-storage units rather than try to restore the old hotel electrical and plumbing in that area. The rest of the mall seems to be "destination" businesses which don't rely on high street visibility: A tax service, a dental lab and and an alteration shop. It's a nice little bit of history I never noticed before.

This building, not technically a Columbia Mall outparcel since it is not reachable from the mall perimeter road, has had several tenants. Right now it is a Verizion store, but at some point in the 1990s, it was Coconuts Music.

Coconuts was a fairly generic CD store, and really the only reason to have gone at all was the location, which was fairly close to my parents' house (I was living out of Columbia by then). On the other hand, Sounds Familar on Parklane was not that much farther, and when I was in town, I was just as likely to end up on the Manifest side of town anyway. So, what i'm leading up to saying is that my own personal boycott of Coconuts did not cause me any great hassle or inconvenience.

The way it happened, as I recall now, is that I had heard some great song on the radio by a band I had never heard of. When I got to Coconuts, I found that this band had in fact been around for a while and had five or six albums out. No problem, I thought, I'll just read the track lists and I remember enough of the lyrics to figure it out. So I pulled out one CD and flipped it over. Huh. There was one of those metal spiral anti-theft, ring-the-buzzer, stickers on back. A big one. Right on the track listings. Well, OK, there's three of this CD, try another. Same thing. Try one of the other albums. Same thing. Every darn CD I looked at had a huge sticker all over the track listings.

I brought this to the attention of the manager, and the response was basically That's the way we do things here.

I decided that wasn't the way places I shopped did things, started a boycott, and a few years later they were gone.

Nowdays, of course, I can just google as much of the lyric as I can rember, find the track and artist and have it from Amazon Prime in two days without leaving my house. (Yes, I could just order the MP3 from Amazon and have it immediately, but I still like having the CDs for backup purposes).

I don't get into the outparcels around the Forest Drive Wal-Mart very often, but I was over there at Radio Shack the other day (needed an audio cable and wasn't willing to forage into Wal-Mart and get it cheaper). While I was there, I noticed that the Shoe Carnival store was gone. It's a fairly big place -- that was a lot of shoes! When I was a kid, I thought shopping for shoes was a step up from shopping for "clothes". Partly this was, I think, because of the neat foot measuring devices which always struck me as kind of futuristic (and that was just the manual ones. The one at Sears on Harden which was fully automatic was a special treat!). It was also partly due to the premiums given out with kids shoes. I remember compasses, decoder whistles and comics coming with Keds, PF Flyers and Buster Browns. I don't think any of that happens any more. It's like cartoons before a movie -- nice but it doesn't help the theater's bottom line. Though apparently nothing helped this place's bottom line.

UPDATE 25 March 2010: Added full street address to post title.

Wow, this one comes as a surprise. If you've read many of these posts, you'll know I hate to shop for clothes, but Goody's was one of the places in Columbia I knew I could go and find the Arrow shirts I like (they look OK, and I know what size will actually fit and I can buy a bunch without the hassle of trying them on). In fact, as I took these pictures, I was wearing a shirt I had bought there.

The last time I was in there, last summer I believe, they seemed to be doing a brisk business, and with that and their mammoth building, I had thought them to be pretty solid. Now with it empty, it makes me wonder what the real-estate owners can find to fill it up. They may have to subdivide.

UPDATE 25 May 2010: Changed post title to reflect stores full offical name and full street address.

UPDATE 13 Sep 2010 -- Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts is now in this building:

Don't have a lot to say about this one as I don't play golf (except minature golf..), but it's another empty storefront for The Shops of O'Neil Court. If connecting O'Neil Court with Trenholm Extension has helped this plaza any, I haven't noticed it, and it seems like it would -- putting it en-route for traffic leaving the mall and heading back down Trenholm.

What I find a little more interesting is that next door to this place is a Buddhist center I never noticed before. The world really has come to Columbia, especially compared to when I was a kid.

The time came when we, as every family does eventually, needed the services of a funeral home. Obviously it is a sad and painful experience. I can only say that I was impressed by the professionalism of the Dunbar staff as they took care of details I never would have thought of.

I knew they were emphasizing their Devine Street Chapel, but I had not realized that they had actually closed the Gervais Street location until I drove by recently and saw that the main sign was no longer on the property, and that parts of it were looking a bit overgrown.

I was a bit concerned since, despite the memories associated with it, the old house with its attached carraige-house is a Columbia landmark and a bit of stateliness on a more or less characterless commercial artery. It appears though that the house is on the historic register, and will be preserved as the USC Children's Law Center:

Proposed Whaley House Purchase:

Mr. Parham reported that the Childrens Law Center was established by the USC School of Law in 1995 to serve as a training and resource center for family court workers and attorneys who participated in legal proceedings involving children. The Center taught courses at the Law School, provided Continuing Legal Education and legal research for attorneys and judges, trained guardian ad litems and state agency case workers, and performed research-based juvenile justice programs. Currently, the Center provided more than 225 training programs and professional meetings annually to more than 5,000 professionals who protected, served and represented children in family courts. The Center was currently located on the 5th floor of 1600 Hampton Street where it had no on-site training or meeting space.

For that reason, Harry Davis, Director of the Childrens Law Center, with the approval of Dean Jack Pratt and President Sorensen, was seeking approval from the Executive Committee to enter into a Contract of Sale to purchase the property located at 1527 Gervais Street as the new home for the Childrens Law Center. This property was located directly across Gervais Street from the proposed site of the new law school. It consisted of approximately 1.25 acres, and contained 2 structures: the Whaley House (8,012 square feet), and an adjacent Carriage House (5,140 square feet). There were also 70 parking spaces on the property. Mr. Parham stated that the Dunbar Funeral Home had occupied this property for many years and the property was owned by Stewart Enterprises, Inc.

and:

Mr. Whittle asked if the building was on the National Registry of Historic Places, and if so, will it require any special maintenance and upkeep and/or will it limit the usage in the future as to how the property can be used? Mr. Harry Davis, Director of the Children Law Center, responded that the building was on the historic register. The University had several discussions with the Columbia Historic Foundation and discussions with the architects and engineers. And, it was his understanding that the University would not be permitted to alter the exterior of the building without permission of the Columbia Historic Foundation. However, interior renovations could be made as the University might desire. The USC engineer had also looked at the building in a preliminary examination and stated that it appeared to be a sound structure.

I didn't try to peer and take pictures through the windows as I often do out of a feeling of respect. It did seem that lights were still on inside, and the AC unit was running. However, USC doesn't seem to have been in any hurry to make the actual Law Center move, and the lack of maintainence and painting is quite visible on some of the woodwork as well as the lawn being unmown in some areas. I hope they step up to the plate soon.

UPDATE 29 September 2012 -- As mentioned by commenter Matt, some sort of extensive work is being done on the place now:

UPDATE 19 October 2012 -- Apparently the place is being painted yellow. This seems to be a very gradual process where first a section is repaired and made ship-shape and then is painted:

UPDATE 21 June 2022 -- I'm not sure what is going on, but the place is partially boarded up with work apparently being done again. The real estate sign suggests the property could be a cafe:

I see LoopNet has more details:

PROPERTY HIGHLIGHTS
2,592 sf restaurant/café space for lease in historic building
1,762 sf - interior café space $21.50 NNN
830 sf – porch seating area $12.50 NNN
Owner will deliver the space as a warm vanilla shell.
Delivery date – fall 2022

Also adding map icon and updating tags.

I only went into Kress a few times. When I was small, and we went clothes shopping downtown, Kress was not on the agenda, and we didn't go there for normal dimestore type things since we had both Dodd's and Woolworth's closer. I do recall that my mother was of the opinion that they had the best candied fruit for fruit-cakes, but I think that keeping up with us kept her busy enough that she just made do with grocery-store fruit on most of the occasions she made it. (And people joke about fruit-cake, but I love a good one).

After I started driving, and perhaps while I was living on-campus, I know I stopped by just to see what it was like: stepping inside was like stepping back about 50 years in time. Aside from the fact that anyone who wanted to could sit at the lunch counter, you could imagine that their retailing concept hadn't changed since the 1940s. I wish I had eaten at that counter when I had the chance, but the timing was off, and if I were in college, I was probably broke anyway.

The building itself, or at least the Kress part of it, is rather odd in that it doesn't have a rectangular shape. There are several other storefronts on Hampton such that you would think Kress was a fairly small space, but then you go around the corner onto main, and you come across the main entrance. The Hampton Street part seems to be an architect's office now while the Main Street entrance was the old Rising High location -- something that had completely escaped me when I did a closing on that store. The Main Street facade may have once been the impressive side of the store, but with the Rising High makeover, I think the art-deco-ish sign on the Hampton Street entrance is now the best side.

I didn't go to Kress often enough to miss it, but I do miss dimestores. I know we have dollar-stores now, but it's not the same experience.

It seems a bit odd now, but for years after Columbia Mall opened, Lowrey Organs sat at the top of the curving staircase on the Penny's end of the mall, across the way from The Record Bar. The spot is currently a toy store.

I say odd, because a console organ isn't really an impulse purchase -- you think about it and go to the showroom whether or not it's in a walk-by retail area. Be that as it may, the store was there for years, and the organs they sold were wonders to behold with arrays of keys and knobs, pedals, switches and lights. I believe that some of them would probably play better without a human messing around with the keyboard. My memory, in fact, is that they often had an organ playing in demo mode with noone at the keys, though they did have humans demo them as well from time to time.

I don't know when, or why, they moved out of the mall. I think some of it may have been changing times. People still buy pianos, but electronic organs have a very 70s feel in my mind. Some of it may have been changing tech as well. I bought a toy keyboard for my neice from a drugstore for $10, and it can do a lot of the same things those huge console organs did.

It doesn't look like something Captain Nemo would have in The Nautilus though, and the Lowrey Organs did.

The Byte Shop was Columbia's first computer store, or at least that's the way I remember it. You may have been able to get a TRS-80 at Radio Shack by the time The Byte Shop opened, but Radio Shack was not a computer store.

The place opened in the late 70s, and was very much an Apple shop basing their product line, if I recall correctly, around the Apple IIc. I was in high school at the time, and was, in theory, very much interested in computers. In practice, I knew nothing about them, and had no real way to learn anything. I recall that one of my classmates had a TRS-80 and bought it to school for a presentation in science class. Everyone was fascinated, but looking back, I don't think the machine actually did anything. I think there was a BASIC program which asked a few number questions and computed an answer and that was about it.

A few years after that, one of my friends got an Apple IIc with with a logo interpreter and learned how to write programs using the language's turtle graphics which I thought was amazingly neat. It was out of the question given my total lack of money at the time that I would get a computer, but eventually I did take a "continuing education" class at USC that involved using a statistical analysis program to massage numbers we entered on punch cards and produce ASCII (EBCIDIC, actually..) "graphs" on green and white fanfold line-printer paper. Luckily, this did not quite kill my interest in computers though it came close.

In 1979, VisiCalc for the Apple became the first electronic spreadsheet, and suddenly there was a reason to buy personal computers other than the fact that they were "neat". As displays improved, and daisy-wheel printers became available, word processing provided another reason.

I was only actually in The Byte Shop once that I can recall. After I started college and picked a Computer Science major, I became enamored with the ease of writing with text editors and text processors (the names vi and nroff will be familiar to some..) and convinced my sister that she ought to look into getting a computer for word processing. I still didn't have a computer of my own because I had easy access to school computers, and didn't actually know that much about personal computers, but I think I had in mind that an Apple II with an 80 column CPM card would be a good platform for Wordstar.

I think that when we went to The Byte Shop, she was willing to be talked into a purchase, but in the event it didn't happen because of the staff. Now anyplace can have a bad day, and perhaps we just walked in on theirs, but the staff that day struct me as actively rude. First we were ignored totally for a good while, and then when someone deigned to talk to us, and I started to explain the capabilities were were looking for, the reaction I got was more or less If you don't know exactly what you want to buy, why are you here?. Now I'm a doormat in these situations, but after a few minutes of this, my sister got her dudgeon up and we walked out and never went back. In the end, we waited another year, I learned a bit more about PCs (and IBM compatibles started to appear) and I set her up with a Leading Edge Model-D with NewWord and a Brother daisy-wheel printer from Softek. After using that for a surprising number of years, she did eventually end up with an Apple (Mac), but not from The Byte Shop, which had anyway gone out of business in the interim.

I had completely forgotten that the original location of The Byte Shop was on Fire Lane Drive. When I was taking pictures of the old Taylor's Restaurant the other day, I saw a building down past the firehouse with a kind of new-agey mural. I had noticed it off and on when I would go to Lowes, and it had always seemed to be empty. I got to wondering what kind of place it had been, walked over, saw the nameplate on the front stoop, and it all came back to me (though the mural may postdate The Byte Shop).

There's currently a builder's permit on the building, and some sort of renovation is going on, so perhaps something new may show up here. On the other hand, the permit is more than a year old, so I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm not sure if the horseshoe pitch dates from The Byte Shop era, or if they firestation next door unwinds there. The final picture is the Two Notch location where, I believe, The Byte Shop ended its tenure.

UPDATE 22 March 2010: Added full street addresses to post title, and added some tags.