{"id":1376,"date":"2010-02-02T22:59:10","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T03:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2010-02-07T01:24:48","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T06:24:48","slug":"richs-columbia-mall-6-march-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=1376","title":{"rendered":"Rich's, Columbia Mall: 6 March 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Rich's<\/i> came to Columbia with the opening of Columbia Mall<\/i> it was kind of a big deal. Up until that point, Rich's<\/i> was an Atlanta name and had the kind of cachet that exotic brands tend to accumulate. I was given to understand that at one point special shopping busses were charterted to run from SC to Atlanta mostly just to shop at Rich's<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Even The State<\/i> got into the act, running several puff pieces on the store. I can recall one in particular which made the claim that the store was so famous for its customer service and ease of return that a woman once \"returned\" her husband to Rich's<\/i> which took him \"despite having no record of the sale\".<\/p>\n

Given that I was almost completely indifferent to style, I was never overwhelmed by the idea (or actuality) of having a Rich's<\/i> in town, but I liked the odd \"pipey\" outside architecture of the store, and the quirky way it had an almost patio on the first floor and an interesting elevator which boarded there.<\/p>\n

Rich's<\/i> wasn't all about fashion. It opened during the tail end of the \"a department store should have everything\" era and so had a full selection of electronics and cookware like a Sears<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It also had a book department at the bottom of the escalator, and that was one of my regular spots to hit when visiting the mall. It tended to best-sellers and remainders so you never knew quite what you would find there. I know I got two volumes of Richard Burton's unexpurgated translation of The Arabian Nights<\/i> there which I still have, though I never saw the other 15 or so.<\/p>\n

At some point Rich's<\/i> ran into trouble. Wikipedia<\/a> suggests it started with the death of Richard Rich in 1975. I suspect over expansion and Richway<\/a> may have contributed. Whatever the case, the chain was sold to Federated<\/i> which also owned the Macy's<\/i> name, and the Rich's<\/i> brand was retired on 6 March 2005.<\/p>\n

The old Columbia Mall Rich's<\/i> store continues to operate as Macy's<\/i> to this day, and if you consider things just in terms of continuous operation, is one of the last original stores in the mall (along with Sears<\/i> and Radio Shack<\/i>) -- there are no books or stereos though.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 7 Feb 2010<\/b>: Somehow I wrote \"Frank Rich\" above instead of \"Richard Rich\" (now there's a good comic book name..). I've fixed it (Thanks JT!). Check the comments for more info..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Rich's came to Columbia with the opening of Columbia Mall it was kind of a big deal. Up until that point, Rich's was an Atlanta name and had the kind of cachet that exotic brands tend to accumulate. I was given to understand that at one point special shopping busses were charterted to run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5,4],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-historic","tag-stores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}