{"id":199,"date":"2008-10-08T18:44:54","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T23:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=199"},"modified":"2008-10-08T18:48:51","modified_gmt":"2008-10-08T23:48:51","slug":"the-golden-spur-russell-house-usc-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"The Golden Spur, Russell House USC: 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Golden Spur<\/i> was USC's on-campus, University sanctioned (and run) bar. That sounds odd now, but before 1984, there was a quaint notion that you should punish people for public drunkenness or drunk driving, not forbid them access to the means beforehand.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the Spur was on the second floor of the Russell House at the top of the stairs that ran from the row of phonebooths on the ground-floor sidewalk all the way to the third floor if I recall correctly. I think the stairwell area was semi-segregated from the upstairs fast-food area by swinging doors and that there was some sort of trail-mix kiosk across the space from the Spur.<\/p>\n

I wasn't a drinker, so I only went one time to the Spur that I can recall. They often had lounge acts in there, and I went to see some young female blues singer. The only thing I can recall now is that she sang Bessie Smith's \"Gimme a Pig Foot\" -- the first time I had heard that song.<\/p>\n

In 1984, the federal government (which acknowledged that it had no right to raise or lower a state's drinking age on its own) passed a law saying that highway funds would be withheld from states which did not raise their drinking age to 21. South Carolina gave in to this bit of extortion, and suddenly the majority of college students were too young to drink. The Spur closed as a bar during this period. I believe various things were done with the space, but I don't recall any permanent re-purposing by the time I left grad school.<\/p>\n

When I went to check on it recently, I found that the whole upstairs food-area of Russell House had been completely revamped. Gone was the collection of ARA burger & pizza windows and now national brands seem to provide all the upstairs food. The space has been completely remodeled as well, and the old seperate Golden Spur area has been torn out and is copmpletely gone except that a new \"private\" meeting-room\/dining-room occupies the area I'm pretty sure it once did.<\/p>\n

The name lives on though. I found that in Carolina Underground<\/i> the dim and depressing failed retail mall that is in the basement of the Russell House, a new Golden Spur<\/i> has been set up, as a game room where you can \"Wii for Free\":<\/p>\n

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The Golden Spur was USC's on-campus, University sanctioned (and run) bar. That sounds odd now, but before 1984, there was a quaint notion that you should punish people for public drunkenness or drunk driving, not forbid them access to the means beforehand. Anyway, the Spur was on the second floor of the Russell House at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5,3],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-historic","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","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=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}