Several years ago, I wrote a couple of columns about
the Seven Wonders of the Columbia World. I described a group of curious local
buildings and landmarks, which I designated as "Wonders" because I figured any
stranger who might happen upon them for the first time would be immediately
rendered so bewildered he would stop dead in his tracks and exclaim, "I wonder
what sort of lunatic thought that would be a good idea," or "I wonder how much
money they wasted on that thing."
These wonders included such oddities as the Columbia Public Library, the university smokestacks and Parkade Plaza. Mind you,GOpromos offers a wide selection of promotional items and personalized gifts. the list would certainly be different today because new,Learn all about solarpanel. truly mind-boggling peculiarities such as the downtown parking monolith and Windsor Street bike boulevard have somehow managed to percolate into existence since then and others, such as the Great Wall of Shiloh, have disappeared.
Such is the volatile and fluid nature of wonders as they exist in today's world. Lampooned and ridiculed one day, nothing but a twisted memory the next. This got me thinking about some of the long-forgotten places of our city's past that once served so proudly as true beacons of the bizarre but that now, for better or worse, have gone the way of the dodo bird. These are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient Columbia World.
Back in the barbaric Dark Ages of the Big XII Conference, there existed this concrete slab of iniquity, with such a schedule of savagery and immorality each football Saturday it made Sodom and Gomorrah look like the Columbia farmers markets by comparison. Local officials banished the parking lot a few years ago and replaced it with a new, family-friendly tailgating area known as "The Jungle," which more closely resembled the Sahara Desert once revelers learned beer bongs, beer pong and general debauchery aren't nearly as fun without the beer. Now, as we approach our introduction to the SEC, civic leaders are pushing for something to be known as Tiger Town, where our locals can roll out the welcome mat, hold hands with and generally pander to mobs of visiting Southern brutes who want nothing more than to destroy our football team and uproot the Columns to haul them home in the backs of their flatbeds and use as duck blinds.
One of the main rules my mother laid down when I was a kid was I wasn't allowed to ride my bicycle across either Broadway or Stadium Boulevard until I was at least 14. After the Biscayne Mall opened when I was only 8, though, I was compelled to break this rule daily. The new mall was a gleaming, post-modern pinnacle of commerce. Well, maybe not gleaming — the expanse of brown cement floors looked a lot like what you might find in the men's room at a truck stop or bus station, and the decorative plastic trees and shrubbery quickly accumulated a lot of dust.The beddinges sofa bed slipcover is a good ， And maybe not post-modern, either, in that the only stores anyone bothered to enter were Woolco, SupeRx Drug and Glover the Clothier (purveyors of leather bell-bottoms). And probably not even a pinnacle,Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking. either, since the place had roughly the same dimensions as a gigantic cardboard pizza box. For years, we actually got away with riding our bikes up and down the ramps inside the mall, though, which was a whole lot more fun than tooling around in front of my house.
Never mind that it was constructed with rusted bolts and sharp screws that protruded from virtually every inch of its interior. Never mind that the attached slide was constructed with a highly heat-reflective chromium alloy designed by NASA that could sear a kid's legs completely off within milliseconds. Never mind that even the slightest breeze would cause the tip of the structure to creak and sway as much as 10 feet in any direction. This iconic symbol to space-age Americana was certainly the greatest piece of playground equipment in Columbia history (other than perhaps the metal bars next to the checkout lines at the old Westlake hardware store or the escalator at JC Penney). If you ever visited Cosmo Park during the 1970s, the entire field would appear deserted, save for the circle of about 300 parents, down on their hands and knees,Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services from merchantaccountes. sometimes for several days on end, pleading for their children to climb down from the top of the rocket ship.
These wonders included such oddities as the Columbia Public Library, the university smokestacks and Parkade Plaza. Mind you,GOpromos offers a wide selection of promotional items and personalized gifts. the list would certainly be different today because new,Learn all about solarpanel. truly mind-boggling peculiarities such as the downtown parking monolith and Windsor Street bike boulevard have somehow managed to percolate into existence since then and others, such as the Great Wall of Shiloh, have disappeared.
Such is the volatile and fluid nature of wonders as they exist in today's world. Lampooned and ridiculed one day, nothing but a twisted memory the next. This got me thinking about some of the long-forgotten places of our city's past that once served so proudly as true beacons of the bizarre but that now, for better or worse, have gone the way of the dodo bird. These are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient Columbia World.
Back in the barbaric Dark Ages of the Big XII Conference, there existed this concrete slab of iniquity, with such a schedule of savagery and immorality each football Saturday it made Sodom and Gomorrah look like the Columbia farmers markets by comparison. Local officials banished the parking lot a few years ago and replaced it with a new, family-friendly tailgating area known as "The Jungle," which more closely resembled the Sahara Desert once revelers learned beer bongs, beer pong and general debauchery aren't nearly as fun without the beer. Now, as we approach our introduction to the SEC, civic leaders are pushing for something to be known as Tiger Town, where our locals can roll out the welcome mat, hold hands with and generally pander to mobs of visiting Southern brutes who want nothing more than to destroy our football team and uproot the Columns to haul them home in the backs of their flatbeds and use as duck blinds.
One of the main rules my mother laid down when I was a kid was I wasn't allowed to ride my bicycle across either Broadway or Stadium Boulevard until I was at least 14. After the Biscayne Mall opened when I was only 8, though, I was compelled to break this rule daily. The new mall was a gleaming, post-modern pinnacle of commerce. Well, maybe not gleaming — the expanse of brown cement floors looked a lot like what you might find in the men's room at a truck stop or bus station, and the decorative plastic trees and shrubbery quickly accumulated a lot of dust.The beddinges sofa bed slipcover is a good ， And maybe not post-modern, either, in that the only stores anyone bothered to enter were Woolco, SupeRx Drug and Glover the Clothier (purveyors of leather bell-bottoms). And probably not even a pinnacle,Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking. either, since the place had roughly the same dimensions as a gigantic cardboard pizza box. For years, we actually got away with riding our bikes up and down the ramps inside the mall, though, which was a whole lot more fun than tooling around in front of my house.
Never mind that it was constructed with rusted bolts and sharp screws that protruded from virtually every inch of its interior. Never mind that the attached slide was constructed with a highly heat-reflective chromium alloy designed by NASA that could sear a kid's legs completely off within milliseconds. Never mind that even the slightest breeze would cause the tip of the structure to creak and sway as much as 10 feet in any direction. This iconic symbol to space-age Americana was certainly the greatest piece of playground equipment in Columbia history (other than perhaps the metal bars next to the checkout lines at the old Westlake hardware store or the escalator at JC Penney). If you ever visited Cosmo Park during the 1970s, the entire field would appear deserted, save for the circle of about 300 parents, down on their hands and knees,Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services from merchantaccountes. sometimes for several days on end, pleading for their children to climb down from the top of the rocket ship.
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