News about Columbia’s neighborhoods
Dana Myers knew she wanted to be a baker ever since her mom gave her an Easy-Bake Oven and her grandmother taught her how to make pound cakes. She started out selling her sweets at hair salons. Now she owns Main Street Bakery, which got national attention when Hillary Clinton stopped by.
A vibrantly colored sign at The Local Buzz in Rosewood welcomes “all sizes, all colors, all ages, all cultures, all sexes, all beliefs, all religions, all types, all people – safe here.” Stephanie Bridgers painted the sign and runs her coffee shop by this creed.
Columbia developer Richard Burts has built a reputation taking on projects, such as 701 Whaley and the Palmetto Compress Warehouse, that others said were impossible. Those successes have proved to Burts the value of historic preservation and prompted others to say he really gets it. He talks with us about saving historic Columbia.
When the boys in a Hyatt Park gym start talking about chicken wings, it isn’t time to chow down but to practice their takedowns. Mats 2 Men, a wrestling program, is trying to enrich their lives and teach character while also getting their fathers more involved.
Dog owner Ola Helsing so wants another free dog park in Columbia that she’d drive several miles to get there. She and other dog owners could soon get their wish with a free dog park planned for Owens Field Park. But not everyone supports the idea.
Renovations at Owens Field Park are underway, but what comes first and who will or will not be happy with the results? Finding a balance for all the users of one of Columbia’s largest and busiest parks is a crucial part of the project.
Jaco’s Corner, the 104-year-old bar in the shadow of Williams-Brice Stadium, is likely to pour its last beer this summer. The Jaco family, which has owned the Olympia neighborhood bar at Rosewood Drive and Bluff Road for three generations, is reluctantly being pushed toward the sale by financial and generational realities.
The volunteers at the NAACP-American Red Cross disaster relief center on North Main all share a passion for helping those still in need after the historic flooding of early October.
Meg Ellis just wanted to create a tool to help people. It wasn’t until South Carolina’s October floods that she realized how much of a resource her Chasing Tails Pet Patrol Facebook page has become.
Artists Matthew Kramer and Jarid Brown got the idea for a collaborative show years ago. They recently held that show at Olympia’s 701 Whaley and then donated almost half their earnings to helping flood victims. It has been a common effort by the arts community.