Aspirations have always been part Columbia’s Historic Waverly, a center of South Carolina’s civil rights movement. Two men, James Baker and Frank Houston, now say it’s time to again turn dreams to reality and restore Waverly, but it remains a struggle.
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.
By Deborah Swearingen March 26, 2014 As it celebrates its centennial, Columbia’s Hollywood-Rose Hill neighborhood is cultivating a sense of place in the city by working to preserve its history and build community among its residents.
Preservation organizations are divided on what parts of and how much of the old State Mental Hospital on Bull Street they want to fight to save. It doesn’t look, however, that much will be done to preserve the memories of the patients at was once called the state’s lunatic asylum. One historian thinks the site… Read More Preservationists divided on saving old State Mental Hospital
By Isabelle Khurshudyan July 9, 2013 In the center of the cul-de-sac, at the end of Myrtle Court, is a gently flowing reminder to Wales Garden residents of times come and gone. The surroundings have changed, but the Myrtle Court fountain keeps bubbling on. What began as a community focal point is now a historical… Read More Myrtle Fountain fills neighborhood with memories