Columbia's Main Street

When New Yorker Dorothy Garone was looking for a place to open a Manhattan-style bagel shop and deli, the choice was easy. “Who wouldn’t want the Kress building?” Garone said of the art deco storefront across from the Columbia Museum of Art on Main Street. “Location is everything and this was a match made in heaven.”

At the high-powered corner of Main and Gervais streets in Columbia, the rattle of jackhammers and the buzz of welding torches rip through the normal urban cacophony.

Main Street is most frequently thought of as the area between the State House on Gervais Street and City Hall on Laurel Street. But North Main and South Main are also undergoing significant changes.

Main Street is home to several retailers and restaurants that have been in business for decades 100 AND OLDER Sylvan’s 60 AND OLDER

$845 MILLION Annual revenue of Main Street-corridor businesses (1) 34 PERCENT Increase in revenue since 2003 $410 MILLION Value of all property in Main Street corridor

Businesses and city officials are grappling with several issues as Main Street seeks to reinvent itself. PARKING The biggest complaint among business owners, shoppers, building owners and tenants is parking.

1786: Richardson Street — now Main Street — is established as part of the planned city of Columbia’s original street grid. It is named after Revolutionary War hero Richard Richardson.

Jane and William Russell Drake opened the first Drake’s in 1907 on Elmwood Avenue to deliver sandwiches to the city’s mills.

Cameron Jordan and Bryan Singleton in February bought Birds on a Wire, located off the lobby in the Meridian tower. The restaurant, among the newest businesses on Main, was started by city councilman and restaurateur Daniel Rickenmann three years ago, shortly after the 18-story tower opened in the 1300 block of Main.

Danny Roth opened the Army Navy Store along Assembly Street in 1947 shortly after returning from World War II. In 1982 the store moved to 1621 Main St. when its Assembly Street building was torn down to make room for a staging area and then parking for the IBM building.

Louis Kaplan started the House of Fabrics — Chez Fabrique 51 years ago in a building he bought at 1312 Main St. Kaplan’s granddaughter Lori Brown took over the business in 1982, but Kaplan still lives in an apartment on the second floor.

Sylvan’s jewelry is Main Street’s oldest business. In 1897, Swedish immigrants Gustav and Johannes Sylvan bought the distinctive French Victorian-style Central National Bank building to house their jewelry store.

Sunny Loungani has two clothing stores on Main Street — Cavalier’s of Columbia at 1600 Main and Coral’s at 1535 Main — that mostly cater to African-American men and women.