 This is the SF Productions podcast network I'm Robert Neal. I'm MJ Wiley and this is the potpourri version of that way slam Tonight today Well, let's let's do the important stuff here. I guess that say that we're on at least Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 On a CTV and then possibly on Saturday, too, but we don't know when really that's like the guest thing But we don't have that to do it six time anymore. So we ignore that you can ignore the first And and if you want to write us and ask us how come we don't know these things We're at box 15 1411 or if you have the answer Columbus, Ohio 432 1 5 Right early and often please And you stance that have rocket ships on them because we think they're pretty and they're neat, too And and see after tonight today's show, whatever whenever you're watching this one after this show I figured I'll probably get a lot of mail telling me I don't know what the heck I'm talking about because I'm talking about things that I remember I'm talking about Columbus the way it used to be what we're gonna do right here Let's go back way back to when I was a kid and we're gonna talk about Columbus the way I remember it so things that used to be there the things that aren't there anymore and My impression of the whole darn thing And I'm gonna sit here and look at him adoringly And and if I get too wind up I guess you'll just have to bop me on the head or something because this is this is like a sore spot with me There were there were things that used to be around here like well downtown you could you could go downtown and You can ride the bus downtown and and you could still do that But but you just can't do the same stuff downtown anymore. You could go you could go to To the big department store down there You could go to Lazarus and go up to the sixth floor and there was a toy department up there It took up half the whole floor Toys big toys lots of toys nice toys toys toys and more toys and they were all up there You could find any toy that you wanted up there It was probably the biggest toy department in the whole city But wasn't Lazarus at that time more like a department store like a real like a family a Family place. Yes, it was more of a family place there little income Exactly. Oh, yes, that's just for people with gold cards and lots of money or anything But it was it was it was it was probably the best toy department in the city And and they used to have the the Santa stuff up there when it was Christmas time You'd walk around and you'd see the Stuff that it was all up there and you could walk into the Into the magic Toy area and not the magic kingdom Santa stuff back there and but then they changed that and They'd got rid of the toy department They've just moved it up to a little quarter now and and and the record department there used to be a good record department there They used to be records will there used to be records period. That's true Department it was it was down on one of the other floors and then they moved it up to the sixth floor also And it got bigger there was a bigger record apartment up there, and I don't have that anymore Where's the sixth floor now? The sixth floor isn't even there anymore. That's the whole point of the thing They took away the whole sixth floor and turn it into something else. It's like a Somebody's paid off apartment now We don't know what it is because the elevators don't go up to the sixth floor anymore But that's enough about Lazarus as opposed well, they don't do their tree on the roof anymore That's true in the water tower tree up there at Christmas time anymore. They're big it light up the water tower Christmas tree. I don't know why they don't do that anymore, but they just don't seem to At least for the past couple of years they haven't so I guess they're not doing it anymore But maybe I'm wrong about that because you just can't see it because there's too many other tall billy Lazarus used to be tall You mentioned the bus now when I first moved up here You you had to pay to get downtown, but once you got downtown the bus was free Well as you were in the downtown area you could go bus to bus and Out that was kind of one of coda well coda we can talk about coda back early early on They used to be the Columbus transit company ctc and that back then it was I don't even know how much it was to ride a bus because I never had to pay for it The parents are whoever else pays for it. Were you down with ctc? Well, you know me We're down there every Saturday And you'd go downtown on the bus that back then well and then ctc got bought out by coda coda back it was about in 1976 well it was early in 1976 actually, but their number used to be like 231 1976 or 77 anyway anyway But it was coda and we used to laugh about that because it was it was the big orange bus and none of the buses were orange Until they finally came out with a big orange bus because they were all like Yellow and orange kind of but then they came up with the orange and white buses And they were like orange and white for a long time because They were some orange and brown ones too. There was one running not too long ago that they were just used to run on broad It became coda and that was like probably around them early middle 70s that coda became the the central Ohio transit authority instead of the Columbus transit company That's central Ohio transit authority ctc used to always sponsor the Just before chiller theater used to come on they would do this thing where they would give you the The times for in the weather and everything and it used to always be sponsored by ctc But anyway, then it was coda and coda used to have this thing going where once you got downtown It was free within the downtown area, but well, I don't know what happened to that either But well, it's not my place really to know what happened to that because it doesn't matter I'm just talking about things that I used to remember and the fact that they're not there anymore and then well Let's see. What else was there? Well? Back then the Lincoln look like tower downtown It used to be the tallest building in the city and it used to just be way up there It took years to get up to the top of the Lincoln look It took me up until I was in the sixth grade to get up in the top of there. Were you walking? Yes? Well, no, we were And it wasn't like I was walking all that time to get there either It was just we happen to take a field trip down there when I was in about the sixth grade and got to finally get up There and see just how tall it was and look out the little thin windows and see and then they built the state office tower And it's many stories taller than that now They've got all kinds of buildings all over downtown that are just real tall and poor little Lincoln look like tower still sitting over there Next to the RKO palace there Let's talk about that to the RKO palace used to show movies and have shows and things and now it's just I mean They're doing shows there now But they just don't do the movies like they used to and there used to be theaters downtown too But golly you could go and you can see movies at the RKO palace over at the Ohio theater And they still do do their summer movies. Yeah But there used to be the hunt Senate stage up up high street Excuse me. I saw my fair lady there, and that's not even there anymore In fact, no people hardly even remember that there used to be a theater down there on when I first came here there was the world The world theater in high Street, which was neat and quaint and old and wood and And they showed what oh, they just I saw the wall there. Well, that's that's all other stuff there Well, that's a high street. That's way up. Well, it's all downtown to me Look where I came from it's way up past Lane Avenue there We're fucking past campus there, but but there used to be even movie theaters on campus But let's go back downtown first. They used to have the best theater that well heck we saw so many movies there We can't even count them all the southern theater and it was down at well down there between Maine and well Right there just where the southern hotel is now There used to be a theater there and you could see matinees there on Saturday and Sunday two or three movies much Monster movies. Oh heck. I don't remember. It was probably Two dollars two dollars two Like your sister said it was like 75 or a dollar to get in well maybe but you always had enough money because back then money Could buy every you could have a five dollar bill. You could ride downtown you could have lunch You could go see movies all afternoon. You could get popcorn and a drink and some candy You could ride back home and you'd still have enough to do it all again Then that was just great, but they used to it was like the southern theater would show all the All the American international movies they could get a hold of all the all the Hammer horror movies. They could get a hold of all the Japanese Science fiction big monster tear down your city movies They could get a hold of all the gladiator movies and then the kung fu movies came in and they could see kung fu movies They're all day like sounds like a drive-in. Well, it was it was like an inside drive-in by golly And everybody used to go to the southern theater after a while It was just great you could your parents could let you go for the day You'd be down there watching movies. Nobody got into fights. You didn't have to you'd watch the fights up on the screen It was wonderful. You'd have your popcorn and your candy. I got it. It was great Yeah, okay, well you were talking about the world the world that's north of Lane and high there Well by golly bodybuilder stupid club. Yeah, it's like a tanning Tan your body and Improve your mind, huh? Please anyway. They used to have the um Well right there it let me see what was it? It's on it's there's a make there's like a McDonald's there now And the well Obama's in there now, but it was there was a racks before that but before then it was the um That gun it wasn't they the university flick. They had another name before that too, but back in like the middle 70s it became the university flick and you could see all kinds of movies there And they'd give out a little brochure showed you what movies were playing and they didn't show the same movie all week They would show like a movie it would be three days and then they have another one in there for two days And they'd have another one in there for three days and they just had a variety of movies coming in there Lots of classics and great movies and I saw the Rocky horror picture show there I saw the previous one when I went to see Alice Cooper Welcome to my nightmare and then the Rocky horror picture show was gonna be the next movie come in there And so we went and saw that back before everybody would get in there and scream and yell and talk along with the movie Back when you could you could just watch it and enjoy the movie for itself without having everybody running down the aisles Having a show of their own there But anyway that was that theater too and I was a great theater there, but it's it's not there anymore and Well by golly if you'd go well Radiating from from downtown to go up Broad Street We're two or three different theaters on Broad Street You'd get up there about to wear a well across from where the state savings is now where they got that video store That used to be the carousel East And at the same time that they built the carousel East they had the Camelot North Well, no it didn't because I believe it was a carousel something in Dayton. I remember they just had this cute little Tiny three or four horse carousel. It was pretty if they did have a carousel It was maybe only there for a little while, but it had these lights that were up in the Honning to come in and it made you look like you were shrinking as you went in because they were just done and in varying It was like less lights as you went further down and it was reflective And so it looked like you were it looked like you shrink as you went. It was a neat effect, but um Well, they used to they would just that was for a while They would show first-run movies and then they got to the point where when the dollar theater has got to be real big They would show movies for a dollar or a dollar fifty or whatever But then after a while they decided that that wasn't good enough either They had to get rid of it too, but then further down you'd have the the town and country cinema Which was a general cinema The big white building yes, and there were several general cinemas around town There was that one there was the one at Eastland and one at Warfland the one out west it Great Western it was the one a university city and There is that a bunch of those general cinemas and Well, there may just be one of those now, but the town and country cinema hit cost a lot of great movies there I saw Jaws there and then close encounters Just a bunch of movies Back in the mid 70s by galley They were just movies going there on and then further up there's the cinema East the big theater And that's sad that that one's closed because that's a neat place We saw a lot of great movies there. We saw plenty of the apes there And then I think we saw the last movie there that they showed Indiana Jones and Indiana Jones and the last crusade that might have been I think because I know we saw it there Yeah, and I think that was like the last one because it was like we drove by the next week And it was like closed That's really sad that's a that's a that's a neat theater, but that's all a lot of guys all premieres for movies there I thought a premiere for Star Trek to Yeah, Star Trek 2. I saw there and um, oh That's a dry eye in the house there when when Spock went into that radiation chamber and died by golly I was just great a lot of movies there and Star Wars well when Star Wars came up We saw the previous where they were we were we were just amazed all this stuff going on on the big screen and well But it's gone now. They just don't have that one there anymore And it's sad dad got it and then they took them and they moved those theaters and they'd started slicing them in half Yeah, had your big theater and they started cutting them in half But before that Northland we went to Northland back when it first opened and it was an open air It was an open air ball then and they had a big clock or something in the middle of it There's a big hand on it and there was we went there and we saw them Excuse me. We saw what's new pussycat there? It was back in the late the late 16th and we saw that movie there and we saw what else do we see we saw good neighbor Sam and we saw Hey, there's all bunch of movies there. That was back when it was our big screen. It was a cinema scope screen What was the first covered mall in Columbus? The first covered mall in Columbus was Eastland when Eastland opened It was always 72 degrees at Eastland Mall and they had this great big thing there in the center of it Well, there was oil coming down on it And those things that you wouldn't you'd always said the do not touch was one of them big Do not touch oil Everybody had to touch it because they said don't do it. Well, it didn't hurt. Yeah How it worked and it was no longer. Oh, we never did know how it worked. They just Yeah, we thought running down the strings and it was just neat though But we never knew what it was really here why it was even there It was just art for the sake of being art and it was just there and they had these statues at Eastland They used they'd use them at a mirror floor there too people running and not getting anywhere because they were statues But anyway, they were just there and it was a neat place But it was always 72 degrees at Eastland Mall and they'd always run these things They'd run these things talk about oh, it's 60 degrees outside, but it's always 72 degrees at Eastland Mall Well, it's 84 degrees outside, but it's always 72 degrees at Eastland Mall We kept waiting and waiting and finally they had today. It's 72 degrees, but it's always 72 degrees at Eastland Mall And then Westland Westland was out there, but Westland I guess had been there for a while It's just that when they started up this ball thing with all these different stores They decided to put more stores out there, too And so because there was a Lazarus they had a Lazarus downtown Of course for the whole time and then when they built Northland They put a Lazarus there and they had a Sears and we never had Sears in in Columbus before that You didn't have Sears? We didn't have Sears? No, we didn't have Sears Well Sears I grew up we didn't have Lazarus, but now Lazarus is down there Well Lazarus When they bought out Chilatose Yeah, when they bought Chilatose and Cincinnati area Chilatose, but see I grew up with them all I did not know they were not malls in the world because Tri-County Mall Down in the Cincinnati area was always there. It's like the oldest mall in existence in the United States or something Well, now I'll beg to differ there because according to Facts and figures in books you can find around here town and country mall It's an open mall. Town and country shopping center was the first shopping center in the whole world But it's open. Tri-County Mall has always been a covered indoor mall Okay, well I think it's like the oldest if not in the if not in The United States in Ohio or something. It's a really old mall I grew up not knowing that there were places like Columbus that did not have malls Okay, well they um, we just went along and see Westland when it first started was an open-air one too Eastland was the first one that was really covered around here That was that was just an amazing thing to go to Eastland and see all these stores and walk around And you didn't have to go your coat you could take your coat off and put it in a Wait a minute. Did they have luck? I don't think they had lockers then you had to kind of carry it But still you could just go there because it was only 72 degrees at Eastland mall And you could just walk around and see all the stores and things and well They've gone through several stores since then but still the main ones were always there the Lazarus at one end Sears down at the other end and the pennies there in the middle It was just amazing see there used to be a lot of JC penny stores around town, too There was those one at Northern Lights which which has been there gee almost forever. There was what it Northern Lights had a penny Yeah, Northern Lights had a penny's Graceland had a penny's G Central Point had a penny's Of course, there's a penny's at Westland and wanted Eastland North well Northland didn't have a penny's for a long time Actually until they built the new wing onto there and put it down at that one in but They didn't have a penny's there for a long time, but um in Northern Lights Graceland Well South Well Southland never actually became south. It was great Southern great Southern had a penny's. I believe Great Eastern had a well though well, maybe Didn't really go to great Eastern a lot anyway, but I think there might have been a penny's there I guess penny's stores all over to play and then they they started kind of Yeah, Montgomery Ward sure we did and Montgomery Ward's um Had a great store at Northern Lights called the Boston one. Oh, yeah There was a Boston store there at Northern Lights because that's where I got a lot of my GI go stuff I would rate stores on how good their toy department was they had a pretty good toy department and by galley Well, that's a good thing that that's a good place to start it in a story You go in and see what their toy department's like and you can pretty much tell the caliber of the store by galley Because if it's a good family store, they should have a good family toy apartment that you can lose the kids That's right. Keep those kids amazed or amused for hours And then there were just stores that were just pretty much toy stores But we didn't have those until like the early 70s either, but anyway, there was um Stores like Kresge Kresge, which was like a great um Dime store which that's just a concept that's lost on a lot of people now They're happy to find a dollar store now But Kresge was the great store and they you'd always go to Kresge and they'd have these little things that say um Automatically to have this big K It was it was for Kresge It was K for Kresge and see Kresge went out of business and immediately we got boom Kmart because Kmart Kresge became Kmart there's some history for you Yeah, we had Murphy's we had some Murphy's stories No, these are all dime stores. They didn't ever before is really Although we would travel around and see them other places and we'd hear about them from other places, but um Yeah, there was Kresge that was um, okay There's Woolworth and there used to be will call Which was the big world were they had a lot of stuff and it was um It was like a bigger department store because of Woolworth's was it's still kind of you know It's kind of full of wool coal was just big it was huge now down a good toy department Yeah, record apartment to the gut downtown. There's a Woolworth. Yep When you like go in there, it's like stepping back because it's like department stores That I remember and it's like not changed. Well, it's I mean it's changed But it's not just it's got the counter where you can go and get greasy food or whatever But it's it's got the escalator. Remember when escalators were like amazing things and Glators were scary things and they still are scary for kids, but you don't have to worry I don't think any more little kids are gonna get something down in there and can't get out Because I just doesn't have any more because escalators. They're safe now Used to go to shot and steams and they had an escalator and I'd sit there and push the button if they don't push it But I guess that still happens doesn't it? I don't know. It's like an old It's just like an old piece of history there because it's just old and you walk in and you think everything in there's gonna be Older something and then hey somebody's on a party in a parking lot. I'll see you later I used to be and in Woolworth's downtown. There was a I was behind the The counter where they well, I guess it used to be a soda fountain used to be this big rubber head of Elsie the cowl back there Like a scary thing But he used to sit back there and after a while Elsie just seems like she was losing parts of her like one horn There used to ruffles started falling off because rubber will do that for after a while if you keep it in a hot place Things will just start falling off of it gradually it'll chip and they'll just crack and fall off You said some good pizza there, but then they started getting nasty because they started doing the sauce different Did y'all have potters potter's shoe stores up here. Nope. No no potter's shoe stores back In fact one of the best shoe stores back then was Lazarus Lazarus Store and they used to sell you your Buster Brown shoes or you could get kids there and any time They had them there were no stride right stores and really either Right with potters and try county to get stride right and then you would get a potsy balloon Which was a balloon with a big nose a big head and a body and they'd put some cardboard feet on the bottom Oh cardboard feet balloons. Those were lots of fun used to be able to get those a lot of places Bbf used to have them, but I guess what that's about Bbf another time But Lazarus you talk about your shoe stores You'd always be able to go there and you'd get the shoes and get the prize that came with them Always look for a Buster Brown to be living in that shoe and tying in there too, but that never really happened But kid just always have great kid kid was a sneaker Sneakers were all sneakers and red ball jet P. F liar bringing them back That's right P. Fs are back already And I think red ball jets are probably on their way back to kids never really left They just kind of stayed along and grew at the time But they don't get away toys anymore well away neat toys get pair of shoes and a neat toy And a posky balloon you'd always get toys. They don't get enough to get whistle or something something Decoder things and stuff. Yeah, decoder things things from that the astronauts would use. Yeah That was always great and dad got it. I've just about talked out the whole time that we have here Well next time we get together, I guess it'll be the the comic book show again And there'll be another another TV show or something And then it's like don't know whether it'll be comic books again or whether it'll be this one again But the next time I'm on here. I'll have some more to say about the way Columbus used to be but until then Getting old already tell him I'm working you know Getting older sit here But we'll have some more to say about Columbus the way it used to be