Goodnight, Columbus

Most Wednesday nights I take my daughter to her orchestra rehearsal in downtown Columbus. Typically, I have a book and sit in the quite nice Capital Theater at the Rife center and happily read for two and a half hours.

But I'm in a reading drought now. Don't have anything in my possession that strikes my fancy. No problem, I'll walk across the street to the City Center Mall and buy a book or magazine.

Problem one: forgot my glasses. Saddly, now a requirement for anything inside the reach of my arms.

No matter. I dropped Kathleen off and walked across the the mall. The first bad sign is that the entrance to the mall was crowded by a large, rowdy, milling group of kids. Inside it wasn't any better. Not many people there at all and a strong show of force by security and police, which oddly enough, didn't make me feel more comfortable.

If you'd visited the City Center four of five years ago you'd have seen it as one of the top malls in the country, every store occupied, all high end retailers. Now, the place is a ghost town, huge space empty and blocked off, and several very low end retailers, even a "dollar store". Someone had converted a thousand square foot plus store into a dance studio. One prime spot was now a "conference center", filled with folding chairs. Many of the smaller stores the remained open only had a single clerk on hand.

And I should have known better about the bookstore. The typical mall Waldenbooks. Nothing struck my fancy, and their magazine selection was so poor I couldn't find the New Yorker (my preference) or even any home theater magazines. Walked the three floors over twice, then left. I'd been there less than forty-five minutes.

A walk around the downtown wasn't any better. It was dimly lit and not a comforting sight. I walked by the statehouse, then turned to walk past the Palace Theater, in Columbus's "landmark" skyscraper, the Leveque Tower. Here I found the only sign of life, outside of the few poor souls waiting for COTA buses. Philip Glass was performing and a small crowd was waiting under the marquee. But as I turned south to head back to the Rife building, it could have been three A. M.

There were no open restaurants, coffee shops, bars. Nothing.

I know Columbus isn't New York, San Francisco, or Boston. But this is pitiful.