Today’s paper reported that the tallest building in South Carolina — you know, the one across Gervais
Street from the State House — is to have yet another new owner.
Fine. But what I want to know is what to call it, preferably something less cumbersome than "the tallest building in South Carolina — you know, the one across Gervais Street from the State House."
I have in the past called it "the AT&T building," because that’s what it was known as first, near as I can recall. But it hasn’t really been that for a lot of years. Officially, it’s been the "Capitol Center" — but how many people who have occasion to refer to it actually call it that. And it’s so generic-sounding, not many are likely to remember it. The new owner is the Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., which doesn’t suggest anything catchy.
Here’s an idea: You remember my column about the political etymology of "good ol’ boy." If you recall, I traced its use in S.C. to the 1986 gubernatorial campaign. Here’s something I wrote then in an addendum to that column about a conversation I had with Bob McAlister, who was in the middle of all that:
In fact, he believes (immodestly) that a TV commercial he produced,
entitled "Good Old Boys," was what won the election for Campbell. The
thrust of it was to drive home the cozy relationship between the
developers of what then was called the AT&T building on the site of
the old Wade Hampton Hotel (neither Bob nor I could remember what it’s
called now; it’s had several aliases). The clincher was a picture he
had taken of a banner in front of the building itself supporting
Democratic nominee Mike Daniel.
So how about, "Good Old Boy Tower?" OK, I just said it was an idea, not that it was a good one.
Can you do better? It’s the tallest building in the state, folks; that makes it a landmark. We ought to have something memorable to call it.
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How about The Palmetto Tower.
I’m behind you 1000% on “Good Old Boy Tower” and further suggest that the infamous flag that’s on the Statehouse grounds across the street be moved to the top of that tallest building to kill a couple of birds with one big stone.
Yup, privatize the flag controversy to end it once and for all and just blame it all on the good old boys.
How about the Bubba Boondoggle, especially if state agencies are still the vast majority of tenants?
If the SC Department of Education rented out several floors to house all the educrats working on keeping public schools at the bottom of the national rankings, we could call the tower “Edifice Rex”.
Or since I know Brad eats his breakfast very often at the top of the Good Ol’ Boy tower, peering down upon his dominion and waxing philosophical on how it could all be done better if we’d just follow his commands, perhaps a better name for the building would be Brad’s Pad.
The tallest building in our state, and remarkably attractive for Columbia, where old factories go to die. Let’s call it The Facade.
How about we get the city of Columbia to pay someone to come up with a name for the building!? I’m sure they could come up with something as bad as ‘The Tallest Building in South Carolina’…and for the bargain basement price of $100,000.
How about “The ugliest Building in SC?”
“The Bodaciousness”
The Steel Palmetto, erupting above the Columbia skyline like a geyser of metal and glass…
(See, this is why I’m not a writer.)
Government Annex, since so many of its tenants are government agencies or quasi-government.
The Big One?
ugly
Don’t worry, Greenville’s about to take that title anyway with one of their proposed towers.