By Mark Ferenchik, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – The original Long’s Bookstore building, a landmark for decades across from the Ohio State University campus, is coming down.
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Demolition crews began razing the back half of the building on Thursday. It soon will be replaced by a plaza featuring a high-rise hotel. It’s part of the redevelopment project that is supposed to transform the neighborhood just east of campus.
The Long’s building at 1836 N. High Street has been empty for more than a decade and time has taken a toll. Water leaks through the roof and there’s no electricity. The elevators haven’t been inspected for years, so they could not be used to bring things down and out.
“The building is a wreck,” said Bob Singleton, a 1972 Ohio State graduate and long-time University District resident who toured the building with a group in August.
Ben Brace, a local real estate agent who also toured the building, was even more blunt: “It’s a piece of crap.”
Still, scores of OSU alumni remember buying their textbooks there. (And reselling them at the end of the quarter for much less.)
Books remain inside, by the way, including copies of “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville, said Doreen Uhas Sauer, a local historian who leads the University Area Commission.
So do metal and wooden shelves, and some original wallpaper. Everything is being taken to the landfill.
“There has been rot and mold, nothing of particular monetary value,” said Uhas Sauer.