To spot the House of Peace Synagogue, look for a charming two-story white wooden building with a red roof and a bold red door, framed by tall arched stained glass windows, right on the corner just across from you.
Now, as you pause here, imagine Columbia over a century ago-horse-drawn carriages clacking by and whispers of many different languages swirling in the air. This building, with its rounded windows and playful red roof, began life as a synagogue for the Beth Shalom Congregation, built by Polish and Russian immigrants searching for a new beginning. The community, which had already known the pain of losing their original synagogue in a great fire during the Civil War, was determined to keep their culture alive. So, in 1915, here on Park Street, they prayed, celebrated, and gathered together, rebounding from loss and building dreams out of timber and hope.
But this place has more layers than a very ambitious onion. By the late 1920s, the congregation had outgrown their cozy synagogue, so they moved on to a larger home. And that’s when the next chapter-arguably the most fabulous one-began. The old synagogue became the Big Apple Club, an African-American nightclub where history quite literally danced. Inside, you could smell sweat and cologne, the sweet tang of soda, and see laughter bouncing off the stained glass. The hottest dances of the 1930s were born and perfected right here, under a domed ceiling that, for a time, sparkled with neon moons and shooting stars. Young white college students from USC, desperate to learn the moves, would pay just to watch from the balcony, copying steps from above. They carried the Big Apple all the way to the bright lights of New York, where it shimmied its way into national dance floors (and probably onto a few stubbed toes).
This building’s journey didn’t stop at the jitterbug. Over the decades, it’s been a club, a business, and even the home of a heating and air company. In the early 1980s, they picked up the whole building and gently moved it right here to the corner lot. Since the 1990s, restored and gleaming, it’s celebrated as the Big Apple-a true party animal in the world of historic landmarks. Now, people rent it out for their own celebrations, hoping, maybe, to catch a little of that old magic in the air. And who knows, if you walk past here late at night, you might just imagine the tap of shoes and the laughter of an era gone by.
