As we savored our amazing six-inch personal pizzas at the best pizza joint in town — Tony’s Pizza Palace at 17 N. Fifth St. — one coworker pointed out the window across the street. “So that’s The Sharp End?” she asked.
In 2025 Columbia, the building tucked beneath Garagezilla — the Sixth and Walnut parking garage — is The Shops at Sharp End. But seventy years ago, both sides of Walnut between Fifth and Sixth streets was Sharp End, a thriving commercial, social, and retail hub that gave life to as many as twenty-six Black-owned businesses. It was the cornerstone of life for Columbia’s Black community.
Now? The Shops at Sharp End is a retail and minority business incubator, opened in January 2024, a collaboration among the Downtown Community Improvement District, Regional Economic Development Inc., and Central Missouri Community Action (with expertise from CMCA’s Missouri Women’s Business Center).
What happened to Sharp End? And is the Sharp End’s rich history, and the tragedy of “urban renewal” that basically erased that business district, on the cusp of being forgotten? When I mentioned this story idea to Rudi Keller — because he is the only reporter/writer actually qualified to write the story — he was intrigued and eager to dive back into that history, which yielded an entire special section of the Columbia Daily Tribune when we were colleagues there in 2015. Rudi researched and wrote every word of every story in that important historical publication.
His updated work on the Sharp End is included in the pages of this issue of COMO Business Times. We strive to produce stories that are meaningful and enlightening, if not relatable and experiential, so it’s probably not wise to elevate any story to a stratospheric level above others. But that’s exactly where Rudi’s story is. This may be one of the most meaningful articles you will have read in months or years.
I could gush and fawn all day over how Rudi is the most accomplished and brilliant reporter/writer I’ve known. We have other writers and stories in these issues that also command your full attention. Michelle Terhune took on the unenviable task of untangling and telling the stories of how Columbia’s electric grid, sewer utility, and water utility have had stalled expansion and upgrade projects — for almost twenty years for the electric system — despite voter approval to fund some of those projects.
Kudos to Michelle for creating compelling text from the complex kerfuffle for COMO Magazine. Her exceptional work reveals as many questions as answers, but it’s a road map to knowing what has happened and what the next steps are. Another heavy lift of a story was achieved by McKenna Stumph for explaining what downtown commercial and retail vacancy rates means for downtown. McKenna expanded her reporting chops with this story.
I also want to give a shout out to Dianna Borsi O’Brien, the author of “Historic Movie Theaters of Columbia,” for her feature on downtown’s oldest buildings. Dianna is a recent friend who I wish had been a friend for sixty years. We’re sort of peas in a pod; that is, if the pod is history and wordsmithing and the fascinating nature of human nature.
Like Rudi, this is Dianna’s first byline in this publication with me as the editor. There shouldn’t be a universe where that constellation occurs. I am in awe of them as writers and as people.
Finally, be sure to check out the local karaoke scene with language-loving Associate Editor Kelsey Winkeljohn, learn the storied history of The Armory with Emmi Weiner, and get a taste of downtown’s more nutritional dishes with Natasha Myrick.
What I’m trying to tell you is that the May issues of COMO Magazine and COMO Business Times are well worth your time to read, read again, and then pass along for others to glean the many treasures for others to discover in our “Downtown” issue.
