Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on the Equinox

Posted on March 24, 2022 by admin

Sunday and Monday were warmish and mostly pleasant. In typical March style, at least in Northern climes, the rest of the week has been chilly and damp. The persistent drizzle, I suppose, will be a factor in the greening of April. But for now it merely inspires muddy paw prints whenever the dog comes back in.

On Sunday, we took a walk in a section of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve — officially Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve, but I’ve never thought of it as that — that we hadn’t been to before, despite having lived in these parts nearly two decades. It’s just off Shoe Factory Road, a name I’ve always liked.

That day might have been the vernal equinox, but the flora knew it wasn’t quite spring yet.

Near the intersection of Shoe Factory and Sutton Road (Illinois 59) is a place called the Great Egret Family Picnic Area, at least according to Google Maps.

The sign in situ makes no such naming claims.

In fact, so weathered is it that it barely makes any naming claims, though I can make out FAMILY PICNIC AREA. The sign is the only way we’d know that, since there is no evidence of tables or any other picnic infrastructure. Just a place to toss your picnic blanket, it seems.

A Short Stop in Pontiac

Posted on March 23, 2022 by admin

We took Ann back to school Sunday before last, the first day of Daylight Saving Time, and since the day was tolerably warm, I insisted on a short stop in Pontiac, Illinois.

Despite Pontiac being on I-55 between Chicago and St. Louis, a route I’ve driven countless times, I’d never stopped there before, unlike such places as Coal City, Dwight, Lincoln, Atlanta, Litchfield and Mount Olive, just to name some of the smaller burgs along the way.

We didn’t spend that much time there. But time enough for us to walk all the way around the Livingston County Courthouse, which is impressive indeed.

It’s the county’s third courthouse; the first was a small wood-frame structure replaced by the second, which burned down in 1874 (pics of the two are here). Architect John C. Cochrane of Chicago, who also designed the Illinois and Iowa state capitols, designed the current Second Empire structure, which was finished in 1875 and restored recently. Technically, it isn’t a courthouse anymore, since the county’s judicial operations relocated to a new building nearby in 2011, but the county still has offices in the older building.

It wouldn’t be an Illinois town of any size without Lincoln acknowledged somewhere, and in the case of Pontiac, it’s a bronze resting on a bronze split-rail fence. It depicts young lawyer Lincoln, who visited the second courthouse periodically.

An Illinois sculptor named Rick Harney completed the work in 2006. Looking at his portfolio, I wonder if it’s easy to access his bronze of Adlai Stevenson in the Central Illinois Regional Airport. Lincoln is fine, but there aren’t that many Stevensons around, even in Illinois.

Looking around the courthouse square, there’s also a less conventional Lincoln.

The inevitable Route 66 mural.

Some handsome buildings from a time when handsome buildings were built in small towns. Before the Depression at the latest, and more likely before WWI.

And a time capsule underfoot.

Looking a little further into that today, I learned that the International Time Capsule Society is a real thing. I knew I got out of bed for a reason.

Savannah Bits

Posted on March 22, 2022 by admin

By the time we got to Factors Walk in downtown Savannah on March 7, it was already dark. Daytime pictures of the area, which used to be home to the sizable business of selling and shipping cotton, are available here.

The ground floor of the Factors Walk buildings facing the Savannah River are mostly oriented to tourists these days, including restaurants and small shops. I bought some postcards at a souvenir store, and when I told the clerk where I lived (he asked), he further asked whether Illinois has mandatory auto emissions tests. I said it does.

He said, as a life-long resident of Savannah, he only recently found out that some states do that. He looked to be in his 30s. It seemed to be a subject of some fascination for him.

Later I checked, and I was only partly correct. Only some counties in Illinois test auto emissions — Cook and Du Page among them, the only counties I’ve ever lived in here. Some Georgia counties do too, but not Chatham, where Savannah is located.

Some of the tourist attractions at Factors Walk are more mobile than the stores, such as the good tourist ship Georgia Queen, apparently docked for the evening.

Another thing I heard from a resident: St. Patrick’s Day is a big to-do in Savannah, probably even bigger this year after two years of cancelation. We came to town nearly two weeks ahead of all that, and so were able to find a room. Closer to the event and we’d have been out of luck, even booking as I did in January.

Some houses were already ready for the festivities, such as along Jones St.

Other places had more topical colors flying.

Savannah is easily as picturesque as Charleston, maybe more so, but it needs more stylish cast-iron covers.

The first evening we were in town, I took a walk near the Isseta Inn. I chanced by the Gingerbread House. I knew it was called that because of the sign out front.

“Built in 1899 by Cord Asendorf, this magnificent house is considered among the finest examples of Steamboat Gothic architecture in America,” the house web site asserts. These days it hosts weddings and other events.

Even closer to the Isetta Inn — on the next block — evidence that the neighborhood continues to gentrify.

Though a little clogged with traffic, Victory Drive is a good drive, among the palms that line it. There is some commercial development, including this sign — which has its own Atlas Obscura page. We weren’t inspired to buy anything there.

The town of Tybee Island has very little free parking. I understand the reasons: lots of visitors, infrastructure needs to be maintained, etc. Still, that grated, especially since it applied even on a Sunday, which is when we drove through.

So besides The Crab Shack, which had a gravel parking lot shaded by tall trees, the only place we stopped was along U.S. 80 on the outskirts of town, where no meters or fee signage existed.

We took a look at a small cluster of shops on the road.

More interestingly, visited Fish Art Gallerie. It has its own Roadside America item, though not including a lot of information. “The folk art environment/gallery/store of Ralph Douglas Jones, who turns junk into fish art. Much colorful nonsense is visible from the street,” RA says.

This is a video of the founder Jones. The guy at the counter when we visited didn’t look like him, which is too bad, since meeting Ralph might be the same kind of trip as meeting Randy in Pittsburgh.

Ann bought some beads and other small items, I bought a cast-iron bottle opener in the shape of a turtle.

One more pic from Tybee Island.

Just more of the trees that helped make visiting this part of the country a delight.

The Isetta Inn

Posted on March 21, 2022 by admin

At one of the corners of Whitaker St. and W. 37th St. in Savannah stands the Isetta Inn, where we stayed three nights.

I didn’t take careful notes when I read a framed article hung on a stairway landing at the Isetta, and I can’t find it posted on line, but I do remember it said that the property was built in 1907, suffered a period of neglect much later in the 20th century (of course) and might have been torn down, but it was restored to magnificence by a dedicated renovationist in the early 21st century. Now it’s a one-of-a-kind hotel.

Its fate could have been like the lot cater-cornered across the intersection. Wonder what used to be there.

I had time to mull that question, which I don’t really need to answer, sitting in one of the red rocking chairs on the Isetta’s delightful front porch. I spent some time there, both during the day and in the evening, reading or just gazing out into the surrounding neighborhood, the Starland District. Both 37th and Whitaker are fairly busy streets, and that stretch of 37th especially is a boulevard shaded by tall southern live oaks fully decked out with Spanish moss.

“Starland” doesn’t sound like an historic name, and it isn’t. Two Savannah College of Art and Design graduates reportedly dreamed up the moniker ca. 2000 to use for an arts district for the city.

“The idea of a vanguard arts district may seem counterintuitive in this slow-paced city of courtly manners and stately architecture, but after almost two decades, an emerging area called the Starland District may finally be hitting its stride,” the New York Times reported in 2015.

“… the Starland District is a collection of art studios, small offices, galleries, cafes and retail shops loosely assembled around Bull Street south of Savannah’s historic downtown and Forsyth Park.”

The lobby of the Isetta is an artful place — actually the whole property is — and so right at home in an arts district. In fact, the lobby displays local art on a rotating basis. The sliced off BMW trunk is the reception desk.

Adjacent to the lobby is an ornate but comfortable living room. I spent a while there as well, writing postcards. Wonder how often that happens.

The entrance to the right off the living room is to the kitchen, where guests could use a table, refrigerator, sink, plates and silverware, and a microwave, but not the stove or oven. We had cereal and other breakfast food — also available to guests — two of our mornings there, and leftovers for dinner one night.

A distinctive feature of the kitchen.

Our room, Hedwig’s Perch, was on the third floor. All of the hotel’s rooms have names, also including Sacred Tower, L-Suite, Polaroid Room, Alpha Romeo, and the posh Presidential. Just before we left, we noticed that the guests in that room had left before us, leaving the door open, so we got a peak inside. Posh indeed.

As for Hedwig’s Perch, it might have been a children’s bedroom originally, or maybe a sewing room, cozy as it was. But it did have two single beds, the only room at the inn with that feature, so I booked it. Two other rooms are on the third floor, and the three share one bathroom with a shower, and one without, off a short hallway. This was never an issue.

Our room was L shaped. Open the door and you see a bed with a cast-iron frame, a rolltop desk and a tree painted on the wall, complete with Spanish moss. Ann had to tell me who Hedwig was: Harry Potter’s owl.

The walls, according to the inn, were “custom painted by famed artist Dame Darcy.” I had to look her up, but the world is full of things I don’t know. Could be I’m not in the right demographic, since she’s known for illustrating works like Vegan Love: Dating and Partnering for the Cruelty-Free Gal, with Fashion, Makeup & Wedding Tips and for Tarot decks that went viral.

Then again, demographics are limiting. After all, some young men were reportedly fond of My Little Pony, so there’s no real reason late middle age/early old age men can’t enjoy, for example, Dame Darcy’s autobiographical graphic novel, Hi Jax & Hi Jinx (Life’s a Pitch and Then You Live Forever). But odds are I won’t read it.

Dame Darcy’s arboreal theme continues along the rest of the wall. I slept in the cast-iron bed, under the 2-D tree canopy. The bed squeaked at a low pitch, even when I wasn’t moving, that would have kept me awake for hours had I not figured out to keep the bed absolutely flush with the wall.

Around the corner of the L is another bed, or a reading nook, which is where Ann slept.

For all its high-polish artistic charms, I’m glad to say Isetta wasn’t vastly expensive. I’ve paid about as much for soulless middle- and upper-middle chain hotel rooms, and somehow staying in a soulless room in a city like Savannah would have been a damned shame. I haven’t worked out exactly why the Isetta was named for the bubble car of that name, but the web site does say the following, attributed to owner Jonathan.

“I’m big believer in alternative transportation to improve quality of life for us. We have a fleet of rental bicycles available to all guests. We are perfectly located for you to see all the sites on two wheels. I also personally have a few examples of historical ‘alternative transportation’ ideas in the form of micro cars. Such as a 1950s BMW Isetta that is our namesake.”

That’s pretty cool, but I’ll bet the bubblecar that’s for hard-core enthusiasts is the Soviet SMZ cyclecar.

Tybee Island Seafood, Gators & Birds

Posted on March 20, 2022 by admin

The seaside town and island called Tybee Island isn’t far from Savannah, connected to the city by U.S. 80. In the city, that route is the palm-lined Victory Drive. Outside town, the road passes the entrance to Fort Pulaski NM along the South Channel of the Savannah River and eventually takes you to Tybee Island, with its beaches and accommodations and shops for beachgoers.

On the way, the drive takes you within sight of Captain Derek’s Dolphin Adventure and Amick’s Deep Sea Fishing (tour operators), Seaside Sisters Gift Shop, Gerald’s Pig & Shrimp, Tybee Island Wedding Chapel & Grand Ballroom and lots of other enterprises longing for sweet visitor dollars. I expect it’s been a hard few years lately, but to judge by traffic to and in Tybee Island, things have picked up.

Not visible from U.S. 80, but evident on Google Maps, is The Crab Shack, about a minute’s drive off the main road on the outskirts of town, down a street that’s otherwise residential. We went there for lunch after visiting Fort Pulaski.

The restaurant isn’t affiliated with Joe’s Crab Shack or any other chain, as far as I can tell. The place apparently evolved from a mid-century fishing camp on Chimney Creek — a place where boats docked and fishing enthusiasts bought bait and beer — into a multi-building restaurant and tourist attraction over the last four decades or so. Organic, mostly unplanned growth, and looks like it.

Try as they might, neither restaurant consultants, nor algorithms nor AI-generated consumer-facing gastrolocus experience programs, can put all the elements of a place like The Crab Shack together in as pleasing a way as individual human effort can, bit by bit over years. Good thing, too.

The tables sprawl out on a wooden deck overlooking the creek, with trees towering overhead and forming a much-needed canopy where there’s no roof (though bird droppings were a worry). The Crab Shack could easily been a tourist trap, especially if the food wasn’t up to par. But it was very good.

This is Captain Crab’s Sampler Platter (for two), featuring boiled shrimp, snow crab, mussels, crawfish, corn, potatoes and sausage. We ate a lot of it, though some mussels, shrimp and crawdads ended up in the refrigerator at the Isetta Inn for later consumption. Ann sent a picture of the platter to Lilly, to inspire envy. The platter happened to be a lot like what Lilly and I ate in New Orleans.

The pie slices we shared for dessert — coconut cream and Key lime — were much better than very good. So good I persuaded myself to eat very them slowly, bite by savored bite, something I don’t often do.

As you’d expect, eating is only part of The Crab Shack experience.

After our meal, we spent a few moments at the Gator Deck, which overlooks a pond.

A pond stocked with alligators. Quite a few, actually. Real and otherwise.

A Crab Shack employee told me the pond alligators were all juveniles, born in captivity and destined for alligator farms. Destined to be wallets and purses, she didn’t say, but I expect that’s what often happens. As far as I could see, alligator wasn’t on the menu at the restaurant, but I don’t see why not.

Elsewhere in the compound is the Bird Shack, stocked with various birds.

Damned if the two multicolored birds weren’t loud. Loud — KAHHHH! without warning. The white bird, less noisy, danced and said a few words when he was so inspired.

Fort Pulaski National Monument

Posted on March 17, 2022 by admin

Today turned out to be an pleasant early spring day. There will be more winterish days to come, of course, and the nights are still chilly, but I’ll enjoy the warmth as much as I can. Had a very civilized lunch on the deck today, including casarecce and mussels, Greek olives and mineral water.

American schoolchildren learn, or at least used to learn, the story of the early 1862 battle between the Monitor and the Virginia (a.k.a., the Merrimack, which does have a euphonious ring when paired with the Monitor). That incident demonstrated the vulnerability of wooden hulls to armored ships, and the navies of the world took note. That was my takeaway about the Battle of Hampton Roads.

I don’t remember ever being taught about Fort Pulaski, which is on Cockspur Island in the Savannah River, and whose short siege, only about a month after Hampton Roads, revolutionized warfare in its own way. If I ever learned that before, I’d forgotten. So I relearned it by visiting Fort Pulaski National Monument outside Savannah on the morning of March 7.

“On April 10 [1862], after the Confederates refused [Union Capt. Quincy] Gillmore’s formal demand to surrender, the Federals opened fire,” the NPS Fort Pulaski leaflet says. “The Confederates were not particularly alarmed; the Union guns were a mile away, more than twice the effective range for heavy ordnance of that day.

“But what the fort’s garrison did not know was that the Federal armament included 10 new experimental rifled cannons, whose projectiles began to bore through Pulaski’s walls with shattering effect.”

Before long, within about a day, explosive shells were hitting near the fort’s main powder magazine, and the Confederate commander, Col. Charles Olmstead, surrendered. Though state-of-the-art when constructed in the 1830s and ’40s, the brick fort proved in 1862 to be as obsolete as wooden-hulled ships. Armies of the world took note.

Whatever its role in the history of warfare, Fort Pulaski is a cool relic here in the 21st century. Built of an estimated 25 million bricks, the NPS says, and restored in the 20th century by none other than the energetic lads of the CCC. We arrived via the causeway that crosses to Cockspur Is. and soon approached the fort. Which has a moat.

And a drawbridge.

How often do you get to say you’ve crossed a moat on a drawbridge?

Though vulnerable to new cannon tech in the 1860s, the fort’s thick walls are impressive all the same.

On one of the ceilings, some Union garrison soldiers — who had little to do, since the Confederacy never tried to take the fort back — left some patriotic graffiti.

It’s a little hard to read, but includes a star and says THE UNION NOW AND FOREVER.

This is the entrance to the powder magazine that was in danger of blowing up real good during the bombardment.

The five walls enclose a sizable bit of ground.

Most of the monument’s exhibits are inside the walls, including ones about ordinary soldiers’ quarters, the commanding officer’s quarters (definitely better), the infirmary, the chapel, how the garrison entertained itself (considering that leave in Savannah was out of the question) and more.

A good many cannons still stand at the fort, ready to greet the tourists who show up.

A plate on the cannon below indicated that it was made by the Ames Manufacturing Co. of Chicopee, Mass., a major maker of side arms, swords, light artillery and heavy ordnance for the Union.

This cannon is perched atop the upper level of the walls (the terreplein), which surprised me by being accessible to tourists. There are no guardrails, so you take your chances.

We enjoyed good views of the surrounding territory, Cockspur Island that is, from up there. That kind of view would seem to be an important feature in a fort. I expect most of the flora now seen wasn’t there when Pulaski was an active fort.

Near the entrance of the fort is a small cemetery.

It includes mostly unmarked individual graves, though there is a small stone honoring a man named Robert Rowan. It says:

In Memory of ROBT. ROWAN of No.
Carolina, Lieut in 1st Regimt of Artilrst &
Engirs of the U. States Troops who died
March 3d 1800, Aged 25 Years.

Obviously not involved in the Civil War, he was stationed at Ft. Pulaski’s predecessor, Ft. Greene. I’m a little amazed that the stone still stands, and even the location of Rowan’s resting place is known, considering that a hurricane destroyed that fort only four years after he died.

Also buried in the cemetery are 13 of the Immortal Six Hundred, Confederate POWs held at Ft. Pulaski in 1864 and ’65. A much newer stone at the end of a sidewalk — erected in 2012 by the George Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans — honors these men.

A number of short walking paths lead away from the fort. We took a walk on one.

Skies were clear and temps warm, about 80 F. Luckily, it seemed to be a little too early in the spring for many bugs to be around. I expect bugs were a major nuisance (and danger, considering the likes of malaria) for the fort’s garrison in those pre-DEET days.

The path we walked eventually led, by way of the aforementioned John Wesley memorial, to the Savannah River, near where it empties into the Atlantic. Across the way is South Carolina.

Signs marked the beach closed, so we didn’t venture on to it. Still, frame it right, and it looks like you’re at a beach resort.

At least, that’s what Ann claimed as she sent pictures to her friends.

Two Savannah Cemeteries, One Featuring Button Gwinnett

Posted on March 16, 2022 by admin

Both of the Savannah cemeteries I visited last week were unusual in one way. Not that one was a burial ground dating back to colonial times and other was founded by Victorians who believed that cemeteries should be beautiful places of respite; I’ve encountered both in other cemeteries.

Not the weathered stones and crumbling bricks of the colonial cemetery, nor the enormous trees and bushes and flowers of the 19th-century cemetery, nor the interesting funerary art, nor even the fact that 21st-century burials continue in the latter cemetery. I’ve seen all that, in one way or another, at burial grounds in places as varied as Austin, Boston, Buffalo, Charleston, Chicago, Dayton, Fairbanks, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Richmond, San Antonio and more.

Rather, living people — besides me and the occasional jogger or groundsman — populated both Colonial Park Cemetery in downtown Savannah and Bonaventure Cemetery on the eastern edge of the city. With such notable exceptions as Arlington National Cemetery or Koyasan in Japan, which are destinations in their own right, cemeteries tend to be mostly devoid of living people.

As the name implies, Colonial Park functions as a downtown park, with people crossing it in some numbers, and a few looking around (though my pictures don’t really reflect that). As for Bonaventure, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil seems to have put it on the tourist map. When I was there, not only did I see people alone and in pairs wandering around, but also a few guided-tour groups (again, I didn’t take many pictures of them).

The six-acre Colonial Park has been a cemetery since 1750 and no one new has been buried there since 1853.

Plenty of weather-worn stones.

The cemetery also sports a number of brick tombs, the sort you sometimes see in 18th- and 19th-century grounds.

A number of stones were embedded in a brick wall marking one of the boundaries of the grounds, which you don’t see that often.

I went looking for only one specific memorial, and I found it by looking it up on Google Images and then wandering around, looking for it in person.

Button Gwinnett. Button and I go back a ways. My 8th grade history teacher, the one-armed Mr. Robinson, tasked us to write a report on one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence — but not a famous one like John Hancock — and I picked Gwinnett, maybe for his curious name. Very little information on him was available in those pre-Internet days, but I made the best of it. I think.

The memorial’s plaque, put there in 1964, says that Gwinnett’s remains are “believed to lie entombed hereunder.” So his whereabouts aren’t quite known. Close enough, I figure.

More recently, Gwinnett had his 15 minutes of posthumous fame in the form of a late-night TV gag.

The man who shot Gwinnett to death in a 1777 duel, Lachlan McIntosh (d. 1806), is also buried at Colonial Park, but I didn’t look for him. McIntosh was, incidentally, acquitted of murdering Gwinnett. Tough luck, Button.

I arrived at Bonaventure about an hour before it closed for the day, so I saw it illuminated by the afternoon sun.

I recognized the paths that cross the cemetery as former thoroughfares for horse-drawn carriages, either hearses or otherwise.

As the second image illustrates, azaleas were in full bloom across the grounds, which was also populated by Southern live oaks, palms and much other flora. In its lushness, and Spanish moss, the cemetery reminded me of Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, but without the water features or alligators.

The 160-acre Bonaventure, formerly the site of a plantation of the same name, became a cemetery in 1868, with the city acquiring it in 1907. It’s still an active cemetery.

There aren’t many mausoleums, though there are some sizable memorials and a little funerary art.

I didn’t go looking for notable permanent residents. Who, after all, could compare with Button Gwinnett? But I did see some intriguing stones.

There’s a story in that stone, turns out. More than one. For his part, William Boardman Estill was a veteran of the Revolution, as noted on the back of his stone.

He was also the father and grandfather of some notables, who are listed on the stone, which looks like a fairly recent replacement (erected by the Sons of the American Revolution, would be my guess). William Estill was editor of the Charleston Daily Advertiser, while John Holbrook Estill was editor of the Savannah Morning News, besides being wounded at First Manassas.

Somehow William B. Estill got caught at sea in the great hurricane of 1804, a storm I’d never heard of till now. Bad luck for him, since “the hurricane of 1804 was the first since 1752 to strike Georgia with such strength. Damage to ships was considerable, especially offshore Georgia,” says Wiki, citing a book called Early American hurricanes, 1492–1870 (1963).

Damage to coastal Georgia and South Carolina was also considerable, including the destruction of Ft. Greene on Cockspur Island, later the site of Ft. Pulaski.

“Once the Revolutionary War ended, the new United States would build a fort on the site of Fort George in 1794-95,” the National Park Service says. “This new fort was constructed very much like Fort George (earth and log) and would be named for the Revolutionary War hero, General Nathaniel [sic] Greene. The life of Fort Greene would be short and tragic. In September 1804, a hurricane swept across the island, washing away all vestiges of the Fort.”

Small Slices of Historic Savannah

Posted on March 15, 2022 by admin

Nice day here in northern Illinois — mid-50s degrees F. by early afternoon, little wind and bright sun. I ate lunch on my deck today for the first time this year.

I haven’t read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994), nor seen the movie based on the book (1997). Maybe I should, if for no other reason than we happened by the prime locus of the story during our visit to Savannah, as we passed through Monterey Square: the Mercer House, where one Jim Williams shot one Danny Hansford to death in 1981.

Quite a story. After four trials, Williams was ultimately acquitted of murder, though he didn’t live much longer after the acquittal. The story lives on, however, at least as something that still seems to attract tourists to Savannah.

“According to records from Visit Savannah, about 5,010,000 people visited Savannah in 1993, spending $587 million; in 1994, visitors increased to 5,029,000, contributing $629 million to the local economy,” the Savannah Morning News reported in 2019. “The following year, in 1995, visitor numbers jumped to 5,348,000 and spending increased to $673.4 million.”

Could be a coincidence, though the News notes another bump up in visitors after the movie came out, without citing any numbers. Besides, it’s completely believable that people show up at a place in the wake of a bestselling book or popular movie featuring the place, and the more lurid the story, and exotic the setting, the better.

We wandered by plenty of other intriguing buildings in Savannah, some on our guided tour, others by happenstance. Our guide had a knack for telling stories about Savannah history, which has its fascinations. But he wasn’t so keen on the architecture of the city, which is visibly rich and varied.

Within sight of Johnson Square is Beaux-Arts Savannah City Hall, designed by local architect Hyman Witcover and completed in 1906. We didn’t get any closer, but it was still easy to see the detail that I liked: the gold leaf dome, reportedly Dahlonega-area gold.

A building on Chippewa Square: the Philbrick-Eastman House, these days corporate headquarters for a chain of convenience stories.

“Built on one of Savannah’s original trust lots by Irish-born architect Charles B. Cluskey, the house features Doric columns, 14-foot ceilings, elaborate crown moldings and the original oak floors,” the company web site notes.

Also on Chippewa Square, 15 W. Perry St., built in 1867. You might call it an example of the garden-variety historic structures that populates so much of the historic district. Doesn’t make the must-see lists, but its like are still essential to the historic fabric of the city.

Just north of Forsyth Park on Bull St. is the Armstrong House, dating from 1919 and built for Savannah business mogul George Ferguson Armstrong. Or, as the current owner, hotelier Richard C. Kessler, is wont to call the place, the Armstrong Kessler Mansion.

“Designed by world-renowned Beaux Arts architect Henrik Wallin, the original Armstrong Mansion is the only Italian Renaissance Revival home in Savannah listed in the authoritative A Field Guide to American Houses,” the mansion’s web site says. It was restored in the 1960s by Jim Williams, he of such protracted legal problems in the 1980s, and the 2010s restoration undertaken by Kessler left it looking spiffy indeed.

In the Armstrong yard sits a copy of “Il Porcellino,” the bronze wild boar of Florence.

A remarkable number of copies exist in places as diverse as Sydney Hospital in Australia, Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, Country Club Plaza in Kansas City and a lot of other places, according to Wiki. I won’t bother to try to confirm all of them. Curiously, the page doesn’t list the one in Savannah.

Besides the Methodist church we managed to enter — just as Sunday services ended — we passed by a number of religious sites that were closed. On Bull St. is the Independent Presbyterian Church.

There’s a presidential connection. Maybe two. The original church on the site, according to the Georgia Historic Commission plaque on site, was dedicated in 1819 “with impressive services that were attended by President James Monroe.”

That church burned down late in the 19th century. The current church was completed in 1891, with the architect, William G. Preston, following “the general plan of the former structure,” the plaque notes, adding that “Ellen Louise Axson, who was born in the manse of the Independent Presbyterian Church in 1860, was married in 1885 to Woodrow Wilson… in a room in the manse.”

On Monterey Square is Congregation Mickve Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in the U.S.

The current Gothic Revival structure — unusual for a synagogue building — was designed by Henry G. Harrison and completed in 1878 (some interior shots are here).

The Jewish presence in Savannah, and indeed Georgia, started much earlier, when a group of mostly Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese extraction arrived in the brand-new colony in 1733. They had previously fled to London after finding the Iberian peninsula inhospitable (they did expect the Spanish Inquisition, it seems), and it was this group that organized the synagogue in 1735.

The first trustees of Georgia banned Jews (and Catholics) from the colony, but that had no more effect than banning rum, which they also tried to do. Gen. Oglethorpe apparently decided that he needed all the colonists he could get. The colonists apparently decided they needed all the rum they could get.

Another (tenuous) presidential connection is cited on the synagogue’s Georgia Historic Commission plaque:

“In 1789, the Congregation received a letter from President George Washington which stated in part: ‘May the same wonder-working Deity who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in the promised land — whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation — still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.’ ”

Man, presidents don’t write letters like that anymore.

We wandered by the Cathedral of St. John of Baptist twice, but found it closed each time. That’s too bad, since I understand the interior is striking, as depicted in this breathless description.

Religious émigrés founded this congregation as well, in this case those fleeing revolutions in France and Haiti in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The current building dates from the 1870s, when Ephraim Francis Baldwin designed the church in a High Victorian Gothic style. His was an interesting practice: he specialized in churches, but also railroad stations. There was growing demand for both back then, after all.

“The Church of St. John the Baptist became a cathedral in 1850 when the Diocese of Savannah was established with the Right Reverend Francis X. Gartland as its first bishop,” its Georgia Historic Commission plaque says. “The Cathedral was dedicated at this site on April 30, 1876. A fire in 1898 destroyed much of the structure. It was quickly rebuilt and opened again in 1900. Another major restoration took place in 2000.”

Savannah Walkabouts

Posted on March 14, 2022 by admin

Unusual, for a U.S. city anyway, the streets of the Savannah Historic District form a grid linking a series of large green squares, meaning that in our time you’ll encounter a pleasant city park every few blocks, once you’re in the city center. The modern streets and squares hew to a plan implemented by James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia.

“Oglethorpe laid out the city around a series of squares and laid out the streets in a grid pattern,” the Georgia Historical Society says. “Each square had a small community of colonists living around it and had separate lots dedicated to community buildings.

“Noble Jones was the first surveyor in the new colony and helped Oglethorpe fulfill his dream of a planned city. Oglethorpe also worked with Colonel William Bull to lay out the new city. Bull came from South Carolina and served as the city’s first architect, overseeing the design and construction of the earliest buildings.”

We did two long walks through the historic city, one each last Sunday and Monday. The first walk was guided, following a straight course on Bull Street from Johnson Square through to Wright Square, Chippewa Square, Madison Square — crossing the remarkably picturesque Jones Street — and Monterey Square, ending at the rectangular Forsyth Park and its impressive fountain. We also crossed Oglethorpe Street; like in many cities, old pioneers later became streets.

Our second walk was more meandering, starting near Colonial Park Cemetery and heading north toward the Savannah River, which we eventually reached, exploring the cobblestoned streets and alleys and brick buildings that used to be the heart of the waterfront cotton market. These days, the place attracts tourists en masse to its restaurants, bars and shops, and we joined the masse for a little while, taking in the view of the Savannah River and the Talmadge Memorial Bridge.

Savannah has one of the lusher downtowns I’ve ever seen, marked by a profusion of tall trees and bushes and ground cover. The squares were especially lush places.

Flowers, too, though I think there will be more as spring matures into summer.

Some of the streets were almost as lush. This is Jones Street, famed for its handsome houses, but also shady trees. You’re going to need shade most of the year in Savannah.

Many of the squares feature memorials of one kind or another. In Johnson Square stands a memorial to Nathanael Greene, Quaker general of the Revolution who had a gift for inspiring pyrrhic victories among his British opponents. Not only is this a memorial to Greene, he’s buried under it.

A design by William Strickland, the Philadelphian who moved to Nashville who did the Second Bank of the United States, Tennessee State Capitol and a lot else besides.

In Chippewa Square, Gen. Oglethorpe stands looking out toward the state he founded, maybe enjoying the shade as well. Designed by Daniel Chester French, dedicated in 1910.

Casimir Pulaski, swashbuckling Polish cavalryman who died during the Siege of Savannah, is honored in Monterey Square with a memorial by Robert Launitz.

A number of other historic figures are honored in the squares, some of whose memorials we saw, such as that of William Jasper, a soldier who also died in the Siege of Savannah; John Wesley (as mentioned yesterday); and railroad exec William Washington Gordon, who was also a mayor of Savannah.

Gordon’s sizable late 19th-century memorial was built on top of the grave of Tomochichi, the Indian chief who allowed Oglethorpe to settle the site that would become Savannah. Tomochichi’s grave had previously been the site of a memorial to Native leader, but that had been lost to time before the Gordon memorial was erected. An interesting, if convoluted story, is told in academic detail here. Tomochichi has a separate memorial near the Gordon memorial.

A good many other memorials are scattered here and there in the squares and in between.

At the southern edge of the historic district is Forsyth Park, at 30 acres much larger than any of the city squares.

The park’s centerpiece is a splendid fountain, installed in 1858 and a creation of the same Bronx foundry that did the U.S. Capitol dome and, later, railings for the Brooklyn Bridge, among many other projects.

As charming a park as you’ll find anywhere. Sometimes life is a walk through the park, or better yet, through a lush historic district.

Savannah ’22

Posted on March 13, 2022 by admin

What to do during spring break on a three-night jaunt? Go somewhere that’s actually experiencing spring. A week ago Saturday, Ann and I flew to Savannah, Georgia, where the grass is green and the air warm, and the azaleas are in profuse bloom —

— and Spanish moss festoons tree after tree after tree, silver-gray and airy by day, slightly sinister by night, in the right light.

Besides pleasant flora, Savannah has much else to recommend it. I’ve known as much for years, but sometimes it takes years to get around to visiting even the most intriguing places.

We took long walks in the Savannah Historic District, which is enormous and very much lives up to its title, with street after street lined with the sort of aesthetic and storied buildings that speak of earlier times, both more genteel and more cruel. They also speak of restoration in the 20th and 21st centuries, and a new affluence for the city in our time.

We also spent time out from Savannah, as far afield as drives through the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and through the beach town of Tybee Island, with a longer visit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.

Naturally, I had to visit Bonaventure Cemetery, famed in book and movie, and alive with other tourists and explosions of spring azaleas. And Spanish moss. Lots of Spanish moss on towering southern live oaks.

We ate well: plentiful seafood, kolaches as delightful as in Texas, hardy diner fare, innovative sliders and amazingly delicious fried chicken at a regional chain in suburban Savannah, our first meal after arrival and a tiresome experience in the long line to claim our rental car.

We slept well: I think I surprised Ann by booking a room at a one-of-a-kind inn a mile or so from the historic district, a sizable 1906 house renovated in the early 21st century for guests like us. Each room had its own theme, and the common areas were comfortable and ornate. Best of all, it really was an independent hotel, not a faux unique property of a high-priced boutique chain, and so I didn’t pay the moon.

We were also did a kind of Methodist pilgrimage, odd as that sounds. First, the only Savannah church we were able to enter during our visit was Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, completed in 1890.

During our visit to Fort Pulaski NM the next day, we encountered the John Wesley Memorial.
The memorial says (among other things): John Wesley landed in America on this island, February 6, 1736. He was still an Anglican priest at the time.

That evening at dusk, we strolled into Savannah’s Reynolds Square, and there he stood.

The pilgrimage wasn’t planned. I don’t belong to that denomination, though of course I know that in earlier days, they ran with a pretty rough crowd.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There