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.

February Presidents

Posted on February 21, 2022 by admin

Almost forgot about “Presidents Day,” as AP recommends it be styled (no apostrophe). It’s fairly forgettable, especially when it’s an ordinary work day. As I’ve mentioned before, there isn’t any agreement among the several states about exactly what’s being celebrated, or what it should be called, though federal law specifies Washington’s Birthday.

Not such a bad thing, I believe. It’s Washington we’re honoring, not Kim Il-sung. Lockstep not required.

Those U.S. presidents born in February include not only Washington (22nd, N.S., 11th, O.S.) and Lincoln (12th) but also Ronald Reagan (6th) and famed short-timer William Henry Harrison (9th).

Of course, Washington and Lincoln get most of the attention. Often in the same image. This series dates from 1865. For obvious reasons.

Not an array that you see much any more in popular images of these presidents. The Victorians had different sensibilities, after all. The second one at least is an albumen print after a painting by Stephen James Ferris (1835-1915), a Philadelphia engraver, etcher, illustrator and portraitist.

Charlotte 2017

Posted on February 20, 2022 by admin

Has it been five years since I visited Charleston? It has. Seems like an age ago, but so does everything before about two years ago. Still, it was a good trip, and it reminds me that I ought visit that part of the country again.

To facilitate my visit to Charleston, I flew in and out of Charlotte, driving from there. That was another place I’d never been but, interestingly, had been writing about as a real estate market for a few years at that point (I don’t any more).

I was able to spend a few hours looking around downtown Charlotte, which is actually known as Uptown Charlotte. It was a hopping real estate market at the time, with a lot of construction.

Along with fairly recent developments, such as this apartment tower (VUE, completed in 2010).

I also spotted some Uptown Charlotte artwork, such as “Grande Disco” (1974) by Arnaldo Pomodoro, a Milanese sculptor who’s still alive, at last report, at 95.

It’s in a plaza near the intersection of Tryon and Trade streets. At the four street corners of that intersection are four sculptures — allegories representing Commerce, Industry, Transportation, and The Future, by Raymond Kaskey.

I only have presentable pictures of two of them. Apparently this is Commerce, which was kicked off in the area in the 1830s when gold was discovered.

For Industry, a woman wearing textiles. Because that was an early industry in the region. More about the sculptures is at an article published by WCNC the same year I visited.

I can’t track down this memorable image, and I didn’t take notes, but it was on a brick wall not too far from Tryon St. Maybe it’s gone now.

Something that’s definitely not on Tryon St. any more, but it was when I wandered by in 2017: a memorial to Judah Benjamin.

“Though Benjamin had no connection to Charlotte — his only tie was a week he spent hiding there after the end of the Civil War — the United Daughters of the Confederacy presented the granite monument to the city [in 1948], choosing the spot of his supposed few days in hiding,” Smithsonian magazine says.

It was a dowdy thing, and I feel certain that the memorial was ignored by almost everyone until the summer of 2020. Then it got some attention.

“Steps away from the monument, a new Black Lives Matter street mural, commissioned by the city, burst into colorful view this summer [2020],” Smithsonian continues. “Around the same time, city workers finally extracted the Benjamin stone after a protestor spray-painted it with ‘BLM’ and took a sharp implement to it, though a spokesman says the city is ‘evaluating how best to preserve’ it.”

Lawless Roads, A Greene Enthusiast & The Pecan-Shellers Strike

Posted on January 24, 2022 by admin

Really nice sunset today, red-grays among the lingering clouds that had dropped snow earlier in the day. Too good, I decided, to capture in digital image form. Besides, it’s cold out there.

I picked up Lawless Roads again last night. It was the book I took with me to New York last month, reading about half. Very near the end of my outbound flight, a youngish fellow in the middle seat next to me spied the cover and told me he’d never heard of the book, even though he thought he’d read all of Graham Greene.

I told him it was one of his handful of travel books. He said he would find it and read it. We had to get off the plane pretty soon after that, so I didn’t discuss Greene any further with him. That may be just as well, since I’ve only read a few of his titles, such as The Quiet American, Journey Without Maps, The Third Man, and Travels With My Aunt. I liked all of them, but don’t count myself as an enthusiast.

Early in the book, Greene visits San Antonio, and mentions in passing the city’s pecan shelling industry, whose poorly paid and ill-treated workers were on strike at the time (early 1938).

One thing that struck me was the size of the industry: “Forty-seven pecan shelleries lying discreetly out of sight in San Antonio and they shell in a good year, twenty-one million pounds of nuts,” according to Greene.

“In the 1930s Texas pecans accounted for approximately 50 percent of the nation’s production,” the Handbook of Texas says, revealing an even larger industry than Greene thought. “San Antonio was the Texas shelling center because half the commercial Texas pecans grew within a 250-mile radius of the city.

“The pecan-shelling industry was one of the lowest-paid industries in the United States, with a typical wage ranging between two and three dollars a week. In the nearly 400 shelling factories in San Antonio the contracting system was prevalent; the large firms controlled the supply of nuts as well as the prices for shelling.

“Working conditions were abysmal — illumination was poor, inside toilets and washbowls were nonexistent, and ventilation was inadequate.”

It was a brief flowering for the labor movement in San Antonio, with mixed results, and in a few years the point was moot, with hand shellers generally replaced by machines. By the time I came along, all traces of the industry had vanished, at least as far as I knew. Its memory had vanished as well, again at least as far as I knew.

As labor actions go in San Antonio, that was one of the more memorable ones, yet somehow by the 1970s not even my former Wobbly high school U.S. history teacher, the spirited Mrs. Collins, mentioned it in class. She was from upstate New York, so perhaps had little knowledge of it herself. I had to hear about it from my Government teacher at UT Austin in the summer of ’81, who said he was an adherent of anarchism, but that’s a story for another time.

Main Street, Bloomington

Posted on January 18, 2022 by admin

Seems like the pit of winter has arrived. That’s not necessarily a time of blizzards or ice storms, though it can be. Mainly the pit is unrelenting cold, and some years the pit is deeper than others — more unrelenting, that is.

So far this year, winter has been bleak-midwinter-ish enough, but not viciously so in my neck of North America. There’s still time enough for northern Illinois winter to turn more vicious, of course.

Ann returned to ISU on Sunday, facilitated by me driving her there. It’s a task I don’t mind at all. We had a good conversation en route and listened to music we both like. I won’t go into the details of that right now, but there is a Venn diagram that includes some intersection. Larger than one might think.

Just before I returned her to her dorm and drove home, we visited part of Main Street in Bloomington. It’s an impressive block. Bloomington should be glad it has survived down to the present.

Not only survived, but the buildings are home to one kind of shop or another, mostly nonchain specialty retailers. In fact, all nonchain as far as I could see.

The 400 block of Main between Market and Monroe Sts. has the strongest concentration of late 19th-century commercial structures, with facades looking well-maintained in our time.

Featuring artwork from our time as well.

Not a lot of plaques that I saw, but I did spot one.

An organization that’s still very much around, but these days, the Harber Building is home to Illinois Tattoo. Ralph Smedley lived quite a long time (1878-1965), mostly in California, where the organization really took off.

Over a storefront occupied by Ayurveda for Healing, which promises a “holistic path for wellness and optimal health,” there’s a remarkable set of metal figures.

Detail.

Ayurveda for Healing, which I assume takes its inspiration from South Asian practices, has three locations, including this one in Bloomington, along with Chicago and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Just a block over, the 500 block of Main isn’t what it used to be. This is what it used to be, in an image borrowed from the McLean County Museum of History.

This is what I saw, let’s say roughly 90-odd years later.

To take that image of the mural, I was standing in a parking lot where a Montgomery Ward store used to be. Too bad for what has been lost, but fragments are mostly what we have of the past anyway, and it’s good to spot them.

First Thursday of the Year Musings

Posted on January 6, 2022 by admin

Little wind today, which made the outdoors marginally better to experience. But not much. Tonight will be really cold, an illustration of the superiority of the Fahrenheit scale for everyday use, with 0 degrees being really cold and 100 degrees really hot.

I can’t remember exactly when I read it, but years ago there was an item in Mad magazine lampooning the midcentury notion — the quaint notion, as it turned out — that Americans were going to have a surfeit of leisure time in the future, including a vast expansion of the number of holidays. Millard Fillmore’s birthday was a suggested holiday.

Well, that’s tomorrow, and I have to work. That idea about leisure time didn’t pan out anyway. But I will acknowledge the 13th president’s birthday, because why not. Besides, I paid my respects to President Fillmore in person recently.

Today’s also a good day to acknowledge the expansion, ever so slow, of the public domain, eking out growth despite the rapacious efforts of certain media oligopolists whose mascot is a rodent. Works published in 1926 are now in the public domain.

I’m happy to report that The Sun Also Rises is one of those works, to cite one of the better-known novels of 1926. I could have quoted it previously, and in fact I have, relying on notions of fair use. Now all the words are freely available, no questions asked.

“Here’s a taxidermist’s,” Bill said. “Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”

“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”

“Come on.”

“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ’em or leave ’em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”

“Come on.”

“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”

“We’ll get one on the way back.”

“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

Speaking of life between the wars…

If that song doesn’t make you smile, what will?

Wall Street

Posted on December 20, 2021 by admin

Not too many streets get to be metonyms, but Wall Street does, which is a little remarkable for such a short street, only eight blocks from the East River to Broadway, or vice versa. During my walk along the street just before sunset, I wanted to take a closer look at the physical street, not its high finance subtext, which I hear about enough as it is.

I started at the East River Waterfront Esplanade, near where Wall Street meets South Street, which is partly under FDR Drive. You can catch a fine view of Brooklyn from the esplanade.

That’s as close as I got to Brooklyn this time around, as opposed to some other trips.

An enlargement of the sidewalk on the easternmost block of Wall Street forms Mannahatta Park, a pleasant place with bushes and trees and benches. Rose bushes bloomed there this December.

More than two centuries ago, the site was New York’s slave market, and surely not a pleasant place. The city erected a sign only in 2015 to mark the doleful history of the site.

At the corner of Water and Wall is 88 Wall Street, these days the Wall Street Hotel, very much an upmarket property (and not where I stayed) that opened only this year in a former office building.

The hotel’s web site has an unusually long and detailed history of the site, which is only fitting, considering the richly layered history of the street. One of the more remarkable snippets of 88 Wall Street history is the fact that a series of two buildings on the site from 1791 to 1870 were owned by a tontine, and known as the Tontine Coffee House and then the Tontine Building. Out of the 203 investors who had funded the coffee house, seven survived to be beneficiaries of the tontine.

The current building, a Beaux-Arts structure designed by Clinton Holton & Russell in 1901, was for a time home to an import company that was, among many other things, the world’s largest dealer in mother-of-pearl. When plastic buttons bottomed out the market for that material, the company went into cultured pearls.

By the time you pass 88 Wall Street, the thoroughfare takes on its famed canyon-like aspect.

Next to 88 is 74 Wall Street. Its entrance caught my attention.

The ever-useful New York Songlines says: “This round-arched building was put up in 1926 as the Seamen’s Bank for Savings Headquarters (hence the seahorses, mermaids and other nautical motifs); the architect was Benjamin Wistar Morris.”

Nautical motifs, all right, though Seaman’s Bank is long gone.

Almost as remarkable, the building seems to be vacant. Then again, maybe not so remarkable. Despite the persistence of Wall Street as an metonym, and the presence of the New York Stock Exchange, the street hasn’t been the hub of U.S. finance in many years; that moved on to Midtown.

Though not on Wall Street, 1 Wall Street Court — the Beaver Building, 1904 — is visible from there.

67 Wall Street, now a residential co-op.

Songlines again: “This 25-story triangular building, originally known as the Munson Building, was designed in 1906 by Kenneth M. Murchison for the Munson Steamship [Line]. From 1931 until 1972 it was the New York Cocoa Exchange.”

63 Wall Street.

60 Wall Street, a 1988 building designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo.

Originally Morgan Bank’s HQ, these days Deutsche Bank occupies it. I found the lobby impressive.

Soon after this point, it’s pedestrians only. Trinity Church isn’t far away.

40 Wall Street.

Lots of history here. A picture of the upper section.

Songlines: “Formerly the Manhattan Bank Building, this was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but was beaten out by the Chrysler Building’s surprise spire…

“The Bank of the Manhattan Company, which eventually became Chase Manhattan, opened its first office here in September 1799. It was founded by Aaron Burr against the opposition of Alexander Hamilton. The New York Stock & Exchange Board, as the NYSE was then called, had its first permanent office here in 1817.

“Donald Trump calls this the Trump Building; please don’t encourage him.”

37 Wall Street.

A familiar name, but Tiffany’s is a fairly recent occupant. Designed by Francis H. Kimball, a very busy New York architect, the building originally housed the Trust Company of America in 1907, and then a series of other banks. The upper floors are now residential.

Before long, one comes to Federal Hall National Memorial, which is behind some scaffolding now.

George looks a bit cut off up there. Looking down pensively, perhaps, on the nation he created.

There’s plenty else on Wall Street that’s perhaps a little less permanent. For instance, sources of affordable food to price-oppressed New Yorkers.

I bought a falafel at that first one, delicious and large enough to make part of dinner two nights in a row.

Also, men working.

Finally, I couldn’t very well come to Wall Street without a look at the NYSE (11 Wall Street), whose after-hours trading floor I got to visit in 2002.

“It’s a primary rain forest of electronic equipment — the guts of the capitalist beast — no, the sinews of the Invisible Hand,” I wrote at the time. Looking at the allegory-stuffed pediment, I’d also say Temple of Commerce.

Despotism In Jest & In Earnest

Posted on December 13, 2021 by admin

Back around December 19. Got things to do and, maybe, a few things to see.

Today’s amusement: I happened across this photo.

I’ve seen a lot of pictures of President Roosevelt, but never this one, which I downloaded from the National Archives. The occasion was a Roman-themed birthday party for the president, January 30, 1934.

Among other things, FDR’s enemies accused him of despotic tendencies, and it looks like he decided to make fun of the notion as Emperor Roosevelt.

Speaking of despotism, somehow our gnome ended up on the Christmas tree.

Dreaming of a red Christmas, no doubt. Except that reds don’t celebrate Christmas. Of course, Stalin could have, if he’d wanted to. He was Stalin.

I’d better keep an eye out, or some of the other ornaments might be sent off to parts remote, including the great beyond, as Christmas tree wreckers.

Wright in Dwight, But Also Odd Fellows, Cobb, and a Relic of Quackery

Posted on December 1, 2021 by admin

Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station is on the edge of Dwight, Illinois, not far from the Interstate, and after our short visit on Sunday, Ann and I went further into town, seeking a late lunch. We found it at El Cancun, a Mexican restaurant in the former (current?) Independent Order of Odd Fellows building, dating from 1916. Looks like the orange of the restaurant has been pasted on the less-colorful IOOF structure.

I didn’t notice IOOF on the building until after lunch, so I didn’t think to ask the waiter about the building, though I did notice that the restaurant space, whose walls were large and colorfully painted, had a gray ceiling that evoked the late 19th/early 20th century. Maybe once upon a time it was a meeting room or bar for the Odd Fellows of greater Dwight.

Even if I’d asked the waiter, I’m not sure he would have known. Got the impression he didn’t grow up in these parts. He was eager to upsell me a margarita, however. I declined. Had the enchiladas verdes, which were quite good, and a classic teetotaler beverage, water.

The IOOF building is across the street from the back of Dwight’s historic railroad station, now a museum. This is the front.

About the depot, more info is easily available. “As with other neighboring central Illinois towns, Dwight began as a locomotive watering stopover,” explains The Great American Stations (now that’s an interesting web site).

“The Chicago and Mississippi Railroad sent surveyors in the early 1850s to this prairie location, and while the stop was just two small buildings and a water tank, James Spencer, Richard Price Morgan, John Lathrop and the brothers Jesse and Kersey Fell of Bloomington participated in laying out a town that they would name for Henry Dwight, who had funded most of the building of this section of the railroad.

“Dwight began growing rapidly in the 1870s, with significant railroad traffic through to Chicago from St. Louis, and the town hired Henry Ives Cobb to design their larger, grander railroad depot.”

Jesse Fell, by golly. Him again. He was definitely a big fish in the little pond of central Illinois.

As for Cobb, he designed the wonderful Newberry Library in Chicago and the phallic but interesting Yerkes Observatory in southern Wisconsin, among many other things.

But for big-name architecture, Cobb’s work isn’t Dwight’s star attraction. That would be the modest Frank Lloyd Wright bank building facing the front of the station. FLW was trying to smash that pre-FDIC paradigm of grand bank buildings, it seems.

Known as the Frank L. Smith Bank when built in 1905, it’s now the Dwight Banking Center of Peoples National Bank of Kewanee. I like the old name better: Frank’s Bank. How many of us get to have our own banks?

Next to the bank is the Fox Development Center, a state-owned facility for treating people with various unfortunate conditions.

Pretty spiffy for a government structure, eh? Originally it was one of the buildings owned by the Keeley Institute, built in 1891 and rebuilt after a fire in 1902 in its current brick-and-stone Greek revival style.

I wasn’t familiar with the Keeley Institute. Here’s the long and short of it: there was a patent medicine for everything in the late 19th century, and the product of one Leslie Keeley, a small town doc, promised to cure alcoholism with injections and liquids to drink. His cure containing a substance whose exact formula was a secret, though Keeley asserted it contained the element gold in one form or another.

Not too many people believed that, but a lot of people believed the Gold Cure might just work, enough to make Keeley a fortune and open up locations around the world that lasted well into the 20th century. The institute’s international HQ was in Dwight.

Curing alcoholism with injections might seem odd to us, but actual medicine was only just beginning to separate itself from patent medicine in those days.

“I will take any liquor habitue there, soddened and saturated by twenty years of alcoholic debauch, sober him in two hours, cut short his worst spree in four hours, take him from inebriety to perfect sobriety without nervous shock or distress, and leave him antipathetic to alcoholic stimulants of every sort and kind inside of three days,” Keeley said of his treatment. He also developed “cures” for opium addition and nervous exhaustion. Ah, if only it were that easy.

Note the slogan on this ad for the Gold Cure.

We Belt The World. Though it’s a little hard to see, that same slogan is still above the entrance of the Fox Development Center, wrapped around a globe in the pediment.

More about Keeley and the Gold Cure is here. Fascinating the things you find on the road.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: US History