EMPTY AMERICA: Savannah

Why Savannah?


Well, selfishly, Savannah is one of my favorite cities in the US. Also, I have a friend there that I’ve known for ages and haven’t seen in too long. It gave me a Southeastern point to hit (I didn’t want to go down into Florida then have to drive all the way back, especially post-Spring Break viral outbreak). Also, Savannah is a bustling, albeit Southern slow, party town. It has a very famous Riverwalk bar/restaurant/tourist scene. It is a top-3 St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the US which means it has a foot-hold firmly as a go-to hangout port. And, after having been there numerous times, I can vouch for the fact that it’s always crawling with tourists.


I made my way through Mississippi and spent the night in Alabama. This was at a time when Alabama was still debating how much it was going to comply with the shut-down. The bars and restaurants were closed, everything else was wide open. I figured out that you can tell which was a state was leaning by the amount of traffic you encounter driving through the state. If they were slow on the shelter-in-place mandate, the roads were pretty full and you’d be hard-pressed to spot a business that wasn’t open. If they were early adopters, the streets would be forebodingly dead. Alabama was jumping.


In Savannah I stayed on the out-skirts of downtown (Savannah’s tourist and local hangout hub). I chatted with the neighbors late into the night about coronavirus, Covid-19 and stay-at-home announcements. This is what you talk about to everybody at this time. However, since these are uncertain times and news moves fast and changes constantly, it’s always a new conversation.


The next day I made my way to the Riverwalk.


The drive through downtown Savannah is always a beautiful crawl. The pace is slowed by 28 public squares that eliminate most streets from being straight shots to the river, the Spanish moss canopies the city offering breaks from the oppressive Southern heat and the old Southern gothic style architecture charms you constantly in your slow-moving vehicle.


The area by the River still has the same late 1800’s cobblestone streets, buildings still standing from it’s incarnation as a shipping and sometimes pirate port, and a few rows of shoulder-to-shoulder bars as it’s a very good drinking city.


I wanted to see this area in the daytime. I knew the bars would be close, making streets like Congress obsolete. However, during normal operating hours, places like Lady & Sons are full of hungry tourists and the river walk area itself is a haven for steamboat rides, curio shops and open window dining.


When you visit the South, especially a place like Savannah, with it’s heat, easy-going attitude and drawl way of talking and living, you understand why it’s easy to hang out on a porch or in an open air restaurant for hours on end talking about nothing and not wanting to do anything.


Except when everything’s closed. And the walk now looks like a bygone era. It was almost like walking into a museum exhibit called “Savannah’s past.” The aged storefronts and steamboats and cobblestone structures were there, but you couldn’t use them, enjoy them or touch them really. Everything was just still. Waiting, like so many places I’d visited previously, hoping for this to end so the tourists could return and locals could get paid.


I’ve had a lot of fun nights on the river front and up and down those bars. This brought back memories of the places I’d been to with nothing of the fun times I’d had. This is an old city and it makes you wonder, after so many of these places had survived for almost 100 years, if not more, how many would survive this?


As I’ve done before, when the hunger hits I go local. I got some pizza from Kay’s Pizza (one of the only places open) and headed back to my place.


That night, the neighbors texted. There was going to be a front porch concert! An Irish gentleman down the street had set up his amp, speakers and some lighting on his front porch. He was a local musician and made his scratch on the cruise ship circuit. However, the sign of a true artist is, when all other venues aren’t operating, you make your own venue, even if it’s not for the paycheck you’re used to getting. You just create. And share.


Neighbors spilled out of their houses. Some hung safely on their porches while others ventured closer to the music and laid out folding chairs and blankets, all observing the 6 foot rule which separated couples and families.


As this old Irish musician played Emerald Isle ditties and some American folk covers, another musician on a recorder joined across the street, sometimes playing in harmony, sometimes passing the baton back and forth to each other. It was a full 2-hour concert. In stereo (as it were) and it was wonderful!