Posts for category ‘Savannah Stories’

Savannah has a plethora of trolleys.  Most serve as guided tours providing insight into Savannah’s history and famous residents.  However, one trolley appears to offer a first-hand look into the past.

According to this story from WSAV,  “Mystery Letters Found Inside Trolley Car“,  some personal letter were found in a rail car in the process of restoration.

The video shows some quick footage from the RoundHouse Railrod Musuem, a great place for kids and families visiting Savannah. It also explains that the letters were postmarked in 1950, yet the trolley was phased out in the 1940s.

There’s a search underway for anyone who might be connected to the mysterious letters.

Need a place to stay while visiting Savannah, check out this 2 bedroom/2.5 townhome, or 3 bedroom/3 bath rowhouse. Both are walking distance from downtown Savannah and the RoundHouse Railroad Museum.

If you walk by 1511 Price St.  in Savannah’s Historic District, you’re probably not going to think much. The dilapidated, boarded up home gives no hint of its historic significance.

But it was the home of Mother Matilda Beasley, Georgia’s first black nun and founder of the St. Francis Home for Colored Orphans.

Near the end of her life, she sewed everything she could and gave the proceeds from her work to poor blacks.

Chatham county (where Savannah is located) is now restoring the home to its 20th century condition and using it as an education center, per the Savannah Morning News.

It will also relocate the home to the East Broad Street dog park that bears Beasley’s name.  (The park is a block away from the Gaston Street Getaway, a 3-bedroom, 3 bath vacation rental).

While it’s not clear whether the home will be a tourist attraction, hopefully it will create greater awareness for the contributions of this fine woman. Restoration is scheduled for completion in November, 2009.

If April showers have kept you from exploring the city’s famous Historic District,  you may want to check out the Savannah Mall.

The Abercorn Street mall has more than 100 stores, and is offering double rewards points this month for purchases made at the mall.  With 1000 points, shoppers can get a $25 gift card for use at any mall merchant.

Ordinarily, rewards participants get 1 rewards point for every dollar spent at Savannah Mall.  Through April 30, participants get 2 rewards points for every dollar spent.

Shoppers can turn in their same day receipts at the Customer Service Center and start accumulating points!   Certain restrictions do apply, so please see the Customer Service Center for more details, or check out savannahmall.com/events.

(Note: for families with children, the mall has a carousel on the second floor, which is a nice treat for children).

Treat Your Kids to the Beach and Ice Cream at the Sugar Shack

The Sugar Shack at Tybee Island

If you plan on vacationing in Savannah this summer, make sure you visit Tybee Island, about 20 minutes by car from the downtown Historic District.

It’s a wonderful beach, and a great day trip.

Unlike its neighbors to the North And South, Tybee Island isn’t over-commercialized. It’s also free, and open to the public. There are a few paid parking lots, as well as street parking. But make sure you bring plenty of quarters, because the meter maids are vigilant.

After spending a day at the beach, we recommend that you treat your kids to the “The Sugar Shack”, a Tybee ice cream parlor that opened in 1960.  (Although it looks like some of the furnishings still date from that period, the ice cream is very good).

Bruce Grosse owns the place with his parents.  He and his brothers started out selling boiled peanuts (a Savannah delicacy) up and down the beach.  They saved up $2,000 and ended up buying “The Sugar Shack” at a silent auction.

You can’t miss the place.  It’s on the left just before you go around a big curve on Butler Avenue.

And by the way, we were raised on the Sugar Shack, and our kids are getting their fair share of soft serve ice cream and banana splits, too.

Serving as an extra in “Carny”

If you are in Savannah this week, watch out for  camera crews. A production company is shooting an ABC television pilot around Columbia and Oglethorpe squares, both along York Street.

The pilot, “Solving Charlies, follows two other ABC pilots that were shot in 2006 and 2007 but never made it on the air.

There’s no guarantee that Solving Charlie will make it to television screens either.

However, the city has a good record for inclusion in many feature films and productions. Both Forrest Gump and Vagger Bance were shot – in part – in Savannah.

And my husband, Mark, was an extra in the movie Carny, which was filmed in Savannah in 1980, when he was attending Benedictine Military School, a Catholic high school in Savannah.

The film, which was about carnival life, featured Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist of the group, “The Band”. “Carny” also featured another fine actor, Elisha Cook, Jr., who gained fame in the 1940s and 50s in such films as “Shane”, “The Great Gatsby”, “The Maltese Falcon” and “Sergeant York”.

Mark’s role was to walk around the carnival set and play carnival games when the camera rolled.  During one scene Mark is playing ring toss and Robbie walks up to the game, converses with the attendant, then walks away right past him.  He  got paid about $35 a day.

St. Patrick’s Day is one of Savannah’s most enjoyable and well-known events. It starts with festivities the night before, when just about every Downtown, Savannah bar is packed with both tourists and locals savoring green beer and changing their ancestry to Irish (If they are not already).

Our favorite place is Pinkie Masters. It’s on the corner of Drayton and Liberty (just a few blocks from the Heritage House). It’s much more of a locals hang out than a tourist attraction, and if you go there, you’ll see what we mean.

One interesting tidbit, my husband Mark saw former President Jimmy Carter at Pinkie Masters in the early eighties. He was there with his security team – and just a few feet away. Wonder what he thought of it?

Check out it’s Facebook page.