I spent January 1, 2013 in Savannah
. The next day, I went to Charleston. According to the 1790 US census
, Charleston was once the 4th largest city in America. There were basically 5 big cities at the time. The others were Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore. Charleston's ranking slowly dropped throughout the early 19th Century, then plummeted after the Civil War.
Although Charleston and Savannah are close geographically and ostensibly similar, being historically large cities now considered small, that's where their similarities end. It's not just that Charleston is less a museum city than Savannah, though that's true, but also that they're simply vastly different types of cities. Savannah is a textbook planned grid. Charleston on the other hand is a medieval mess. While Savannah reminds me of Philadelphia and Montreal, Charleston is a dead ringer for a southern version of Boston, or of lower Manhattan.
Like Manhattan's Broadway, the main street in Charleston runs down the center of the peninsula that is the city. In Charleston it's called King Street. But unlike Manhattan, Charleston's is so narrow you could practically lie down across it.
It's not all historic. There are a few tall buildings poking above here and there, and a fair amount of stuff like this:
From King Street there are 2 important perpendicular streets leading to the waterfront: Market Street and Broad Street.
Market Street is so named because - you guessed it - it's the location of the city's historic market house. The market is several blocks long, and is still used daily.
Broad Street is more of a traditional commercial street, like King Street but wider.
This is the post office, btw.
... in case you couldn't tell.
Unlike Savannah, I saw buses in Charleston!
Between Broad Street and the southern tip of the city lay some of Charleston's oldest and most interesting residential streets.
Some of them are lined with the mansion homes of Charleston's historic elite, each with a garden better than the last.
Except for along the southern tip, the waterfront itself is a mix of former industrial land and still industrial land. There are a few nice little parks in some places, but much of it is still in active use.
The bridge you see in the background is the Ravenel Bridge, opened in 2005.
Across the harbor you can see the Civil War's famous Fort Sumpter
(alas, my pictures of it were even more terrible than the rest of these), and the World War II vintage USS Yorktown.
Moving down towards the tip of the city, the waterfront becomes the battery, a fortified seawall.
At the exact tip of the city is the battery park, once again just like Manhattan. Except in Charleston it's called White Point Garden.
And that's Charleston. Or rather, the tiny part of it that I saw.