Every other month or two on a whim, I get the urge to drive to the historic district of Charleston, right at or about the end of sunset when it is starting to get dark and the street lights come on. I focus on the last few blocks of Lower Meeting and King streets.
I like this time of early evening because the street illumination, and the shadows of impending night, impart to this perfectly preserved section of the old city a timeless ambience, more so even than during the day. There are fewer cars and tourists about, and since I know this area and its houses and gardens quite well from 30 years of walking and photographing, I feel quite comfortable I these surroundings, as If for my whole life I have been acquainted with the familiar streets and homes. At the other end of the street is the historic Presbyterian church and cemetery where ancestors going back to the 1700s on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family are buried.
Now it’s even simpler and more convenient to take pictures with my iPhone. Later models are much more advanced in every regard, including the camera. The flash and automatic timers work really well, even when night has fully set in.
After so many years of wandering these streets, as a local tourist in his own city might, I never get tired of the beauty of the wide variety of architecture and houses, many of which are more than 200 years old.
Charleston has always been a leader among U.S. cities in historic preservation, and if it weren’t for the cars and paved streets, the old city now would be an almost perfect replica of the city in the century following its founding in 1670.
I did a little research into both streets, focusing on Meeting Street, and discovered some things I hadn’t known. There are endless possibilities for historical research in this city, spanning pre-Revolutionary War times, the ante-bellum years, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, up until the present.
Meeting Street ws basically the spine of Charleston when the city was young, wealthy, elegant, and deeply divided by class, race, trade, and the poverty that separated the poor from the wealthy planters and merchants. By the early 1800s Meeting Street was one of the most important streets in the South — socially, politically, religiously, and architecturally.
It ran (as it still does) from the waterfront area northward, cutting through the heart of the city. One passes many tall, narrow “single houses” — Charleston’s signature architectural style — which were built perpendicular to the street. All of them had side piazzas or porches, to catch sea breezes. They were built of stuccoed brick, pastel limewash, and wrought iron. Carriage gates lead to inner courtyards and gardens.
These grand and opulent houses belonged to rice planters; indigo and Sea Island cotton magnates; merchants tied to the Atlantic trade, and lawyers and political leaders. Charleston in this era was one of the wealthiest cities in North America.
I am always aware that Meeting Street also ran through the heart of a slave society. Behind those elegant facades of the massive three and four-story houses and mansions, enslaved people lived in outbuildings. Skilled, enslaved artisans built most of the houses and commercial buildings in a variety of architectural styles.
The wealth displayed on Meeting and surrounding streets was tied directly to plantation labor. Charleston around 1800 was one of the wealthiest and most slave-dependent cities in the U.S.
As one observer has noted, “The contrast between refinement and brutality was built into the architectural and social landscape.”
The entire historic district of 768 acres, or 1.2 sq miles, is not a living history museum, but rather a vibrant community of distinct neighborhoods or boroughs where history is alive on every corner. Many of the houses would now sell for from $10-20 million and beyond.
Its inhabitants today are a mix of descendants of the wealthy original settlers who had the houses constructed for their families, descendants of formerly enslaved Africans, and the huge influx of newcomers since the Second World War who wanted to live in and be surrounded by history and beauty, proximity to the oceans and beach towns, and also those who nowadays invest in ever more valuable historic real estate, such as found along and near Meeting and King Streets.
The more I think about it, the historic district seems like a history book fantasy world. The present is left behind as you enter the historic enclaves that beckon and encourage exploration, research and thinking about the long history of this part of the South Carolina Lowcountry, including the horrific slave culture that produced the magnificent houses and plantations with their enchanting gardens we look at with wonder and awe today.
I am linking to three albums of photos I took one night last week in between the two big freeze weather events we’ve had. I take my photos quickly, with both intuition and experience guiding the compositions. Doing this over decades has honed my skills. The atmosphere and mood this area conveys is quite unique, and lends itself perfectly to endless photo opportunities, in all seasons and times of day. It’s always different.
a data-flickr-embed=”true” href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/55065334165/in/dateposted/” title=”Untitled”>
Part 1
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/P60z86Cdyi
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