CITY HALL

The lady holding a ship stands high on City Hall a few stories above a plaque honoring the S.S. Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. The ship steamed from the City Hall location in 1819. Using steam and sail, The Savannah set a new Atlantic record of twenty-nine and a half days.

Thousands of people pass Savannah City Hall on Bay Street each day, either by vehicle or on foot, but that’s too close and too fast to consider and appreciate the towering Beaux Arts – I tali an Ren aissance R e vival masterpiece conceived and constructed by H ym an Witcover.

To do so, and gain a grasp of its historic context, you’ve got to step back to Johnson Square. From there, its flagdraped, 70-foot-high, gold-leafed dome, perched atop arches, balconies, columns, pilasters, and other architectural and artistic touches comes into focus. It’s still the symbol of strength and stability that the city fathers wanted at the intersection of Bull and Bay streets back in 1903, when they decided to tear down the time-honored, yet tattered City Exchange, and build a new city hall.

The site, at that time, was considered “the financial, political and commercial heart” of the city. The Savannah Morning News, in an article supporting the project, added that it was situated “at the beginning of Savannah’s history,” just yards away from where Gen. James E. Oglethorpe first pitched his tent in 1733.

Mayor Herman Myers and a building committee considered and rejected 14 architectural proposals for a new city hall, and then decided to simply hire an architect and come up with a plan. On May 29, 1903, that responsibility was given to Witcover.

A native of Darlington, S.C., Witcover had moved to Savannah as a teenager to work for prominent architect Alfred S. Eichberg. Witcover opened his own firm in 1900, and one of his earliest projects had been the Sacred Heart Church at Bull and 33rd streets. He put his vision of what the new city hall would look like on display on July 15, 1903, with a large watercolor rendering in the window of a store at Bull Street, near Oglethorpe Avenue.

The proposal, which included four quadrigas – spectacular sculptures of chariots and horses on the corners of the roof – was quickly approved by Myers and the city council. It took a good bit longer, however, to decide on a contractor to turn Witcover’s drawing into city hall.

On March 19, 1904, the mayor and council approved the bid of the Savannah Contracting Co. The sequence, however, involved what today might be referred to as “fuzzy math.” With a bid of $205,500 from an out-of-town company on the floor, the mayor opened the bid from Savannah Contracting, and called out that it was for $205,767, higher than the other possibility. But, the mayor declared a moment later that he wasn’t sure if “this figure is a 7 or a 1.” After some discussion, it was decided that it was a 1, and the bid of $205,167 was accepted.

From there, it took about a week for workmen to start tearing down the circa-1799 City Exchange. On Aug. 11, 1904, Savannah laid the cornerstone of its new city hall with great ceremony. A parade of some 2,000 men marched from Forsyth Park to the site. There, an estimated 12,000 to 20,000 people gathered, in part because the mayor had asked that businesses close that afternoon to allow workers to attend.

A 1903 watercolor rendering of what the new City Hall building was to look like. Note the chariot statuary on the roof, which did not make the budgetary cut. Courtesy of City of Savannah, Research Library & Municipal Archives

Savannah’s city seal is embossed on brass doorknob plates entering the City Council chambers.

present day city hall at two east bay street

Above, laying the cornerstone for Savannah’s new City Hall, August 11, 1904. Below, the rotunda.

(City Hall, continued)

The Masonic ceremony included speeches, prayers and a quartet singing “America.” Witcover himself lowered the cornerstone into place.

The worksite became a popular gathering spot as the city watched the building slowly take shape. On Nov. 29, 1904, two 11-ton limestone columns arrived from a quarry in New Bedford, Ind. They were eventually lifted onto six-foot-high pedestals in the building’s recessed second-floor balcony.

In September of 1905, as the project neared its end, Witcover decided on the designs of sculptor Carl William Winstedt for the 10-foot-high limestone statues of Art and Commerce on another balcony. Winstedt’s proposal was chosen over that of John Walz, the Savannah sculptor whose many works included “Little Gracie” at Bonaventure Cemetery. The city paid $2,800 for the statues, which were lifted into place by a special derrick designed by Winstedt.

As for the quadrigas, the sculptures of chariots and horses proposed for the corners of the roof, they did not make it into the budget for the next year, as was discussed by the city hall building committee, or any year after that.

In October of 1905, the two bells in the city hall tower were tolled for the first time in the manner they would be when the clock was installed and operating the bells. “The chimes first heralded the ringing of the hour bell, and the music from their brazen throats was loud and true,” according to an article in the Savannah Morning News. “Then the deep-throated booming of the big bell which will toll off the hours counted out twelve periods of time. The chimes were pronounced by those who heard them to be unusually clear and sweet, and many stopped in their walk to listen to the unusual sound.”

Finally, on Dec. 21, 1905, Mayor Myers moved into his new office, and the flag was hoisted over the 1,800-square-foot copper dome at 10:40 a.m. Robert Schneider, keeper of the city clocks, rang the bells to announce the event. (Gold leaf was first applied on the dome in 1987, and reapplied in 2008.)

Two opening receptions, one in the afternoon, the other in the evening, brought some 10,000 citizens into the new city hall on Jan. 2, 1906. Mayor Myers made a special effort to speak with the children who attended, and he also purchased a gift for the adults – small trays with a reproduction of city hall on them.

For Hyman Witcover (1871-1936), the new city hall was one of his many accomplishments in Savannah. His other buildings included the Chatham Armory at Bull Street and Park Avenue (now American Legion Post 135), the Jewish Educational Alliance on Barnard Street (now a SCAD residence hall), Congregation B’nai B’rith Jacob’s Synagogue on Montgomery Street (now a SCAD student center) and the Bull Street Library. An active and influential Mason, Witcover designed the Scottish Rite Masonic Center on Madison Square, and also worked on the designs of temples in Jacksonville, Fla., Jackson, Miss., and Montgomery, Ala.

Sources: Savannah Morning News files; City of Savannah Research Library & Municipal Archives; “Historic American Buildings Survey: America’s City Halls”; “The Savannah College of Art and Design: Restoration of an Architectural Heritage,” by Connie Capozzola Pinkerton and Maureen Burke.

THE EXCHANGE BUILDING

Features of the Cotton Exchange Building, designed by William Gibbons Preston, at 100 East Bay Street. Below, a photograph of the Cotton Exchange from 1905.