Things to Do in Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, South Carolina is full of wonderful things to see and do.  I don't really have a top 10 list of things to see and do, but a travelogue...

Charleston is, in some ways, the Manhattan of the South. At least their geographies are similar. Both are flat peninsulas flanked by rivers. Both point south toward the ocean. Both have islands in their harbors. Both are centers of commerce that date to the Colonial era, etc. Both have been America’s wealthiest city. Both have a Battery Park (named after the cannons that used to guard them) on their southern tip. And the pair might be unique in this way.

In contrast, other great Atlantic coast American cities are different: Savannah is 10 miles upriver. Boston faces east and is on hills. Philadelphia in on a river. Washington, DC is far inland and is post-Colonial, etc.

But here the comparisons can end. Manhattan never seems to have stopped moving, constantly plowing over buildings to make bigger, taller and newer ones as land prices went up. Charleston, however, is a time-capsule, quasi frozen in time like Venice, Italy. We can walk the streets and imagine we are seeing what others have seen for three centuries.

Charleston is a peninsula flanked by the Ashley River to its west, the Cooper River to its east and Fort Sumter, barrier islands and the Atlantic Ocean to its south.  

Charleston is, in some ways, the Manhattan of the South.

Charleston is famous for its Charleston Homes, a bona fide named architectural style. These are three story, one room wide, two room deep homes with a narrow street frontage and a good depth. To the windward side of each home is a narrow three story porch that runs the depth of the home Charlestonians call a piazza. The entrance to the home is from the street into the piazza. But the real entrance is in the middle of the piazza into the center of the home, which leads to a narrow corridor and to the room on either side.  

Charleston is full of such homes, and they are in differing states of existence. Some are exquisite, while others look like they are a good wind away from collapse. No doubt these will be saved, gentrified and flipped for fantastic sums of money at some point.

We read about two Charleston sisters who were so opposed to slavery that they became Quakers (and thought of Ann Marie and her family). The Quakers have done so much extraordinary good for our nation and this planet, yet even I who pride myself on loving history and culture don’t know enough about the Quakers.  

Charleston was founded as Charles Towne on the other side of the river, then those early settlers hounded by mosquitos and land that was too marshy, moved across the river and re-founded where it is now.

St. Phillip’s Church is the old money church of Charleston, or at least one of them. Its fine neo-classical shape with its Greek triangular pediment atop of columns could have stepped out of an architecture book on the subject. It evokes Paris’ Pantheon, London’s St. Paul’s, etc., but on a much smaller scale, and having a front-end tall spire instead of a central dome. Its spire has six distinct octagonal drums of different shapes, proportions and architectural styles. The church’s cemetery has two or three signatories of the Declaration of Independence including its youngest, Edward Rutledge, age 26 at the time. It also has Christopher Gadsden’s grave. More about him in a moment.

Charleston was founded as Charles Towne on the other side of the river, then those early settlers hounded by mosquitos and land that was too marshy, moved across the river and re-founded where it is now.

Cobblestone Chalmers Street is a treat. Throughout the colonies, cobblestone used for ballast in ships coming from England and the rest of the Old World. Cobblestone’s stabilized the ships by making them lower in the water than they would have been completely empty. They arrived in the New World, unloaded their cobblestones, and then returned with bountiful raw goods to take back home. Cobblestones were then used to make roads, landfill, ramparts, etc.

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