Charleston: The City
Charleston's Historic District is fairly self-contained, a predominantly residential area of leaning lines, weathered colors and exquisite hidden courtyards, bounded by Calhoun Street to the north and East Bay Street by the river. It's best taken in by strolling at your own pace - though that pace can get pretty slow at midday in high summer, when the heat is intense. Attractive spots to pause in the shade include the swinging benches at Waterfront Park , a beautifully landscaped piazza with boardwalks leading out over the river, and White Point Gardens , by the Battery on the tip of the peninsula, where the flower-filled lawns have good views across the water and a breeze even in the sweltering summer.Opposite the visitor center, the Charleston Museum , 360 Meeting St (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $7, or $18 with the Joseph Manigault House and Heyward-Washington House; tel 843/722-2996), is the nation's oldest, dating from 1773 (although the original building no longer stands). It's something of a ragbag of city memorabilia, with video presentations on subjects from rice growing to the Huguenots. One intriguing room holds exhibits from its early collections, where pickled snakes once shared space with Egyptian mummies and casts from the British Museum in London. The "head of a New Zealand chief" and a "fine electrical machine," however, were destroyed in a fire of 1778. The tiny (and free) Museum of Postal History located in the Post Office, at 557 E Bay St, is packed with fascinating stuff, such as a postage stamp bearing the face of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that had to be withdrawn because it made him look too much like Lincoln.
Charleston's market area runs from Meeting Street to East Bay Street, focusing on a long, narrow line of enclosed, low-roofed, nineteenth-century sheds, but also spilling out onto the surrounding streets. Undeniably touristy, packed with hard-headed "basket ladies," this is one of the liveliest spots in town, selling junk, spices, tacky T-shirts, jewelry and rugs.
Most of the city's fine houses are private, and can only be admired from the outside. The late nineteenth-century Calhoun Mansion , 16 Meeting St, is among the more extreme, with its ornate plaster and woodwork, hand-painted porcelain ballroom chandeliers and other similar extravagances (Wed-Sun 10am-4pm, closed Jan; $15; tel 843/722-8205). The Charleston Museum's $18 combination ticket gets you into the 1803 Joseph Manigault House , opposite the museum, and the Heyward-Washington House , 87 Church St, built by a rice baron. In the heart of Catfish Row, this was the setting for Dubose Heyward's novel of black waterfront life, Porgy . Admission to each separately is $7 (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm). The stately antebellum Edmonston-Alston House overlooks the harbor at 21 E Battery St (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Mon & Sun 1.30-4.30pm; $8; tel 843/722-7171). The Neoclassical Nathaniel-Russell House , 51 Meeting St (tel 843/724-8481), is noted for its daring flying staircase, which soars unsupported for three floors. Tremendously elegant both inside and out, its piazza-free design also sets it apart from the other mansions. A short walk north of the downtown area at the much scruffier and more faded Aiken-Rhett House , 48 Elizabeth St (tel 843/723-1159), the work-yard and slave quarters are intact, but the mansion itself has been left almost entirely unfurnished, in fact almost empty - and all the better for it. (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; $7 each or $12 for combination ticket). An additional source for black history is the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture , 125 Bull St (Mon-Sat noon-5pm; donation; tel 843/953-7609), where there is a retired nineteenth-century classroom and an archive of personal papers, photographs, oral histories and art, among other items; the center hosts periodic films, lectures and exhibits.
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