Charleston Currents

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This Greenway bin along Canterbury Road overflowed with trash, obviously neglected for awhile compared to other similar locations. Photos by Andy Brack.

PHOTO ESSAY: West Ashley Greenway needs a little tender loving care

Staff reports | If there’s one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has done, it’s made people get outside more often. The perfect testament is the West Ashley Greenway, which seems busier than ever.

But the upside of more use also means there’s more trash and wear on what essentially is a walking park that stretches for miles.

This photo essay shows conditions along the greenway at various West Ashley intersections with city streets.

If you want to let the city know what you think about its parks, the city is undertaking an update to its comprehensive plan (see news briefs), which includes seeking input about parks and recreation.

You can have your say by clicking on this link:

Take the One Charleston park survey.

These photos follow the greenway from Folly Road to Arrington Drive.

by Andy Brack · 08/24/2020 · 1 comment · Focus, Photo Essay, Photos

FOCUS: Encountering hope during a pandemic

By Kyra Morris, contributing editor | It is not over. This pandemic is still wreaking havoc with our lives.

* We still need to wear masks when we go into public places.
* We still need to wear masks anywhere when we are going to be closer than 6 feet from another person.
* We still need to wash our hands after doing any activity that has us touching things.
* We still must be careful about any socialization or eating out.
* We still must consider whether an activity will be indoors where ventilation is a key or outdoors where the air is free-flowing.

The difficult part of this is that the only certainty is uncertainty. How do we therefore determine what is important?

As we continue our journey of uncertainty, many of us experience “hedonic adaptation.” This is the capacity for human beings to adapt to their new circumstances, for better or for worse. Many studies show that we can quickly adapt to a new baseline — a new normal.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 08/17/2020 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: MUSC dashboard offers peeks into the community’s health

Staff reports | The Medical University of South Carolina is offering an online tool that helps make sense of data related to the coronavirus pandemic in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties.

The MUSC COVID-19 Epidemiology Intelligence Project provides leading indicators in a color-coded dashboard that can help people make informed decisions. Indicators in the “green” are safe, while those that are yellow and red show more work needs to be done.

According to the project, “an Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation chart from the website illustrates the level of the expected impact in South Carolina [on several indicators], …

by Charleston Currents · 08/10/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Meeting & Line Street by Sarah Harris, provided.

FOCUS: North Charleston to open new Park Circle art gallery Aug. 1

Staff reports | The city of North Charleston will open a new free art gallery at Park Circle to present works scheduled in the North Charleston City Art Gallery, which has been shuttered indefinitely because of the closure of the Charleston Area Convention Center’s Performing Arts Center and Coliseum.

The new gallery, formerly known as the Olde Village Community Building, will open Aug. 1 at 4820 Jenkins Avenue. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. In addition to the monthly exhibitions, the new space will feature a gift shop that offers a variety of items by local artists, art workshops and recurring meetings when it’s safe.

Park Circle Gallery’s inaugural exhibitions include photographs by Nicole Robinson of Charleston and paintings by Sarah Harris of Hanahan. The concurrent solo exhibitions will be on view August 1-29, 2020.

by Charleston Currents · 07/27/2020 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

Lewis, center, with Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Sam Skardon. Photo via Facebook.

FOCUS: Remembering the power of John Lewis and those chickens

By Sam Skardon, republished with permission | Not many people can say this, but in my first job, I proudly kept a copy of my boss’ mugshot on my desk. I’d look at it and wonder if the 21-year-old John Lewis in the picture, who had just been arrested on the Freedom Rides, thought it was possible that someday a framed version of it would be sitting on the desk of a 21-year-old aide in his office at the U.S. Capitol. He had a slight smile on his face in the picture, so maybe he had a hunch. I asked him about it once and he just flashed the same smirk from the mugshot back at me.

I wish I had counted the number of times I heard Mr. Lewis tell his life story. His voice would roar to life with that deep Alabama accent. He was a preacher and every audience quickly became his congregation. He had been doing it his whole life, as the crowd would quickly learn.

Growing up on a farm in Alabama, his job was to raise chickens. They were his first parishioners. …

by Special to Charleston Currents · 07/20/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Photos courtesy Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

FOCUS: Staff craftsmen to fix Magnolia’s iconic white bridge

Staff reports | It will be another two months before visitors can walk over the iconic white bridge at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. It will take that long for skilled staff craftsmen to fix it after a tree fell on it last week.

“It was a maple tree at the water’s edge and obviously it was bad on the inside,” said attraction director Tom Johnson. “With all of this rain and stuff, it kind of half uprooted and fell on our bridge.”

The tree had not been on the staff’s radar screen as being a potential problem so it was a pretty big surprise when it fell, Johnson said.

Fortunately, most of the damage was superficial. The much-photographed bridge, built back in the 1840s, remains structurally sound.

“We pulled the decking off and found the main structure is solid,” he said. “It’s made of 1-foot-by-1-foot cypress posts driven 16-feet down into the ground. Can you imagine that — 16 feet that far back? There’s been some extra bracing done since Hurricane Hugo” 31 years ago.

Johnson said his team had planned to restore the bridge prior to last week’s damage because some of the railing had loosened.

by Charleston Currents · 07/13/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Officials walk with a Mountrie flag to raise it on Sullivan's Island, celebrating the 244th anniversary of Carolina Day. Photos by Rob Byko.

FOCUS: Sullivan’s Island celebrates a different kind of Carolina Day

By Rob Byko, special to Charleston Currents | Sullivan’s Island townsfolk, a few visitors and a smattering of stoic fans of South Carolina and Revolutionary War history on Saturday got together to commemorate Carolina Day, the 244th anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. The annual event, co-sponsored by Sullivan’s Island and the Battery Gadsden Cultural Center (BatteryGadsden.com), was held at the Sullivan’s Island Town Hall Plaza. The move from last year’s venue, Fort Moultrie National Park, was necessitated by ongoing concerns over the spike in COVID-19 cases reported across the state. Masks and social distancing were adequately observed by a majority of those in attendance, though not by all.

by Rob Byko · 06/29/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Police monitor the Calhoun monument at Marion Square.

FOCUS: Council vote may bring down Calhoun statue this week

Staff reports | Charleston City Council is poised Tuesday evening to vote on a resolution forwarded by Mayor John Tecklenburg to remove the statue of John C. Calhoun from atop a 110-foot pedestal at Marion Square.

Calhoun, a former vice president and powerful senator in the years before the Civil War, advocated and developed the political theory of nullification, which holds that states should be able to invalidate federal laws. Never legally upheld in federal courts, this principle of state’s rights was used by slave-holding states to break away from the United States when, most historians agree, the war was caused for economic reasons to perpetuate the system of human bondage of enslaved Africans.

If the Wednesday vote, which reportedly has the backing of all members of council, is not challenged in the courts, observers say the statue could be down as early as Wednesday morning, a relatively swift end to a controversial statue that has been a thorn in the side for the city’s African Americans for more than a century.

by Charleston Currents · 06/22/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Primary voting opens 7 a.m. Tuesday

Staff reports | Voters who haven’t already cast absentee ballots to avoid the coronavirus and potentially long lines will head to the polls Tuesday for the state Democratic and Republican primaries.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close 12 hours later. While it’s not clear how busy polls will be, poll managers have received public health training for the pandemic to protect people’s health, according to the state election commission. Social distancing policies will be in place and managers are expected to clean common surfaces.

Voters are advised to bring photo identification. Several voting locations also have changed in recent days in Charleston County.

Also in this post: A list of recent endorsements by sister publication, Charleston City Paper.

by Charleston Currents · 06/08/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Peaceful protest followed by looting, clean-up and curfew

Staff reports | Saturday brought a pretty peaceful protest of up to 1,000 people marching through the streets of downtown Charleston. But as night fell, looters ransacked stores and eateries already suffering from weeks of closure due to the novel coronavirus.

Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd as rioters, generally thought to be a different set of people from protesters, threw bricks, rocks and furniture through windows along King Street, particularly causing damage north of Calhoun Street. By 10 p.m., a countywide curfew was in effect.

Just before midnight, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg released the following statement: “The murder of George Floyd has rightly caused outrage here and across the country. And while we as Charlestonians strongly support all of the good men and women who are peacefully and lawfully protesting that terrible crime, we cannot and will not condone acts of violence and vandalism in our city. …

by Charleston Currents · 06/01/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Photo Essay, Photos