Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
Circa 1905. "Broughton Street -- Savannah, Georgia." Starring the National Bank of Savannah, with the Bee Hive in a supporting role. 5x7 inch dry plate glass negative. View full size.
Below is the same view from July of 2010.
After the Chicago Fire in 1870, the Chicago School of architecture, especially Louis Sullivan, pioneered new techniques using steel beams to build much taller, stronger buildings that began the era of skyscrapers. But most architects had no idea how such buildings should look, so they fell back on older styles, creating bizarre facades that look like Palladian Renaissance, just on steroids. It was an aesthetic mismatch of epic scale, the Woolworth Building in NYC being the most egregious and famous example. This explains the Savannah Bank building.
However I am puzzled by the anachronistic Gothic Arch windows on the obviously older brick building next door. Could it have contained a church, or the office of a bishop?
The building with the balconies up front was refaced without windows in the upper floors and is now a jewelry store.
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5