News Feed

The Savannah Police Department’s Traffic Investigation Unit is investigating a Jan. 19 pedestrian-involved accident on Ogeechee Road that resulted in the death of a 57-year-old Savannah woman.

According to a Savannah Police spokesperson, SPD officers responded to a call at the 4300 block of Ogeechee Road, near the busy intersection with Chatham Parkway, at around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 19. There they discovered Mae Helen James suffering from injuries after being struck by a vehicle.

James was transported to a hospital, where she later died as a result of her injuries.

A preliminary investigation revealed that James was attempting to cross from north to south on Ogeechee Road when she was struck by an eastbound Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck driven by Adam Wickline, 47, of Richmond Hill. James was not in a crosswalk at the time she was struck.

The investigation is ongoing, according to the SPD spokesperson.

In response to regular occurrences of pedestrian-vehicle accidents citywide, Savannah Alderman Nick Palumbo is developing a "Complete Streets" ordinance to address unsafe street crossings and improve right-of-way access for those who do not drive.

The past year brought on challenges, changed normal practices, and hindered forward movement for people throughout the world, but Col. Bryan Logan, Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield garrison commander, said the soldiers and Army community stayed ready throughout 2020.

“This did not put us down,” Logan said. “Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield are still plugging along.” According to Logan, soldiers on post – starting with first responders and medical team soldiers – are currently receiving the Moderna coronavirus vaccine to aid in a more healthy and ready Army in 2021.

COVID-19 response

The pandemic forced reduced manning in offices, introduced teleworking to several organizations within the Army, and encouraged new practices from what had become standard across the force. However, throughout the year soldiers of Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield adapted to overcome the challenges, according to Logan.

“One of the things I want to make sure the public understands is the Army has not slowed down,” Logan said. “We have not stopped. We continue to train, we continue to prepare, and we are ready to deploy should our nation call us to do so, and we have.”

Several practices learned in 2020 are still being implemented and are helping the Army maintain readiness in the future.

Intergovernmental service agreements

Logan said while training and daily duties are performed inside the gates of the installations, it is the relationships outside the gates that set Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield apart from other installations.

“We cannot be a community of excellence without the enduring relationships we have with our seven surrounding counties,” Logan said.

There are currently five service agreements on Fort Stewart, said Randall Dutkiewicz, lead management analyst at Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield garrison. Those include an animal-control services agreement with Chatham County and the grounds-maintenance support agreement with Long County, both implemented in 2020. Dutkiewicz added there are more in progress.

“We’re always looking for more partners,” Logan said. “What we’ve done is taken away administrative restrictions on contracting. If it makes sense, if it benefits the civilian community as well as the military, if it is a reciprocal service that the city already pays for that we pay for, why not get together on this?”

Deployments in 2020

The Marne community deployed two brigades – about 3,500 soldiers per brigade – and received two back during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Logan said.

Logan said throughout the year testing was done, social distancing was practiced, and figuring out how to continue operations safely was a main priority when it came to deployments.

“We’re our nation’s first responders,” Logan said. “We can’t afford to stop: you can’t telework a tank crew; you can’t telework an infantry squad. They have to continue to train and continue to prepare and deploy to fight and win our nation’s wars.”

‘Embracing technology, moving forward’

One way the garrison team ensured that readiness was maintained was by embracing technology, Logan said. Typical meetings held in a boardroom were conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams meetings.

“We had to bring these programs up, we had to educate ourselves, and we had to implement that pretty rapidly,” Logan said.

Various ceremonies were livestreamed during this past year, which was a change from the installations’ norms. Annual celebrations and holiday festivities were observed using alternate approaches to allow optimal health and safety of participants.

“Now, that’s a tool that we have,” Logan said. “Had COVID not forced us to do things remotely like that, I don’t know that we would have come up with ideas like that.”

Applications such as Digital Garrison came to fruition during the past year as a means of communicating with service members and the community. Users can access everything through this app from current weather conditions to upcoming Morale, Welfare and Recreation events through the app, Logan said.

Additionally, Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield have transitioned their new soldier welcome brief to a digital message soldiers and their families can access anytime online, set to launch in January, Logan said.

“I think that is going to fit very well in the future and how we go forward with not just newcomers and our young single soldiers and family members, but also our workforce and how we operate on a daily basis,” Logan said.

Welcoming the public on post

Recreational attractions such as skeet and archery ranges are still accessible to the public on post, Logan said. He encouraged the community to take advantage of the installation’s competitive prices on golf, outdoor recreation activities, and bowling.

He said for those activities inside the gates, community members must obtain a visitor’s pass, but for activities accessible from Georgia Highway 144, no pass is needed.

“This is your Army,” Logan said. “Come see us, come learn about us, ask questions and reap the benefits of us being right here.”

Logan said he continues to be in awe of how well the local community embraces the military.

“It’s the daily interaction, the daily support, the understanding, care, and love that we get from those outside the gate that have not put on a uniform, but they are most definitely connected with us in every way,” Logan said. “I am extremely appreciative of that.”

Logan said the Army has not slowed down for COVID-19 or any other reason, and that they continue to stay prepared when our nation needs them.

“I hope that 2021 is better for all of us,” Logan said.

A freshly installed set of classic lampposts lining a promenade that traverses ever-busy Victory Drive is highlighting a need for safer street crossings and improved right-of-way access across Savannah.

Just before Christmas, Midtown Savannah residents received a gift that shines brighter than any string of bulbs: a set of historically styled new globe lampposts illuminating the intersection of Victory and Atlantic Avenue, the historic juncture of the Ardsley Park/Chatham Crescent and Baldwin Park neighborhoods built in 1910.

Funded with Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues, the new lamps were installed after years of effort by local neighborhood associations, the Historic Savannah Foundation, community leaders, and activists like Bike Walk Savannah members and local lighting advocate Ardis Wood.

Savannah City Council Aldermen Detric Leggett of District 2 and Nick Palumbo of District 4 spoke during the lampposts’ Dec. 23 lighting ceremony about how the new streetlights make the surrounding neighborhoods safer, especially for students of the nearby Savannah Arts Academy.

“This has really been the gateway of two communities,” Leggett said of the Atlantic Ave. crossing, which is an intersection where Districts 2 and 4 meet. “We invested in our community. We invested in our neighborhoods.”

The process of seeing the lamps rebuilt from urban ruin was a collaborative endeavor among diverse neighborhood groups, according to Palumbo.

“There was a lot of deliberation over the lights,” Palumbo said. During the project’s planning, he located an antique postcard showing the Atlantic Avenue promenade’s original lamps, which helped guide the purchase of historically appropriate globe lights and the shoring up of the lamps’ original foundations. “We restored the concrete pillars so that it’ll last for another 110 years.”

While the lamps will help illuminate this crossing during darker times of day, Palumbo said that it remains a dangerous intersection for walkers and bikers.

“They still have no protection. They’re just gunning it across the street,” Palumbo said.

However, the work at this intersection is not yet done, Palumbo said − the Georgia Department of Transportation has agreed to install pedestrian-activated traffic signals at this crossing later in 2021, and future plans include adding ramps to the stairs onto the long promenade.

Palumbo hopes to build on the momentum of the Atlantic Avenue crossing improvements by drawing attention to the innumerable barriers experienced by Savannah residents who do not drive or experience limited mobility. He aims to introduce a “Complete Streets” ordinance later this year highlighting the need for additional crosswalk improvements and better access to pathways for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“The most under-appreciated freedom that we have is the freedom of mobility,” Palumbo said, noting that Savannah was famously founded as an eminently walkable community, but is now predisposed to car traffic to the detriment of those who don’t drive, resulting in many pedestrian-vehicle accidents. “Only a quarter of the city has a sidewalk on either side of the street.”

Although the Complete Streets ordinance is only in planning stages, Palumbo said that its goals would include analyzing right-of-way access citywide and building on safe-mobility initiatives like Savannah’s Tide to Town urban-trail system.

“There’s a long way to go with it,” Palumbo said.

Growing up alternating between two worlds at opposite ends of the Cold War – her native Poland and the U.S.A. – Paulina Olowska was immersed in the artificial aesthetic constructs of both societies, and they equally influence her oft-irreverent artworks that intentionally subvert patriarchal conventions to assert the autonomy of womanhood.

In the new Mainly for Women exhibition now on view at the SCAD Museum of Art through July 11, several of Olowska’s most striking paintings are on display alongside works by a younger generation of Polish women who primarily only experienced traces of the Soviet influence that once dominated every aspect of life in their country, especially regarding creative expression.

In organizing this exhibit, Olowska aimed to provide an international showcase for these women while carrying on discourse in her longtime quest toward achieving gender parity in art and society.

“I love a sense of a dialogue in art,” Olowska said while visiting Savannah in early January, just before the exhibit’s premiere. “You can say that I’m a painter, but within my paintings I negotiate or collaborate with other artists.”

Born in Gdańsk on Poland’s Baltic coast to a family of artists in 1976, Olowska spent her earliest years in a nation firmly under Kremlin control and awash in communist propaganda. At this time, photorealism was the prevailing genre in painting across the Eastern Bloc, partly because the Soviet authorities were hard-pressed to interpret subversive messages in artworks that meticulously mirrored real-life scenery.

During her early childhood, Olowska’s father joined Poland’s Solidarity movement founded in 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, using civil resistance against the Soviet system to advance workers’ rights and social change. This led to his fleeing to the U.S.A. as a political refugee with his young daughter in the mid-’80s, and here she experienced a complete contrast of aesthetic surroundings shaped largely by pop art and corporate advertisements.

Olowska went on to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk, and Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie, cementing her unique blend of international influences. Her works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and London’s Tate Modern, establishing her as a leading Polish artist who strives to use her platform to advance women’s rights with works that evoke an enigmatically nostalgic atmosphere of cross-cultural aesthetics.

Some of Olowska’s paintings on view in Mainly for Women playfully combine visions of East meeting West, exploring female archetypes through a lens of appropriation and homage.

In her work labeled “MONOLOGUE” a young woman stands with a voguish pose reminiscent of a Versace magazine advertisement, but her visage bears a stark expression of determination commonly seen in Soviet-era photorealism propaganda, while her farmland setting and held pail of water reflect anything but the glamorous life associated with high-fashion imagery.

For Olowska, this painting is a quintessential product of her varied perspectives coming together to skew popular culture bestowed upon different societies by patriarchal forces, causing the viewer to question the subjugation of womanhood in all nations and political systems.

“How do you negotiate modernism? How do you negotiate socialist art?” Olowska asks when explaining her creative perspective and the process of finding its role in all worlds. “You learn how to work with material, but how do you work as an artist with the idea of life?”

The exhibition’s title is also a play on male control over even the most intimate aspects of womanhood. Mainly for Women was the title of a 1960s “guide to love making” by Robert Chartham, which provides a biological play-by-play for how women should approach intercourse with a primary concern of avoiding the infliction of harm to their male partners’ sexual self-respect.

“Now we can laugh at it, but it was reality,” Olowska said of the book, a copy of which is included in the exhibit amid a melted puddle of dark goo on one corner of the floor.

In the service of highlighting gender iniquities, the varied works in the Mainly for Women exhibit sometimes touch on the grotesque to portray multiple representations of women’s perspectives on society, enhanced by the artists that Olowska invited to exhibit alongside her – Karolina Jabłonska, Dominika Olszowy, Agata Słowak, and Natalia Załuska. The group show features pagan motifs and takes on a séance-like quality not unlike a coven’s display of powerful autonomy.

“The house Olowska is building in her work is not a place of imaginary returns, but a site for gathering sister spirits,” wrote author Jan Verwoert of Olowska’s lifework. In Mainly for Women, Olowska is warmly welcoming her fellow female Polish artists and Savannah art lovers into this revealing and thought-provoking house.

“I wanted to touch on the idea of narration and sharing a story,” Olowska said. “I’m very proud to see this younger generation of artists.”

Mainly for Women is on view at the SCAD Museum of Art (601 Turner Blvd., Savannah) through July 11; visit scad.edu/calendar/exhibitions for more details.

Eleanor “Sandy” Torrey West, the longtime guardian and resident of undeveloped Ossabaw Island on the southernmost coast of Chatham County, passed away on her birthday at her Garden City home on Jan. 17, according to a statement by the Ossabaw Island Foundation. West was 108 years old.

Largely thanks to her decades-long devotion to preserving Ossabaw - the third-largest of Georgia’s barrier islands - the entire 26,000-acre isle is a protected State Heritage Preserve of tidal wetlands and high ground, providing an ideal habitat for a wide variety of birds as well as free-range donkeys, feral pigs, and sea turtles.

Owned by the Torrey-West family since 1924, Ossabaw Island was passed on to Sandy West and her deceased brother's children in 1959. Two years later, West established the Ossabaw Foundation and the Ossabaw Island Project, opening up the largely pristine isle to notable artists, writers, scientists, and other visionaries to conduct research and gain inspiration from this coastal haven.

By the 1970s, West led her family’s effort to preserve Ossabaw Island indefinitely by selling the land to the state if the entire isle would be declared as Georgia’s first State Heritage Preserve. Under this agreement, in 1978 the family sold Ossabaw to Georgia for half its appraised value, ensuring its preservation.

West remained the guardian of Ossabaw Island for decades after securing its unspoiled status, welcoming innumerable visitors and regularly exploring its natural wonders while living there as the isle’s only permanent resident from 1987 until 2016.

“Ossabaw Island, as we know it, exists because of Mrs. West, and Georgia is a better place because of her life’s work,” said Elizabeth DuBose, the Ossabaw Island Foundation’s executive director.

The Davenport House Museum is a carefully restored landmark showcasing what life was like in Savannah 200 years ago – but the Davenports were not the only family living under this storied roof back then.

The Historic Savannah Foundation, which owns and operates the Davenport House Museum, launched an extensive renovation project in December to install a new exhibit that will recognize the enslaved people who lived and worked at the home.

As part of the process, HSF will also be renovating the adjacent Kennedy Pharmacy on Broughton Street while constructing an entirely new building for events and meetings, which will be designed to seamlessly blend in with its venerable neighbors.

According to HSF CEO and President Sue Adler, the initiative behind creating the Davenport House Urban Enslaved Exhibit began years ago, and was born out of a desire to tell the complete story of life in Savannah during the early 19th century when slavery was a widely accepted practice.

“It’s important that we tell the story,” Adler said. “We really have a major story to tell.”

The creation of this new exhibit continues an ongoing movement of historic American house museums providing a fuller picture of the enslaved laborers who lived onsite. In recent years, administrators at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and James Madison’s Montpelier have all expanded their displays to more accurately reflect the properties’ true history of racial subjugation.

Here in Savannah, the Owens-Thomas House integrated the history of its enslaved former residents into the house museum’s exhibitions in 2018, with its Slave Quarters now being one of the site’s most renowned features.

According to Adler, the new Davenport House exhibit will present similar insight with the distinction of providing details about specific enslaved people who lived there.

“There’s Bella, and there’s Ned. These are real people,” Adler said, adding that the circumstances of the Davenport family were closely intertwined with their enslaved laborers. “Mrs. Davenport, when her husband died of yellow fever, she had 10 children. … The enslaved helped her, and the enslaved had children of their own.”

Adler emphasized that the exhibit will clearly state that this arrangement was to the detriment of the enslaved Davenport House residents.

“They were very much enslaved,” Adler said.

The Urban Enslaved Exhibit exhibit will be situated on the ground floor of the Davenport House, but in order to make room for its displays, the museum’s gift shop and staff offices need to be relocated. This is being made possible with the renovation of the Kennedy Pharmacy – also owned by the HSF – which has recently served as an event space with apartments upstairs.

These second-floor residences will be converted into the new staff offices, while the Davenport House gift shop will occupy the former pharmacy space, adding a new store to the eastern segment of Broughton. Meanwhile, the new building, to be called the Murray C. Perlman & Wayne C. Spear Center, will fill the role of an onsite facility for meetings and events, Adler said.

“It’s very exciting to have a new building,” Adler said, adding that she hopes for it to become a frequent venue for gatherings among diverse local groups. “We really want to keep the community engaged.”

According to Adler, the entire project is estimated to cost $1.8 million, and is expected to open to the public in 2022. The Felder & Associates architectural firm is designing all of the renovation and construction projects, with particular expertise in Davenport House history; the firm’s founder, Brian Felder, was the immediate past chairman of the HSF’s Board of Trustees.

“After extensive research and collaboration with the HSF building committee, we have curated the educational interior of the Urban Enslaved Exhibit, keeping the integrity and history of the Davenport House Museum while allowing for thoughtful contemplation and reflection of the lives and living quarters of the enslaved who lived and worked in the Davenport household,” Felder said.

Adler noted that Davenport House management is striving to keep the museum open throughout the renovations and construction, and that when the entire project is completed, it will benefit Savannah in multiple ways.

“It’s going to be wonderful for the city,” Adler said.

Visit davenporthousemuseum.org to learn more about the Davenport House Museum.

Long gone are the days of West River Street being a dark, dingy, much-forgotten piece of Savannah’s downtown. With the resurgence of craft cocktail bars, the memories of River Street being a place for grain-alcohol-based daiquiris are all but foregone thoughts of young locals sowing their wild oats.

Because West River Street was once primarily an industrial site, most of it sat empty and abandoned for the longest time. In 2020, gravel lots transformed into booming boutique hotels, new chic storefronts, and a refashioning of the district. The cobblestones have never changed, but what makes up our historic riverfront has evolved into something completely new. For locals, this part of River Street is almost unrecognizable.

In the depths of the reformation of this booming tourist destination, one bar has rebranded itself as well. The Trade Room located at The Alida Hotel has changed its menu to become the only whiskey bar in Savannah. For the Alida, the contemporary whiskey-forward bar list will hopefully sway more locals to enjoy the ever-transforming commodities of the waterfront district.

Whiskey is simple − it is alcohol fermented from grain, distilled, then aged in barrels. The type of grain determines the type of whiskey. Everyone knows rye whiskey, which is created from rye grain. But let's be honest, whiskey is not the nip for everyone. At The Trade Room that could easily change for your average social drinker.

“The goal was to really make it approachable. We were thinking we might have tourists from River Street, we might have our guests, we might have all the groups that are coming here, and we wanted to make it so it is more about learning and discovering,” explained Arthur Sertorio, the general manager of food and beverage.

The Trade Room keeps things simple to introduce inexperienced whiskey drinkers into the realm of enthusiasm. The menu begins with House Cocktails as a way to wade slowly into the deep end.

Sertorio told me, “We have the classic cocktails that we do, all with whiskeys. They are a play on the Old Fashioned, the Manhattan, and things like that. We are bringing our touch to it that makes it different.”

The Trade Room Manhattan is created with house-blended vermouth, bitters, and Old Overholt Bonded Rye. The Forty Niner is made with Monkey Shoulder whiskey, honey, ginger, and lemon.

A flight of whiskey, rye, bourbon, or Scotch is the next step for students to expand their learning. Flights start on the low end at $18 and walk their way up to more exclusive barrel-aged liquors that edge out at $38. With a flight, The Trade Room prepares three different whiskeys or Scotches that are paired in a way to educate the drinker. Served with the triple glasses is a dropper of water, included to open up the notes of each whiskey type.

“We wanted to come up with the flights, and we took a long time to come up with what makes the most sense. We didn’t want your palate to be attacked so you couldn’t taste the third whiskey you are tasting,” said Sertorio.

Japanese whiskey has finally taken flight in America. The difference between American or Irish whiskey and its Japanese cousin comes in how it’s distilled. The process of double distilling the liquor before aging lends a flavor that is closer to that of Scotch. The Japanese flight features Nikka Coffey Grain, Suntory Hibiki Harmony, and Suntory Whisky Toki. If you have never tasted Japanese whiskey, a flight from The Trade Room is the ideal way to begin.

The same can be said for the Scotch flight, a drink that can be considered sought by only the most savvy of drinkers. Many connoisseurs stay away from the peaty libation, but a flight is a great way to narrow down which drink your palate may like to start sipping.

Most unique to this new barrel-aged bourbon bar is the choice to build a craft cocktail out of any of the 60-plus spirits. After narrowing down your favorite grog, turn it into a handmade mix for only $3 more. There is no better way to drink an Old Fashioned or Whiskey Sour than with the base of your liking.

At the bottom of the menu’s list of brands, readers can find a scale of beverage notes.

“We wanted to put each glass in four different ways of what we think will be the right way of categorizing them,” says Sertorio. Bar specialist Connor Gillette came up with the sliding scale of notes such as oak, corn, spice, and smoothness when creating the new menu for The Alida.

Normally Macallan is a scotch I fall back on, and typically I felt sampling a different brand was mindless. I looked at the chart and was able to try a new brand of Scotch by comparing Macallan to it. An after-dinner cap at The Trade Room expanded my go-to brands for enjoying a neat glass.

For guests who still are not convinced about the joys of whiskey, The Trade Room also offers wine, beer, and a few other essential liquors. Guests who tag along with a whiskey worshiper will not be left thirsty.

With such strong libations at hand, the trendy bar has food available from its sister restaurant, Rhett. Mushroom Toast, Pimento Cheese Fritters, and Steak Frites are just a few samples of the expertly crafted menu created by Chef Jason Starnes. The Mushroom Toast is the standout. Foraged oyster mushrooms from Swampy Appleseed are paired with a warm melted Boursin and thyme, then spooned on top of toasted focaccia.

To perfectly pair with the endless bottles of bourbon, The Trade Room is working towards launching a new munchies menu. Patrons can expect a standalone kitchen and menu to debut later this year, and will feature new items like handcrafted burgers.

The Trade Room is located in the lobby of The Alida Hotel: 412 Williamson Street, Savannah. Visit thealidahotel.com for more details.

Savannah Police Chief Roy Minter is hosting a virtual meeting with police leaders from across Chatham County on Friday afternoon to discuss the potential of local threats related to expected unrest surrounding the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., and to coordinate response strategies.

According to a Savannah Police Department spokesperson, at 2 p.m. on Jan. 15 Minter is hosting a meeting for local law-enforcement department leaders as part of a continuing series of discussions about safety and security measures associated with next week’s inauguration.

Nationwide, law-enforcement agencies are gearing up to address threats of potentially violent protesters wreaking havoc in Washington, D.C. and in all 50 state capitals as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office.

The threats follow a failed insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the seat of Congress and caused widespread destruction resulting in the deaths of five, including U.S. Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick.

During Friday’s Chatham County Commission meeting, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley mentioned that he would be attending Minter’s meeting after already participating in several conference calls with varied law-enforcement agencies.

Hadley said that as of Friday morning, there were no known threats of violent unrest in Chatham’s varied communities.

“There are no specific threats to Savannah,” Hadley said. “That doesn’t mean we are not prepared.”

Hadley said that the meeting Friday afternoon would help all of Chatham’s police leaders be ready for a prompt and coordinated response if unrest were to occur locally during the upcoming week.

“We can respond quickly and mobilize and keep Chatham County safe,” Hadley said.

On Jan. 12, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson announced that he was cancelling his plans to attend Biden’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., and would instead be in Savannah to help address any local threats.

“Locally, we have our own challenges, and so we’re also going to keep our eyes on what’s happening here in Savannah,” Johnson said, while expressing confidence in the city’s ability to keep the peace. “We plan for these things before these things happen. We have some well-documented plans for how to deal with a variety of issues related to public unrest.”

Following a major renovation project last year, the grand pipe organ within Savannah’s Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist is now resonating with an enriched sound, which can be enjoyed by anyone during a free concert featuring four local church organists on Jan. 17.

The Friends of Cathedral Music organization is presenting “A Sonic Spectacle” concert centered on the Cathedral Basilica’s huge Noack pipe organ, with its performers providing an evening of very big music to be played before a limited-capacity in-person audience while also being livestreamed for all the world to hear.

The four performers are music directors from prominent Savannah churches: Monica Harper Dekle of Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, Stephen Branyon of St. John’s Church, Timothy Hall of Christ Church, and the Cathedral Basilica’s own Paul Thornock.

Each organist will perform one solo piece while also performing with the Cathedral Brass, an ensemble of musicians from the Savannah Philharmonic and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra playing together with area music teachers.

“If you measure your pleasure in decibels, this is the concert for you,” said Thornock, who will be performing a composition by renowned French organist Louis Vierne, while Dekle will play a piece by Eugène Gigout, Hall will perform the “Solemn Entry” by Richard Strauss, and Branyon will treat the audience to an original work.

Installed at the Cathedral Basilica in 1987, the organ was thoroughly upgraded last year with a variety of replacement parts and modernizations. “A Sonic Spectacle” will be the first concert of 2021 highlighting the organ’s improved sound. “It was the organ’s 100,000-mile checkup. … We did a lot of fixing up and cleaning up of little things,” Thornock said. “While we were at it, we made a few improvements.”

These renovations included repairing metal fatigue in some of the pipes and replacing reed stops, according to Thornock, resulting in an audible enhancement. All of the refurbishment work was completed by October, and while a couple of concert performances have drawn on the organ’s new sound since then, “A Sonic Spectacle” aims to highlight the full range of what this massive instrument is truly capable of.

“I think people will notice the difference,” Thornock said. To abide by pandemic protocols, the in-person audience will be limited to 30% of capacity with every other pew closed off, so anyone who is interested in attending is advised to reserve their free tickets in advance through the Cathedral Basilica website.

Although the musicians will be playing in the space around the organ on the gallery at the back of the Cathedral, multiple video cameras will capture the performances up-close and be projected on a large screen in front of the altar. This footage will also be livestreamed through a link on the Cathedral Basilica website, with the audio quality of the broadcast enhanced by a recent microphone-system upgrade.

“A Sonic Spectacle” will begin at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 17; tickets are free, but advance registration is recommended. Visit savannahcathedral.org to learn more.

To assist the Chatham County Health Department with expanding its ongoing response to the coronavirus pandemic, a new system for COVID-19 testing will be launched at the Savannah Civic Center beginning on Monday, Jan. 18, according to a Coastal Health District announcement.

Beginning Monday, operations at the Civic Center testing site will be taken over by Mako Medical, a North Carolina-based company contracted by the Georgia Department of Health to provide testing services. According to the CHD statement issued on Jan. 14, this shift will result in freeing up health department staff and resources to focus on COVID-19 vaccinations.

Under the new system, anyone requesting a test through Chatham County’s public-health system must pre-register through Mako Medical, but will not be assigned a specific date or time; registered individuals can come to the Civic Center at their convenience to take the COVID-19 test.

According to the statement, health insurance will be billed for anyone with coverage, but no out-of-pocket charges will apply, and anyone without health insurance will not be turned away.

Registration for COVID-19 tests at the Savannah Civic Center can be arranged by visiting covidtestsavannah.com, or further assistance is available by calling 912-230-9744 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays and 8:30 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.