010: Sinking City 111 / Hampton Park Terrace
Half-way Thursday!!! With eight neighborhoods in the bag, and seven to go, we found ourselves running Charleston’s highland island, a neighborhood anchored by its namesake green space. We turned seven street miles into ten as we orbited the 64-acre urban oasis that is Hampton Park, all the while knowing this was likely the last mild weather until autumn comes a calling. Long, heavy days ahead, life as metaphor here in the south.
The park proper is a lovely piece of landscape architecture that’s hosted everything from orange groves to horse racing to a turn of the century trade expo that drew nearly 700,000 visitors in 1901, including the Bull Moose himself - President Teddy Roosevelt. Our outing included a full tour of one of the south’s oldest military academies - The Citadel - as well as several distinct eras of residential architecture. Turns out we would have found the one area of fill even without Lisa’s dynamite mapping. The spot in the southeast corner of the neighborhood is heavily marked with signs warning: “At high tides & heavy rains, this area floods.” Well color us shocked. I think we are actually more surprised that this sign, or a version of it, isn’t posted generously across the peninsula. Mayhap that sign, is “the” sign of our future…
Stats: Our late afternoon outing followed what measured out as just 7 miles on our map - but we managed to turn it into 10 all the same. I imagine we will figure out this efficiency equation just as we’re finishing up the peninsula.
Hampton Park Terrace street map
