520 Wings recently opened its second location in the downtown area.
The new restaurant is at 35 Whitaker St., just north of Broughton Street. The first 520 Wings opened in 2011 at the northwest corner of Bull Street and Victory Drive.
Both locations have the same large menu featuring wings, burgers, sandwiches, gyros, salads and a variety of other items. In recent trips, I have especially enjoyed the Hot Honey BBQ and Hot Teriyaki wings.
And I’ve enjoyed the value too. The 10-piece wing combo with fries and a drink is only $7.99 —hard to beat that price anywhere.
The new 520 Wings occupies a narrow spot that has seen a fair bit of turnover in recent years. There’s certainly nothing fancy about the brightly-lit space. Patrons order at the counter just inside the door and have the option of sitting at tables along the opposite wall or taking food to go.
The recent public debates about Broughton Street have focused on the number of national chains and on the perception that local entrepreneurs are being priced out of the corridor. But 520 Wings’ Whitaker Street neighbors include locally owned spots such as Hang Fire, Sweet Melissa’s, Persepolis, The Coffee Fox and Circa 1875.
Diners who are worried about the health of downtown small businesses should make it a point to check out spots like those mentioned above. And for those of us who hang out in the northwest quadrant of downtown and are often looking for food that’s fast, filling, flavorful and inexpensive, 520 Wings is an excellent new option.
Column about tourism, black history spurs debate
On Tuesday, City Talk considered the recent New York Times travel article by Ron Stodghill, “Savannah, Both Sides.”
The article contained some silly stereotypes and made questionable omissions, but the thesis of the piece was fairly straightforward: “A visitor could easily spend a week sauntering along the city’s haunting boulevards and leave without a clue about the essential role Georgia’s oldest African-American community has played here.”
The lengthy piece, which was accompanied by lovely photos by Savannah-based Adam Kuehl, has drawn a variety of reactions, but a few main themes emerged on social media, in my email inbox and in conversation.
For some, the New York Times article is just another in a long string of pieces by a liberal northern newspaper looking for reasons to bash the South. If you’re in that camp, it’s also worth considering that, just five months ago, the NYT travel section published an article about the burgeoning arts scene south of Forsyth Park, “An Incubator for Creativity in Savannah, Ga.”
Many historians and scholars who work for organizations that study local heritage objected to the article, too. I heard directly from a number of folks and saw objections online from a variety of others. I don’t have space here to detail those objections, so I’m necessarily painting with a broad brush.
Simply put, many people in the Savannah area have been doing serious research into black history for a long, long time. Some felt the NYT piece simply ignored their efforts.
But Stodghill’s article was not a survey of academic literature. It was a travel article that was trying to make the simple point that local black history is largely hidden from the experience of average Savannah tourists.
There seems to be fairly broad agreement on that point, despite all the other objections to the piece.
If one agrees that we should do more to highlight the city’s often-neglected history, then what next?
I think we should first go after some low-hanging fruit.
As I noted in Tuesday’s column, key nonprofits who have the mission of promoting Savannah’s black history have apparently punted on using the Internet.
Even organizations with excellent websites might want to scrutinize their online presence. Would a casual browser be aware of the most important scholarly initiatives, including those to document black history?
If we want to meaningfully impact the general tourist narrative, we would obviously have to do some harder work too. Some ideas could spawn considerable debate and still end up going nowhere.
For example, some of us would like to see a term like “Old West Broad Street” used to describe parts of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The designation would be a nod to the street’s centrality to black life in Savannah and could be used as the springboard for other initiatives to honor the city’s history.
That’s just one example of something we might consider. If we think Savannah’s black history deserves more attention, individual citizens, city leaders and key institutions have a variety of tools in their toolboxes.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.
By Bill Dawers