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Shannon Scott Back On The Storytelling Deck!

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Hi everyone & Happy St Patrick’s! Some have wondered about my whereabouts in recent months and I wanted to fill everyone in! I’ve been sparse on my own tours for very good reason but will be back on deck regularly St Patrick’s Day! I will also be available for private tours 7 Days & 7 Nights A Week in addition to the regular weekly schedule!

Namely, the big news is that as of last November 1st, I’m no longer affiliated with 6th Sense World, Bonaventure Cemetery Tours (I’m Bonaventure Cemetery Journeys) or the welcome center store on Bonaventure Rd that many of you have supported and enjoyed. I had an amicable parting of ways just because we all outgrow situations and I found that my vision is a particular path that requires me at the helm of everything. Since? I have been deeeeeep down in the laboratory preparing to launch daily tours of Colonial Park Cemetery & Laurel Grove Cemetery North along with other special group event tours like, GOOD & EVIL X and rebooting Dinner & A Cemetery. I will also have some very specialized Low Country private tours that include parts of South Carolina & Georgia. Essentially I am taking EVERYTHING that is inside of my knowledge warehouses and offering it to the public as a touring opportunity and this is going to be a BIG year for Shannon Scott Tours! Oh, and our new motto? “The Dead People Story People!”

Not least of all, starting next week of March 17th, I will be launching a personal concierge service called The Savannah Expert. Having run a publishing company for 7 years, working as a chef for as many and having just given solid advice in Savannah for 30 years? Well, I’m turning that into a business where for travelers, both in advance and already here, I tailor make their trip so that it is as fail-safe as it can possibly be! So if you yourself are a tour operator, hotelier, restaurant owner/manager or whatever it is in Savannah that people need? And you’re exceptional at doing that in my eyes? You will be 100% hearing from my clients and seeing them seeking out your establishments! Even if it means I don’t recommend my own tour, I will be recommending whatever best suits the needs of that visitor! PERIOD! 

Last and perhaps most importantly? A big part of my success in this transition has hinged upon the fact that fellow storytellers, Lisa Marie, Rich Lane, Jessica Hodges are an active part of the new team as are marketing and design greats, Tami Sabo, Stacy Hill and Matt Duplessie! Some of them have been with me as friends and cohorts for over a decade so really this all feels like a family moving forward together! I’m grateful and when you see these fine people out there, please share your appreciation as well!

Come Roam With US Soon! The Storyist, Shannon Scott

Photo Courtesy of LONELY PLANET

Ask the Savannah Expert!

Save The Choo Choo Building!

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It was an honor this week to have my open letter to Savannah’s Mayor & City Councilmen published in the newspaper, CONNECT Savannah regarding what has been a several year battle over saving the 1929 SEABOARD Freight Station which is a stone’s throw from The Roundhouse Complex, the old Central Railroad of Georgia facility that is now an interactive museum. Nearly every historic city with reminders of the past like this, confront these battles, often losing to developers who have all of the money, legal team and in many cases, the legal right to do as they please. Savannah, however, has a protected Historic District, of which the SEABOARD building is outside of, and to be honest? This one at some level may be on the shoulders of Historic Savannah Foundation in that they haven’t much expanded the vision to include these peripheral structures but am not here to sort out the faults on that as they’re certainly weighing in on the fight. They’ve even offered up some beautiful alternative proposals to what the developer originally offered (SEE GALLERY). Cost wise the developer saw no way to have an effective property here and the plan was to demolish the building and build your standard fare, overpriced hipster apartment complex that as a genre, continue to ruin cityscapes and skylines across the world offering no connection to the surrounding neighborhoods. I will spare the reader here how my view is that this “trend” is part of The United Nation’s push through various foundations and Agenda 21 to influence politicians and planners to show preference to these sorts of structures and their developers, but I do hold that viewpoint and encourage others to read more about the subject.

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All the same, it appears that through much rabble rousing from various individuals in the community, leadership alike, the developer JSR Properties, LLC (aren’t they always), has felt the pressure and has responded by promising to present a new plan to The City of Savannah that includes the building! Empty promises? We shall see! But I like to think my letter is another spiritual tip of the hat to not only the effort of saving the building, but a nod to my friend Lee Adler, founder of Historic Savannah Foundation and board member of The National Trust. He was a legend in his lifetime but also a special friend to me and although he’s no longer with us sadly, the good work must continue through individuals making efforts large and small. I know he’d be proud of everyone doing their part. My letter below with original link:
READ Original Letter Here

Open letter to Mayor and Council about the Seaboard Freight Station

Honorable Mayor DeLoach and Aldermen,

As a tour company owner and operator in Savannah, I often tell my guests that in order to truly appreciate Savannah, you have to understand that it’s not only a story of what’s here but also what’s left. It’s a war story of sorts.
We’ve lost The Mulberry Grove. We’ve lost Mary Musgrove’s Savannah Town. We’ve lost The Hermitage.
A lot has been lost. Too much to list really and lots of arguments as to why they were. Everyone’s got an angle or an agenda or a right, etc.
I don’t know much about the Seaboard building to be honest. I don’t have any romantic stories about it.
I just know that I like driving by it and then glancing at the other nearby railroad buildings of history. And while it seems a little lost sheep where it sits, it just makes sense that it’s there.
I’ve always felt a sort of satisfaction that it exists and that it speaks esthetically and historically to that side of town where so much life and commerce was oriented around it. That it was part and parcel and even central.
It’s really more monument than building at this point. It’s sacred space somehow.
To knock it down in my view is a crime even if the letters have been dotted and the T’s crossed. Albeit it isn’t The Davenport House, I do wonder in this day and age, where are those ladies or people willing to stand in front of the wrecking ball? Have we all gotten so comfortable?
I realize that leadership is often a thing where one’s hands are tied. But why is it that it seems that this developer didn’t have more vision to include it from the beginning?
No architectural class or tour will ever make a point to marvel at another blightful residential complex in our town.No tour company 100 years from now will ever race to show it to their guests. No books will boast of its architect.
In fact, in my opinion, it would be quite the opposite. It would be discussed loathingly as part of the “Atlanta” or “Charlotte” trend of building ugly condos up that tower and overshadow the nearby neighborhoods and have no connected feeling.
And that the leadership allowed a beloved structure to be sacrificed for them.
If the Seaboard is to be demolished, that might also be seen by the developers as a victory for more. More as in other buildings will meet the same fate and more will be lost.
And historians and storytellers like me will have to bemoan the leadership who didn’t fight harder to both hold the line for that loss and then push for a better vision. Your names will in effect, be tied to one of those outcomes forever in the history books.
So I say let there be development, but push for a vision that keeps a valuable member of the family.

Shannon Scott/Shannon Scott Tours