City Exchange Bell Tower on Bay Street

Savannah’s City Hall was built in 1905, and features its gorgeous and unmissable exterior 23-karat gold-plated dome. It occupies the former site of Savannah’s City Exchange building, originally built in 1799, which housed customs, postal, newspaper and other municipal government offices. The old City Exchange building was hallmarked with a beautiful tower which included a fire bell that is the oldest bell in Georgian history. The bell rang primarily as the signal for the end of the working day and as the primary warning to Savannah’s citizens of fires. Today, a replica of the tower sits on Bay Street near the original location of the City Exchange. The bell inside this replicated tower is the original, imported over 215 years ago from Amsterdam. In this painting, Luba captures the mysterious quiet of the old Bell Tower during a common morning downtown scene: A fog rising off the nearby Savannah River.