As the city’s port facilities relocated farther upstream in the 1940s to service increased traffic, the historic waterfront was abandoned. Five-time Savannah mayor John Rousakis led opposition to proposals to replace warehouses with parking structures and instead used funding from the federal Urban Renewal program, the newly created Community Development Block Grant program, and the Environmental Protection Agency to transform the riverfront wharfs north of River Street into a popular destination for tourists and locals. Named in honor of the mayor, Rousakis Plaza features open stretches of red brick

paving alternating with more intimate areas defined by changes of grade, low walls for seating, and planters for trees and bushes. More than ten years in the making, the African American Monument (2002) by sculptor Dorothy Spradley to the north of City Hall was the first monument in the city’s history to commemorate African Americans. The World War II Memorial (2010), by local architect Eric Meyerhoff, commemorates veterans with two hemispheres representing the two major theaters of conflict during the war (Europe and Africa; Asia and the

Pacific), with the gap between providing a space for the names of Savannah’s war dead.