The Old Play Area at Forsyth Park's North End Is Coming Out. The Table Replacing It Is for Herb Traub.

At the north end of Forsyth Park, east of the Fragrant Garden, new signs went up this fall. The City of Savannah said crews would start in October by pruning trees, taking out old playground equipment and grading the ground. The plan is a courtyard with shaded seating and a large granite table in the middle. It will carry the name of the man who lit the monuments in the downtown squares.

It's called the Herb Traub Gathering Space. Two Rotary clubs are paying for it, hiring the builders and holding the construction contracts. The City supplies the groundwork, then takes ownership and handles maintenance. Traub got things done downtown the same way for decades.

What the fence is making room for

WTOC reported in October that the space will have new seating, shade trees, landscaping and better accessibility. The design came out of community feedback the city collected in November 2025. Rotary members and the city's Park and Tree Department gathered it at a public session at the Bull Street Library on Nov. 13, 2025. Rotary members showed plans there and took questions, and the city kept an online form open for people who couldn't come.

The Rotary Club of Metropolitan Savannah's January 2025 project update listed what the clubs wanted the corner to do:

• Give people a place to sit, eat and spend time together
• Put a large central table of Georgia granite at the heart of it, engraved with quotes about Traub
• Remove playground equipment the clubs called unsafe
• Use concrete benches shaped like twigs and ADA-compliant "pebble" seating, taking visual cues from Savannah's oaks
• Leave enough flow between quadrants that the space could host events
• Fit within the Forsyth Park master plan

Jordan Chase chaired the legacy project for the Metropolitan Savannah club. At the June 2025 unveiling, she told WSAV the space would have "four quadrants," each with picnic tables and seating, and "right in the center will be a big community table," with etchings around its sides to honor Traub. On the club's design committee is Reshma Shah Johnson, founding principal of Shah Architecture & Interiors.

The city's agreement puts the site at the north end, east of the Fragrant Garden. WTOC's June 2025 report placed it west of the amphitheater and the Collins Quarter restaurant.

A city park corner built under a Rotary contract

The June 11, 2026 City Council agenda listed an item for approval of a memorandum of agreement between the City, the Rotary Club of Savannah and the Rotary Club of Metropolitan Savannah. The agenda item says the goal is to reimagine the north end as "a welcoming, functional area that reflects how residents wish to use and enjoy this historic space." The agreement itself splits the work like this:

The clubs' January 2025 update estimated the cost at $305,000. At that point the Metropolitan Savannah club had set aside $70,000 and the Rotary Club of Savannah had $120,000. Fundraising went on through 2025, including a Metro Rotary event on May 21 and a Rotary Club of Savannah fundraiser on June 5 that WTOC covered.

The courtyard becomes City property, but the agreement says the City will consult the Rotary clubs before any substantial change, given "the Rotary Clubs' considerable investment" and how closely the space ties into the park. So this corner of Forsyth will belong to the public, and the people who paid for it will still have a voice in its future.

The man the table is for

Herbert Smith Traub Jr. was born in Savannah on Aug. 31, 1917, and died on March 20, 2008, at 90. According to his Savannah Morning News obituary, he still slept in the bed he was born in, in a house built that same year. He ran the Pirates' House Restaurant, with 23 dining rooms and a "Rain Forest Bar" that had its own thunder and lightning. Under his leadership it was named one of America's 50 most successful restaurants, and his peers in the hospitality industry gave him the Ivy Award as the country's top restaurateur.

You can still see his civic work downtown. The obituary credits him with the lit monuments in the downtown squares, the tall fountains in Daffin Park and the restoration of the Lucas Theatre. The council agenda adds an Olympic Legacy fountain and path at Daffin Park and the clock tower at City Market, all led through the Downtown Rotary Club after he retired from the Pirates' House. The city's agenda item quotes his own summary of why he did it:

"If I was able to do anything to improve my hometown, that gave me extreme pleasure."

Philip Solomons, a former Rotary Club of Savannah president, knew Traub well. He told WTOC that Traub "was a very humble man, but had a lot of energy and vision and was great at marshaling those around him to support projects he had to make Savannah a better place." The obituary describes a man who sent pots of flowers or boxes of benne wafers to bank tellers and pharmacy clerks, sometimes for no particular reason. His memorial service was held at Congregation Mickve Israel on Monterey Square.

The same method, eighteen years later

All the Traub landmarks on that list have a shared origin story. A downtown civic club raised the money and saw the project through, and the result became part of the city everyone uses. The lights on the square monuments came about that way. So did the City Market clock tower and the Daffin Park fountain.

The Gathering Space follows the same pattern, and now it's written into a contract. Rotary pays and builds, and the City owns and maintains. The agreement even says the City will supply materials and services "as it has done on previous projects." Eighteen years after his death, a Traub project is set to be built just the way he built them. The difference is that this time the space carries his name, and the granite table at its center is meant to carry quotes about him.

That also explains who the space was designed for. The Rotary clubs described it as a place "for the community and visitors to sit, eat, and gather with family and friends." Most of Forsyth's best-known spots are places you look at, like the fountain or the long walk under the oaks. This one is a place to sit down at a table, at the end of the park nearest the squares Traub lit.

Using the rest of the park

The project site is at the north end. The Forsyth Farmers' Market runs every Saturday, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the south end of the park, at Bull Street and Park Avenue, so it's at the opposite end from the work.

The City has also said it's working out locations, schedules and budgets for more projects in Forsyth Park and will share them as plans firm up. Updates on the Gathering Space, including plans and progress, are posted on the city's Forsyth Park Gathering Space page.

At Liza DiMarco, I follow downtown Savannah's public spaces closely, from the squares to the newest corner of Forsyth, because they shape what it's like to live here. If you'd like to talk about the blocks around the park and what's changing near them, Let's Connect.