Culture ministry aims to reopen PoS museum

DOMINIC KALIPERSAD

THE Museum of Port of Spain is finally on the verge of being reopened after years of being closed for refurbishment works.

Located on South Quay, west of the City Gate transport hub, restoration of the heritage building is at its final stages.

According to Rodelle Philip-Simmons, corporate communications manager at the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, “Both the board (of directors) and the minister are hopeful of a April/May re-opening.”

The delay is being attributed to the availability of funding to the parent museum, the National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG).

Lorraine Johnson, NAMG curator, told Sunday Newsday, “We have been limited by the funding we have been getting. We are aiming to operationalise it some time this year.”

Philip-Simmons admitted, “Refurbishment has been ongoing slowly but surely; challenges with (financial) releases.”

What has been completed, according to Johnson, are “all the flooring, windows, and doors. Now, minor repairs are to be done on the walkways; they’re hardwood walkways all around the upstairs. And we have to do the air-conditioning.”

Philip-Simmons put it this way: “Refurbishment began I think in 2014/2015 with general repairs downstairs and electrical upgrade to entire building. It continued up to last year with upstairs repair, re-do of floors, windows and doors with green heart and purple heart hardwood.”

She said, “Next steps include railings, walkways, perimeter fence, car park etc.”

According to Johnson, “The board of directors holds the historic building in high esteem.”

That point was reinforced by Philip-Simmons: “We want to maintain as much of the architecture as possible.”

There were no signs of activity at the site when Sunday Newsday visited on Friday. It entrances were shut tight and no work crews were around.

The museum, in its heyday, contained exhibits on the history of Port of Spain and about Carnival. It attracted school tours and visits from foreign tourists especially during when a cruise ship docked at the nearby waterfront.

The compound, at Fort San Andres, is a heritage site. It has its beginnings in the 18th century. Fort San Andres is the last surviving fortification from the period of the Spanish occupation of Trinidad, which came to an end in 1797 with the capture of the island by the British.

The fort was established at the behest of Don Jose Maria Chacon who, when he arrived as gov­er­nor in 1784, found that Port of Spain’s only defence from marauding buccaneers and foreign powers was a small fort made of mud and logs, located more or less where Royal Bank now stands. (There were also forts at Gasparee Island and on the Laventille Hills.)

Chacon was dis­sat­is­fied and had the fort moved near the shore where a stone wall en­closed an observation block­house.

The new de­fence, named Fort San An­dres, was completed in 1787.

Ten years later, however, the fortification proved to be too small to match the might of Ad­mi­ral Ralph Aber­crom­bie and his fleet of 18 warships when they invaded on February 18th, 1797. Cha­con ca­pit­u­lated, and Trinidad passed in­to British hands.

According to the late historian An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh, in a 2016 newspaper article, the British reinforced the walls and used Fort San An­dres as a civ­il de­fence post. He noted that they renovated the block­house and used it to ac­com­mo­date a small de­tach­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers of the West In­dia Reg­i­ment to main­tain law and or­der on the wa­ter­front.

From 1936-1951, the traf­fic branch of the Trinidad Con­stab­u­lary was housed at Fort San An­dres. The fort still ex­ists, but not the orig­i­nal block­house. The can­nons and the stone breast­work built by Cha­con can still be seen.

In the 1980s, before its conversion to a museum, the building was used by the traffic branch of the TT Police Force. The eastern portion of the top floor of the building was variously occupied by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, the Employers Consultative Association, and Junior Achievement of TT (JA).

J Errol Lewis, JA executive director, recalled, “After the police traffic branch was moved, the place was frequently vandalised, forcing Junior Achievement to seek alternative accommodation.”

The site has more historical significance than Fort San Andres. It was at that location that ships landed enslaved Africans. It was there that ships full of Indian indentured labourers, Chinese indentured workers and Portuguese contract labourers tied up alongside the mole built Chacon to connect the island fort to the mainland. It was also there that French planters fleeing the Revolution in Saint Domingue (Haiti) disembarked.

The site is on the Heritage Asset Register, the official list of TT’s historic sites that are worthy of notation and preservation.