Legislation needed to save our legacy

TERRENCE HONORE

I RECENTLY drove by the brand-new multi-storey car park on Lady Hailes Avenue in San Fernando. The project was a laudable achievement, designed to provide an additional 1,000 parking spaces for citizens of the southern city. The structure is perched on the historic hill overlooking the Gulf of Paria with ease of access for patients to the nearby San Fernando General Hospital and parking for general commuters, at a minimal cost.

But while its construction is commendable, I am concerned that there was a clear violation of the "sacred trust" regarding the preservation of heritage sites in the city. As it stands, remnants of our history now lie buried under levels of reinforced concrete.

This episode exposed the need for due diligence by the authorities regarding the preservation of historic sites in the country. Unfortunately, there continues to be a blatant disregard for historic buildings and locations, and this must be addressed with the appropriate legislation.

The increasing instances of destroyed historic buildings and ravished heritage sites across the country continue to erode the pillars of our past and leave little for the next generation to glean from. While there are a few notable efforts to protect our heritage, like the National Trust and a few museum efforts, there remains a void in the regulatory framework necessary to protect and sustain our efforts in this regard.

As in previous instances, we needed to be mindful of the importance of the history of the location where the car park was constructed. The site would have yielded a wealth of artefacts from successive periods of occupation…from the time of the indigenous people to sugar cane days, to modern times. We missed this critical fact and lost an opportunity to preserve valuable elements of our past.

Even as the builders laid down the foundation, we should be diligent to lay down the laws that serve to preserve the historicity of every heritage site.

The famous 1895 insurance map showed the old police station and the old hospital and burial grounds along St Andrew Street, adjacent to Chancery Lane. Earlier maps from the 1850s showed several buildings on the site. These likely belonged to Paradise Estate, the last great estate in the San Fernando area. The estate boasted beautiful undulating green pasture lands fringed with sugar cane fields. The area was an extension of Harris Promenade which served as the northern boundary of the estate. Paradise Cemetery and Paradise Street leading to it bear the name of the great estate.

So, today as we look up at the towering structure of the car park with its sturdy walls and credible artistic display, we must also remember that many memories were made and must be preserved for those who are coming after us. We have to learn to love the legacy of our beloved city.

With the car park's construction, the stories of the past have been buried in the hillside or were carted away to some unknown location. A large sign on the site offered "Landfill for sale." But several stratified layers of soil were visible in the hillside cutting, some darker than others and at least one layer of grey-looking ash, a sharp contrast to the Sapatere soil common to the area. It clearly marked the place where debris was burnt in the past.

It would have been an archaeologist’s delight to peruse the site, to investigate the various periods of occupancy of the hillside and collect any items that spoke of the history of the city.

In the 1980s Amerindian artefacts were found a mere 200 metres away at the corner of Harris Promenade and Harris Street. The area naturally extends to the crest of the hill overlooking the Gulf of Paria, where the car park now stands.

I earnestly sought out the safety officer on site…imploring him to check with the city authorities to gain access to the obvious "midden" visible in the freshly cut hillside. He indicated that the exposed area yielded shells and other items. He recalled seeing several "artefacts" during the excavation and even witnessed a worker walking away with old bottles and other items. But his responsibility remained with the construction and not the collection of historical items to be found at the location.

I was told that no proper authorisation was in place to access or preserve the site.

I ventured to the lower perimeter of the construction site near the Lady Hailes roadway and was elated to find a whited seashell among other broken pieces scattered in the dirt. They were partly hidden in the dirt that was pushed down the hillside. The shell was small but significant…a crustacean from earlier times. It spoke volumes to me. It has been years since my childhood days that I had seen that type of shell, once common along the shoreline of the Gulf of Paria amidst the dozens of oyster shells visible at low tide.

Folklore has it that a whaling station once operated in the area near the shoreline. If there were any bones from those days they are now long gone.

The case before us is that the car park has buried the evidence of the remnants of our past. In the future we must move to protect ourselves from the spirit of indifference, masked as progress, that continues to destroy the elements of our legacy. But then again…who really cares?

Taxpayers paid $137 million for the new car park. We will continue to pay an even higher price if we cheapen the value of our past, of our legacy. Like calypsonian Ken Austin sang in his song Progress, "And I think no one can deny that the price of progress is high, real high." He went on to sing, "Simply because in its quest for success/Nothing stands in man’s way." Even today we’re sinking lower by our indiscriminate actions. We are unwittingly or deliberately embracing the abyss of negligence. For even as we progress, we must ensure that we preserve our legacy.

The laws should be enshrined in our Constitution to ensure that people refrain from encroaching or destroying identified heritage sites. I refer to the long and protracted battle for the historic Banwari site led by activist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh and others who seem to be shouting to the wind for the preservation of our nation’s history. What a story we are telling our children by destroying the very things that constitute our existence. As simple as it seems to some of us, it’s an indictment on all of us.

We cannot continue to grant permission to the construction industry to destroy our built or natural heritage. We must seek to expeditiously put the appropriate legislation in place. Because it’s not just about where we are going, but where we came from that creates a culture of true progress. It’s time for us to put the right legislation in place to save our legacy.