Dear Editor,
Mr Dimitri Allicock, to his great credit, has circulated an e-mail which draws public attention to the fact that within two weeks the City of Georgetown should be observing the 200th anniversary of its name change. An edited version of his e-mail follows for the information of the public and I have added my own observations and recommendations after Dimitri’s contribution:
“Georgetown – Celebrating 200 years on 29 April 2012…
“The capital city of Georgetown will celebrate two hundred years [under its current name], later this year. The city of Stabroek was renamed Georgetown on 29 April 1812 in honor of England’s King George III. On 5 May 1812, an Ordinance was passed to the effect that the town formerly called Stabroek, with districts extending from La Penitence to the bridges in Kingston and entering upon the road to the military camps, shall be called Georgetown.
“The city of Georgetown began as a small town in the 18th century. Originally, the capital of the Demerara-Essequibo colony was located on Borsselen Island in the Demerara River under the administration of the Dutch. When the colony was captured by the British in 1781, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Kingston chose the mouth of the Demerara River for the establishment of a town which was situated between Plantations Werk-en-Rust and Vlissingen.
“It was the French who developed this town and made it their capital city when they captured the colony in 1782. The French called the capital La Nouvelle Ville. When the town was restored to the Dutch in 1784, it was renamed Stabroek after Nicolaas Geelvinck, Lord of Stabroek, and President of the Dutch West India Company. Eventually the town expanded and covered the estates of Vlissingen, La Bourgade and Eve Leary to the North, and Werk-en-Rust and Le Repentir…
“Georgetown was once called the Garden City because of the many trees that grace its avenues. The city’s avenues were created when some of its historical canals were filled in. These unique avenues along urban streets are lined with flowering tropical trees, which shed their colorful blossoms at various times of the year on the pedestrian pathways that run between them.
Georgetown, despite the modern developing skyline, is still a city of wooden structures, including most of its houses and public buildings. It most famous landmark is the St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, the tallest wooden structure in the world In the 1890s,
“Henry Kirke author of Twenty five years in British Guiana said:
‘Georgetown, called the Venice of the West Indies is a strange place, and one calculated to excite the interest and admiration of everyone. Beneath the level of the sea at springtides, the city is defended from the waves of the Atlantic by a granite breakwater two miles long, stretching from Fort William Frederick at the mouth of the river Demerara to Plantation Kitty on the East Coast; great granite groynes run out from it to the sea every sixty yards or so, to break the force of the waves; whilst the wall, which is twenty five feet wide at the top, is utilized as a promenade and health resort in the afternoon and evenings. This sea wall was commenced in 1858, and was not completed until 1892. It was built principally by convict labor, and all the granite was brought from the penal settlement on the Massaruni River…
‘The streets in Georgetown are all rectangular: the city is intersected in all directions by open canals and drains, which are crossed by innumerable bridges. These, at the time I first went out to the colony, were made of wood, which have since been replaced by handsome structures built of iron and cement. Main Street is certainly one of the prettiest streets I ever saw. About forty yards wide, it is divided up the middle by a wide canal full of the Victoria Regia Lily, the canal and the roads on each side, being shaded by an avenue of saman trees. Handsome houses, painted white, or some bright color, are built on each side of the street, nearly all of which are surrounded by gardens, full of crotons, palms, poinsettias, bougainvilleas, and all sorts of bright-hued plants and flowers; on some of the trees can be seen clusters of cattleyas with their mauve and rose colored flowers, from another an oncidium throws out its racemes of odorous petals, four to five feet in length.‘
“Two centuries of rich intangible cultural heritage for all Guyana is embodied by Georgetown’s history. Let this historical anniversary be remembered as a time for renewal of entrusted and sacred heritage, which must be proudly passed on to the future generations Understanding and respecting the past are the keys to the future…
“Respectfully yours
Dimitri Allicock”
From my perspective, having reminisced on this important and nostalgic aspect of the evolution of Georgetown, the reality, as we approach its 200th anniversary of its name change, does not conjure up a visual image of the City of Georgetown that will instil a sense of pride.
Rather than dwell on who’s to blame for the state of affairs, I respectfully recommend reasonable and achievable courses of action by public, private and community organisations, institutions and agencies, that will arrest the decline and restore some sense of civic pride in what it is to be Guyanese; that advocate the standards of accountability to which we shall hold public officials in the discharge of their functions on behalf of the welfare and well being of citizens of Georgetown; and, that instill in our ownselves a sense of civic responsibility and the standards that we shall uphold and bequeath to our young people and future generations.
These are my recommendations:
1. A concerted effort by ministries of the government, political parties represented in Parliament, commercial businesses located in GT – including merchants, vendors, hoteliers, restarauteurs, night club operators, minibus operators and taxi services, to clean up and maintain the cleanliness and appearance of the main streets and pavements/avenues/alleyways in the vicinity of their locations. Such an initiative should originate from a joint appeal and implementation coordination by the Ministry of Local Government, the Mayor and City Council, and the Private Sector Commission with its key affiliate, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
2. Residents within the wards of the city must be encouraged to clean up their yards and parapets within a given timeline and then to maintain same. This initiative should be based on a public appeal by the City Council with detailed work being facilitated in each ward of the city by citizens groups, service organisations, schools and colleges, religious, sports and cultural organisations, and young leadership cadres such as the Scouts, Guides and the President‘s Youth Award, Republic of Guyana gold, silver and bronze awardees, who are resident within each ward. Such an initiative does not have to await central direction but there should be coordination of the logistics of garbage removal with the City Council. Ongoing collection sites for residents whose garbage may not be cleared daily, need to be identified and signed. Garbage dumped other than at authorised places should be traced back to the source and condign action taken to expose perpetrators and impose penalties for such uncivil behaviour.
3. The City Council’s focus must be on the gaps, empty lots, alleyways and canals as well as removal of garbage from the city to the Haag’s Bosch Site on the East Bank Demerara and authorised land fill sites. The logistics for such collection and removal, will be initially a daunting task but it is a task for which the City Council should seek the advice and assistance of the Guyana Police Force and Guyana Defence Force Engineer Corps.
4. Realistic fines for littering and penalties for poor maintenance of public places and private premises must be enforced by the City Council, assisted by the law enforcement agencies and neighbourhood policing groups.
5. A Commemorative Act to observe the 200th Naming Anniversary: The National Trust (under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport), in collaboration with the Guyana Heritage Society, should erect an appropriate sign at the location of the Brandwagt, the first infrastructure In what is now Georgetown. The Brandwagt, or signal station, was a small wooden fort, manned by a sergeant and five soldiers armed with swivel guns loaded with either nails or stones, and it was intended as a post of observation for vessels coming into the river, to prevent smuggling and give warning of an enemy. The Brandwagt was reportedly erected on the location occupied by St Andrews Church, west of the Magistrate’s Court at the head of Brickdam (see James Rodway’s The Story of Georgetown (Reprint edition 1997)).
6. The 200th Naming Anniversary Project – The Restoration of City Hall: A public commitment should be made by civil society groups towards the setting up of a project implementation Steering Committee (as, for example, was done for the restoration of the St George’s Cathedral and the Theatre Guild Playhouse) for the Restoration of City Hall as a project of national importance. This once magnificent building, designed by architect Father Ignatius Scoles, was opened by Governor Gormanston on July 1, 1889. This restoration project should be be devoid of any acrimony, real or perceived, between the incumbent administration of the city and the government. City Hall is a National Monument and should be the symbol and flagship of the capital. Sadly, it is currently a national embarrassment of monumental proportions.
While these above recommendations are specifically designed to prod the national consciousness towards taking decisive action in anticipation of a milestone in the life of the capital city, there are other strategic and systemic issues for which sustained advocacy will be required. These include curtailing the importation and use of styrofoam; promoting the use of biodegradable containers; and the collection, recycling or processing of plastic containers.
Maintenance of canals and alleyways in the city has to be complemented by efficient manning of kokers and sluices and the regular desilting of outfalls into the Demerara River.
I do hope my offering finds resonance with officials and citizens. The manifestation of this will be in individual action in households, cooperative action within communities, and in collaborative action among the official agencies and organisations in and around the city. Hopefully, this will generate a momentum outside of the boundaries of the city to the entire country.
Yours faithfully,
Joseph G Singh
Major General (retd)
