Tweet
Things still not done
Michael Burke
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Jamaica has greatly improved physically in the last 50 years, more so in the last 48 years since political independence.Potable running water everywhere is something that the young might take for granted in addition to electricity being just about everywhere. The four-lane highways are another major advance as well as the advances in cellular telephones and also computers.There has been a housing revolution. High school education is available throughout Jamaica with increasing access to universities. But there are still some things that have not been done.
The late Evon Blake was the editor and publisher of a monthly news magazine called Newday. In the late 1960s he would also publish Beautiful Jamaica. In the April 1960 issue of Newday there is a photograph of the wooden Jamaica Agricultural Society building at the corner of North Parade and Church Street in downtown Kingston.
GUNBOAT BEACH... four promises not fulfilled.
GUNBOAT BEACH... four promises not fulfilled.
1/1 
Part of the caption under the picture reads: "Government owns the land, sits tight not only on the title but on the society's plans for a modern building. In case of fire, many of the 110 employees would probably end up as charred stumps. Reason: One narrow winding staircase". Fifty years later the old Jamaica Agricultural Society building is still there. Does the building still have "one narrow winding staircase" or was a new one put in some time over the last 50 years? I have not been inside that building in a very long time.
As an aside, it is common in Jamaica for people to work in air-conditioned offices but not to have that facility at home. I examined the photograph in the magazine and saw the old air-conditioning unit placed outside of windows upstairs the building. I reflected that the JAS president of the day, who was also a minister of government, did not even have electricity at his home but he had a "battery" (called a stand-by plant today).
How on earth would I know that, especially as in April 1960 I was not yet seven years old? As a grandson of Rudolph Burke who was then the president of the JAS, I would sometimes visit my grandparents in Llandewey, St Thomas, along with the rest of my family. Electricity was yet to be extended to many places outside of Kingston in 1960. Today, young Jamaicans would have a hard time imagining a minister of government not having electricity at his residence.
There was a competition for a design for a town hall in Kingston in 1960. It was to have been located at "Old Wolmer" at the corner of East Queen Street and East Parade. The artist's design of the winner was printed in the June-July 1960 issue of Newday. Eventually, the plan was changed. A new legislative building called "Gordon House" was erected. It was to be a temporary building that would become the KSAC town hall after a permanent location was found for Gordon House. Fifty years later, Kingston still does not have a town hall.
Gunboat Beach was opened during the campaign for the 1959 general elections. Four promises made by the then minister of education and MHR for East Kingston, Florizel Glasspole, have still not yet been realised. Some of them would be impractical today, like having overhead cable cars from Wareika Hills to Port Royal.
We are still talking about a road from Papine to Bull Bay, which was one of the four promises. It is debatable whether the proposed gondolas which were to sail from Gunboat Beach to Bournemouth Bath would make any sense today. The proposed Lord Nelson Hotel at Port Royal might still be a good idea 51 years later.
In 1974 the Forum Hotel was built in Portmore. It was to be a hotel where civil servants, teachers, nurses, police, firefighters, ancillary workers and domestic helpers could get a two-week vacation. And apparently these vacations would be funded by income tax. Some said the ground would sink because the hotel was built on reclaimed land.
Was that the reason why the hotel was abandoned? Or was it because there was also to be a drawbridge over the Kingston Harbour and some of the taxi drivers objected? Is it true that they complained that they would not be able to take tourists around the harbour from the airport where they make more money? One positive thing is that it still can be retrieved.
Jamaica has never been short on ideas. Just about any idea thought to be new was thought of before. But many ideas have been frustrated by either a lack of what Norman Manley called "fixity of purpose" or the inability to identify the funding agencies. And sometimes a new government does not continue the plans of the previous government.
Many times when this happens, the new government does not have the same priority so projects fall by the wayside. And when the government changes again the party that implemented the plan cannot identify overseas funding to resume projects. This is because new governments with different policies are elected in the countries where the funds came from in the first place.
ekrubm765@yahoo.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...filled_7554616
Michael Burke
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Jamaica has greatly improved physically in the last 50 years, more so in the last 48 years since political independence.Potable running water everywhere is something that the young might take for granted in addition to electricity being just about everywhere. The four-lane highways are another major advance as well as the advances in cellular telephones and also computers.There has been a housing revolution. High school education is available throughout Jamaica with increasing access to universities. But there are still some things that have not been done.
The late Evon Blake was the editor and publisher of a monthly news magazine called Newday. In the late 1960s he would also publish Beautiful Jamaica. In the April 1960 issue of Newday there is a photograph of the wooden Jamaica Agricultural Society building at the corner of North Parade and Church Street in downtown Kingston.
GUNBOAT BEACH... four promises not fulfilled.
GUNBOAT BEACH... four promises not fulfilled. 1/1 As an aside, it is common in Jamaica for people to work in air-conditioned offices but not to have that facility at home. I examined the photograph in the magazine and saw the old air-conditioning unit placed outside of windows upstairs the building. I reflected that the JAS president of the day, who was also a minister of government, did not even have electricity at his home but he had a "battery" (called a stand-by plant today).
How on earth would I know that, especially as in April 1960 I was not yet seven years old? As a grandson of Rudolph Burke who was then the president of the JAS, I would sometimes visit my grandparents in Llandewey, St Thomas, along with the rest of my family. Electricity was yet to be extended to many places outside of Kingston in 1960. Today, young Jamaicans would have a hard time imagining a minister of government not having electricity at his residence.
There was a competition for a design for a town hall in Kingston in 1960. It was to have been located at "Old Wolmer" at the corner of East Queen Street and East Parade. The artist's design of the winner was printed in the June-July 1960 issue of Newday. Eventually, the plan was changed. A new legislative building called "Gordon House" was erected. It was to be a temporary building that would become the KSAC town hall after a permanent location was found for Gordon House. Fifty years later, Kingston still does not have a town hall.
Gunboat Beach was opened during the campaign for the 1959 general elections. Four promises made by the then minister of education and MHR for East Kingston, Florizel Glasspole, have still not yet been realised. Some of them would be impractical today, like having overhead cable cars from Wareika Hills to Port Royal.
We are still talking about a road from Papine to Bull Bay, which was one of the four promises. It is debatable whether the proposed gondolas which were to sail from Gunboat Beach to Bournemouth Bath would make any sense today. The proposed Lord Nelson Hotel at Port Royal might still be a good idea 51 years later.
In 1974 the Forum Hotel was built in Portmore. It was to be a hotel where civil servants, teachers, nurses, police, firefighters, ancillary workers and domestic helpers could get a two-week vacation. And apparently these vacations would be funded by income tax. Some said the ground would sink because the hotel was built on reclaimed land.
Was that the reason why the hotel was abandoned? Or was it because there was also to be a drawbridge over the Kingston Harbour and some of the taxi drivers objected? Is it true that they complained that they would not be able to take tourists around the harbour from the airport where they make more money? One positive thing is that it still can be retrieved.
Jamaica has never been short on ideas. Just about any idea thought to be new was thought of before. But many ideas have been frustrated by either a lack of what Norman Manley called "fixity of purpose" or the inability to identify the funding agencies. And sometimes a new government does not continue the plans of the previous government.
Many times when this happens, the new government does not have the same priority so projects fall by the wayside. And when the government changes again the party that implemented the plan cannot identify overseas funding to resume projects. This is because new governments with different policies are elected in the countries where the funds came from in the first place.
ekrubm765@yahoo.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...filled_7554616
Comment