An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

The shop­ping mall craze which be­gan in the late 1970s in the fi­nal gold­en years of the oil boom and de­fied the re­ces­sion-crip­pled 1980s is still very much alive. Just take a walk in one to­day and see how hard the own­ers try to draw in cus­tomers–es­pe­cial­ly at Christ­mas time, when the irony of snow and sleighs in the trop­ics seems moot when the light­ed San­tas are put on dis­play.

In the Trinidad of yes­ter­year, there were no malls but there were de­part­ment stores. These were based on a mod­el pi­o­neered dur­ing the con­sumerism boom of the In­dus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion in Britain in the 19th cen­tu­ry. The fa­mous Har­rods is the best ex­am­ple of a Lon­don de­part­ment store, while over in the Unit­ed States, the busi­ness type was put to good pur­pose in the found­ing of Ma­cy's in 1858 and lat­er, the low­er-end Wool­worth's, which many Trinida­di­ans think of fond­ly, as the now-de­funct chain once main­tained sev­er­al branch­es here up to the 1980s.

Port-of-Spain had its own de­part­ment-store ti­tan as well. Like the ones in Eng­land, the Bo­nan­za Stores grew out of an eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty brought on by high co­coa prices and an im­mense spike in pro­duc­tion, which gave a wider in­come dis­tri­b­u­tion than ever be­fore. Where­as for­mer­ly the bulk of the pur­chas­ing pow­er lay with the mi­nor­i­ty of the planter class, the work­ing man now had mon­ey at his dis­pos­al.

Found­ed in 1885 by John H Smith and trad­ing un­der the ban­ner of Smith Broth­ers and Co, Bo­nan­za Stores was from the out­set con­sid­ered one of the finest shop­ping es­tab­lish­ments in the West In­dies. Orig­i­nal­ly at 17 Fred­er­ick Street, Bo­nan­za was smack dab in the cen­tre of the most high­ly-re­gard­ed busi­ness thor­ough­fare in the East­ern Caribbean.

A rag­ing fire in 1895 had cleared the zone of ram­shackle and dingy wood­en build­ings which had stood for al­most 90 years. In their place rose the vi­sions of Scot­tish ar­chi­tect George Brown, whose com­bi­na­tions of plate glass, el­e­gant cast iron and fire­brick gave the place a sig­na­ture panache.

Fore­most among these new stores was the Bo­nan­za, since John Smith had the fore­sight to have ad­e­quate fire in­sur­ance (which, in­deed, he pro­vid­ed an agency for), and thus was well-placed to re­cov­er and re-com­mence busi­ness in style.

An icon of­ma­te­r­i­al dreams

The Bo­nan­za was an icon. Far more than just a mer­can­tile store, it rep­re­sent­ed the repos­i­to­ry of the dreams and as­pi­ra­tions of an en­tire seg­ment of Trinidad so­ci­ety who strove to­wards ac­quir­ing the trap­pings of com­fort and achieve­ment that the goods rep­re­sent­ed.

The largest di­vi­sion of the Bo­nan­za was its dry goods store, which seem­ing­ly of­fered an end­less ar­ray of fab­rics, ac­ces­sories and ready-made cloth­ing for all sex­es and ages.

Chil­dren must have thought the Bo­nan­za to be the epit­o­me of hap­pi­ness, since in the mid­dle of the main floor, there was a so­da foun­tain, im­port­ed from the Unit­ed States. This huge brass counter was a dis­pen­sary for soft drinks and ice-cream so­das, which, at a shilling or two, pro­vid­ed a de­cent means of cool­ing the throats of thirsty shop­pers.

The Bo­nan­za came alive at Christ­mas time when there was an im­mense toy dis­play ac­com­pa­nied by the lat­est gad­gets. In­deed, one source re­called in the ear­ly 1900s, the Bo­nan­za toy win­dow had on dis­play fas­ci­nat­ing au­toma­ta which were best de­scribed as clock­work ro­bots. These were both works of art and feats of en­gi­neer­ing.

Up­stairs was the Bo­nan­za fur­ni­ture show­room, where the best im­port­ed beds, ta­bles and chairs were ar­rayed for in­spec­tion.

Smith Broth­ers main­tained oth­er branch­es on Aber­crom­bie and Cha­con Streets, where sev­er­al de­part­ments were housed. One of the most im­por­tant was the garage, which of­fered a range of me­chan­i­cal ser­vices to the grow­ing mo­torist pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing the patch­ing and re-tread­ing of tires.

John H Smith re­tired in 1919 and the firm was sold to a St Kitts busi­ness­man, D Hope Ross, who had made a for­tune in re­tail sales in the 1890s. Mr Ross was not con­tent to sit on the suc­cess­es of Mr Smith and pushed for a rapid ex­pan­sion of the Bo­nan­za, which saw new ad­ver­tis­ing (elec­tric tram­cars in the city car­ried bill­boards which ad­ver­tised for the store). By 1925 there were Bo­nan­za stores in San Fer­nan­do, Ari­ma, San­gre Grande, Princes Town and Siparia.

The Bo­nan­za man­aged to stay in busi­ness dur­ing World War II but there­after be­gan to come un­der pres­sure from in­no­v­a­tive com­peti­tors, which left it a ver­i­ta­ble di­nosaur of a gild­ed era. The Bo­nan­za fi­nal­ly pe­tered out in the 1960s and the fa­mous name was no more.