On Au­gust 26, from 4 pm, City Sun­val­ley Steel Or­ches­tra will host Cel­e­brat­ing the Icons of Nel­son Street, on Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain. The day's pro­gramme fea­tures 2012 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, run­ners-up Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove and BP Rene­gades, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz, Sapo­phon­ics, La Famile Unit­ed, Free­lancers and City Sun­val­ley. In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Sun­val­ley man­ag­er Ger­ard Mendez ex­plained that his steel­band and a com­mit­tee, that in­cludes PRO Lance Lash­ley, de­cid­ed to ho­n­our the peo­ple of Nel­son Street and en­vi­rons who have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T on the na­tion's 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. "We were grant­ed per­mis­sion by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to cor­don off a por­tion of Nel­son Street, be­tween Duke and Prince Streets for the event," said Mendez. "We al­so re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er, May­or Louis Lee Sing, his deputy Ker­ron Valen­tine, as well as from Pan Trin­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly its pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, and Pan Trin­ba­go's North­ern Re­gion. "We in­tend ho­n­our­ing cit­i­zens for Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Cul­ture, Pol­i­tics, Sports, Com­merce and Ed­u­ca­tion."

About the in­spi­ra­tion for hav­ing this event, Mendez said: "This is the first in a se­ries of events we in­tend stag­ing in an ef­fort to erad­i­cate the neg­a­tive stig­ma that is at­tached to Nel­son Street, and by ex­ten­sion be­hind the bridge. "We al­so be­lieve that this com­mu­ni­ty has pro­duced sev­er­al lu­mi­nar­ies in so­ci­ety. "For in­stance, the Fa­ther of the Na­tion, the late prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, at­tend­ed Nel­son Street Boys' RC School. Arthur Lok Jack lived in the com­mu­ni­ty. "Oth­er out­stand­ing cit­i­zens with con­nec­tions to Nel­son Street have been for­mer chief jus­tice Clin­ton Bernard, for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons John Rougi­er, and ca­lyp­so icon Chalk­dust." Mendez said the day's events will be of­fi­cial­ly blessed and opened by RC priest Fr Clyde Har­vey. Among the day's head­line guest artistes are Su­perBlue and All­rounder. "I am throw­ing out a chal­lenge to all the T&T me­dia that, in the same way dur­ing the state of emer­gency they showed and re­port­ed about the 21 guys de­tained from Nel­son Street, that they come out and show­case this pos­i­tive side of Nel­son Street. "We want the me­dia to fo­cus on the pos­i­tives with­in our com­mu­ni­ty, one which has good, whole­some and God-fear­ing cit­i­zens re­sid­ing as well," Mendez said.

Hon­orees

Icons of Nel­son Street Hon­orees in­clude:

NA­TION­AL SER­VICE

John Sandy

Roy Au­gus­tus

POL­I­TICS

Mar­tin Joseph

COM­MERCE

John Noel

Ma­ma's Ice Cream

Red Box

Chee Mooke Bak­ery

CUL­TURE

Dane Gul­ston

Se­nior Gomez

Seadley "Pen­guin" Joseph

Bertram "Bob" Thomas

Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars

Wit­co Des­per­a­does

BP Rene­gades

SPORTS

Ever­ald "Gal­ly" Cum­mings

Den­zil Theobald

Daviel David

Rus­sel Tesheira (posthu­mous)

ED­U­CA­TION

An­gela Pierre

E Prescott