An­na-Lisa Paul

Hours af­ter he or­dered the de­mo­li­tion of the his­toric Greyfri­ars Church of Scot­land, own­er Al­fred Galy agreed to stay his hand.

But not be­fore a de­mo­li­tion crew smashed its way through the north­ern wall of the Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain land­mark.

De­spite yes­ter­day's bad weath­er, work­ers of Joel Ramdeen and Co, work­ing with an ex­ca­va­tor, start­ed de­mo­li­tion around5 am. By8 am, the church hall was re­duced to rub­ble, and the north­ern wall of the church had been tak­en down.

Joshua Lu, who had been cir­cu­lat­ing a pe­ti­tion call­ing for the preser­va­tion of the site as a his­toric build­ing, alert­ed mem­bers of the NGO Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion, who rushed to the scene to try to stop the de­mo­li­tion.Con­ser­va­tion ac­tivists and oth­er con­cerned cit­i­zens start­ed to flock to the church­yard, as news of the de­mo­li­tion spread via so­cial me­dia.

Lu said he of­ten drove in­to the city on a week­end to check on the site and en­sure no de­mo­li­tion work was be­ing done.

In an at­tempt to stop the ex­ca­va­tor op­er­a­tor from knock­ing down the re­main­ing church walls, Lu stood in­side the build­ing, but the own­er of the ex­ca­va­tor or­dered the op­er­a­tor to con­tin­ue the de­mo­li­tion.

Lu was lat­er joined by Dr Nu­rah-Ros­alie Cord­ner, an ad­vis­er to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion, who jumped on­to the ex­ca­va­tor and ap­pealed to the op­er­a­tor to stop de­stroy­ing the coun­try's her­itage. As four work­men tried to forcibly re­move her, Cord­ner's hi­jab was pulled off by and her purse was ripped open, leav­ing her per­son­al be­long­ings scat­tered among the de­bris.

Tears, out­rage

Blink­ing away tears, ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary of Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion, Michele Ce­les­tine said yes­ter­day's ac­tion caught every­one un­awares.

"Mr Galy con­tin­ues to dis­re­spect the process, al­though we have been in dis­cus­sions with him all week and for the past two weeks try­ing to come up with a city plan where he can con­struct a build­ing as he says he wants to do, and we would get to keep our his­toric church."

Ce­les­tine said it was dis­ap­point­ing to wit­ness the de­struc­tion of a build­ing which was cen­turies old. (The church was built in the 1830s.)

"The no­tice of in­ten­tion to list this prop­er­ty as a his­toric site has been served on Mr Galy over three weeks now,"she point­ed out.

Galy had ex­pressed an in­ter­est in pur­chas­ing ad­ja­cent prop­er­ties to con­struct of­fices, she said.

Chair­man of the Coun­cil of the Na­tion­al Trust Prof Win­ston Suite said Galy had act­ed in a "dis­hon­est and dis­re­spect­ful" man­ner.

"Like a thief in the night, he has moved in to de­stroy the build­ing and hop­ing by the time peo­ple wake up­Mon­day­morn­ing, every­thing would be done and it would be a fait ac­com­pli."

Suite was joined by his wife, at­tor­ney Lynette See­baran-Suite, and deputy prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Prof Rho­da Red­dock, who were out­raged over the de­mo­li­tion.

MIn­is­ter: no re­spect

Stand­ing in the rain as he sur­veyed the scene in dis­be­lief, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion Rodger Samuel said: "They just don't have re­spect for this coun­try–ab­solute­ly no re­spect–be­cause we have been ne­go­ti­at­ing, the Town and Coun­try Di­vi­sion up toThurs­day­was ne­go­ti­at­ing with this gen­tle­man in good faith try­ing to help him work around it. And this is what hap­pens, like a thief in the night."

Samuel said no de­mo­li­tion ap­provals were grant­ed by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

He said he would re­main on the site un­til the ex­ca­va­tor was re­moved.

Way for­ward

Up to yes­ter­day evening, Galy was ex­pect­ed to sit with of­fi­cials to dis­cuss the way for­ward. Those meet­ings are ex­pect­ed to in­clude Samuel, mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Trust, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.?