San Fer­nan­do is al­ways live­ly by day but is prac­ti­cal­ly dead at night.

Apart from the bus­tle of the street food haven at Cross Cross­ing, the main ar­ter­ies of the city be­come dis­mal at nights.

Cog­nisant of the yes­ter­years when the crowd thronged San Fer­nan­do for its nightlife, San Fer­nan­di­ans are now on a mis­sion to re­vi­talise the city and re­verse its de­cline. It is a mas­sive trans­for­ma­tion project which is ex­pect­ed to cost mil­lions and boost tourism.

This re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion comes in the form of the long-promised San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front project which San Fer­nan­di­ans be­lieve will be the cat­a­lyst to trans­form the in­dus­tri­al cap­i­tal.

Promi­nent San Fer­nan­di­an Kei­th Bel­grove, who is the CEO of Bel­groves Group of Com­pa­nies and pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AF­PTT) re­mem­bers the time when Cof­fee Street was a buzz of ac­tiv­i­ty.

"A few decades ago it was a cul­tur­al are­na filled with tal­ent­ed street ac­tiv­i­ties, small traders, food ga­lore, and these cul­tur­al NGOs brought in tourists in­to the city. To­day Cof­fee Street is dead. We need to re­vi­talise Cof­fee Street to what it was be­fore," Bel­grove said.

He said apart from its wealth of tal­ent­ed peo­ple, San Fer­nan­do al­so har­bours a rich his­to­ry in its ceme­ter­ies.

"There is such a wealth of his­to­ry in our ceme­ter­ies and our young peo­ple need to have some knowl­edge of what ex­ists. I want to en­cour­age the de­vel­op­ment of ceme­tery tourism," Bel­grove said.

The Roodal and Par­adise ceme­ter­ies have the tomb­stones of peo­ple buried since the 19th cen­tu­ry.

Bel­groves be­lieves that these tomb­stones should be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to San Fer­nan­do's rich lega­cy which will bring about tourists from across the world.

Like most San Fer­nan­di­ans, Bel­grove is ea­ger for the com­ple­tion of the wa­ter­front project.

"The wa­ter­front is an old project but I want to thank the may­or for em­brac­ing this project and start­ing the process of doc­u­ment­ing and pre­serv­ing some of the an­cient relics we have at King's Wharf," Bel­groves said.

Re­grel­lo, who grew up in San Fer­nan­do, al­so re­mem­bers the days when San Fer­nan­do was the epit­o­me of nightlife.

"It was in the late 50s in­to the 60s. Back then, San Fer­nan­do had very colour­ful char­ac­ters. The sailors from the oil tankers and ves­sels an­chored out­side of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery would come ashore in their uni­forms. There were well-known ladies to ser­vice these men, women like Beril, Bo­di, and Big Six. We al­so had the more flam­bouyant ones like Con­stance and Hinds who made King's Wharf come alive," Re­grel­lo said.

He said the Dutchy Broth­ers played off New Street.

"They were a live brass band and they had their own club. The wharf was sur­round­ed by shops and bars. The Bam­boo Inn was op­po­site to where Re­pub­lic Bank was lo­cat­ed. We had pop­u­lar roti shops and the in­fa­mous Black Cat Ho­tel," Re­grel­lo said.

With the shut­ting down of the train, Re­grel­lo said the busy nightlife came slow­ly to an end.

"When the train was re­moved the peo­ple who worked the train con­tin­ued to live there. Lat­er on, the area be­came in­hab­it­ed by fish­er­folk who built small huts along the area where the train once passed," Rergrel­lo said.

Un­der the late prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, all of the peo­ple liv­ing on the wharf were giv­en gov­ern­ment hous­ing as prepa­ra­tion works for the wa­ter­front project be­gan. How­ev­er, Re­grel­lo said the Gov­ern­ment lapsed in dis­man­tling the sheds and over time the area be­came pop­u­lat­ed again.

Over the past few years, more ply­board hous­es have sprung up on the wa­ter­front.

De­spite this, Re­grel­lo said they were mov­ing ahead with the project.

Ear­li­er this year, DRAVOSA Ltd, a com­pa­ny from Madrid, Spain, was award­ed a con­tract for the de­sign and con­struc­tion of the recla­ma­tion of 3.8 hectares of land at the wharf at a cost of $57 mil­lion. This project is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by 2020.

De­sign works for the recla­ma­tion has start­ed and will be com­plet­ed with­in the last quar­ter of 2019.

The project in­cludes the es­tab­lish­ment of a small fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty and jet­ty along Hat­ter’s Beach, the con­struc­tion of a mixed-use de­vel­op­ment in­clu­sive of medi­um-in­come hous­ing at La­dy Hailes Av­enue util­is­ing pub­lic/pri­vate part­ner­ship arrange­ments, and the de­vel­op­ment of a mul­ti-storey ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex at Chancery Lance, San Fer­nan­do. There will be an up­grade to Plaza San Car­los, which in­cludes sev­er­al his­toric build­ings (see box be­low).

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said the project will gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment and boost com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty in the city. He said the wharf will be the hub for en­ter­tain­ment with the preser­va­tion of his­tor­i­cal spaces and the con­struc­tion of leisure fa­cil­i­ties which will cre­ate a tourist hub.

His­toric build­ings to be re­stored (de­tails cour­tesy San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion)

Gen­er­al Stores—Con­struct­ed in 1870, Gen­er­al Stores was once owned and op­er­at­ed by Elvi­ra Glassen as an en­ter­tain­ment venue known as the Ice Es­tab­lish­ment. By 1874 the build­ing was used to sell Usine Ste Madeleine sug­ar and was sub­se­quent­ly sold by Glassen in 1879 to James Whar­ton.

By 1987 the build­ing be­came an out­let for sell­ing gen­er­al mer­chan­dise called Al­ston and Com­pa­ny, which is now part of the ANSA McAL group. The build­ing it­self is ar­chi­tec­tural­ly no­table as it is the on­ly struc­ture in the area with a mansard roof. It has the orig­i­nal wood tim­ber ceil­ing, floor struc­ture and floor­ing on the in­te­ri­or.

Hap­py Cor­ner has been at the cen­tre of en­ter­tain­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­ty since the 1870s. It pro­vid­ed re­fresh­ment and ac­com­mo­da­tion dur­ing the an­nu­al San Fer­nan­do Re­gat­ta. The build­ing was al­so owned and op­er­at­ed by Elvi­ra Glassen and orig­i­nal­ly stood at the wa­ter's edge which changed in 1883-4 when the wharf was ex­tend­ed in­to the bay. It re­tained its orig­i­nal use as a ho­tel and bar with var­i­ous names in­clud­ing the Black Cat Bar, Sea View, and Brit­tan­nia. The bal­cony is a key char­ac­ter-defin­ing fea­ture with wood­en fret­work, gin­ger­bread and elab­o­rate balustrades. It re­tains the orig­i­nal fea­tures in­clud­ing first and at­tic lev­el win­dows.

Thor­pes Garage—These are the last and re­main­ing ware­hous­es of San Fer­nan­do which form a unique block now at the edge of the neigh­bour­hood. The build­ings were used for stor­ing sug­ar to be shipped abroad and were owned by the firms of George Lam­bie, Leon Agos­ti­ni, Turn­bull Ross and William Ten­nant Agency. Over the years these build­ings were sold piece­meal to Tate and Lyle which lat­er be­came Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed.

Ten­ants Build­ing—Built in 1911 for Williams Ten­nant as a com­mer­cial mer­can­tile store, the build­ing was used as a sup­ply de­pot for both the fish­ing in­dus­try at the wharf and the agri­cul­tur­al es­tates lo­cat­ed in­land who need­ed the port to trade. In 1932, the build­ing was leased by the Ten­nant fam­i­ly to lo­cal au­to deal­ers Neal and Massy. In the mid-1950s the build­ing was sold to the Gov­ern­ment.

Old Post of­fice—The postal ser­vice in San Fer­nan­do be­gan be­tween 1851 and 1852. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od the mail ar­rived by sea and was dis­trib­uted. In 1866, the postal ser­vice was in­au­gu­rat­ed and in 1924 it was moved to High Street.

Fish mar­ket—Through­out the 19th cen­tu­ry both the agri­cul­ture and fish­ing in­dus­tries thrived and the port was ex­pand­ed to in­clude a fish mar­ket.

Rail­way sta­tion—The first gov­ern­ment rail­way be­gan in 1882. The cur­rent struc­ture was com­plet­ed in 1901 and re­mained in op­er­a­tion un­til the last train ar­rived in San Fer­nan­do in 1968. The struc­tur­al walls re­main and the build­ing de­serves pro­tect­ed land­mark sta­tus.

See Page C6