Nass­er Khan

The pic­turesque and pro­tec­tive North­ern Range forms the back­drop of Port-of-Spain's sky­line, now the most mod­ern and im­pres­sive in the Caribbean. Such a beau­ti­ful sight must be a pho­tog­ra­ph­er's de­light to vis­it­ing cruise ships es­pe­cial­ly. From a sleepy low ly­ing nat­ur­al coast­line with mud flats and 'sea lots' to to­day's deep wa­ter har­bour com­plete with the Caribbean's most mod­ern wa­ter­front sky­line, Port-of-Spain has been through a num­ber of phas­es to be­come what it is to­day.

Our cap­i­tal city since 1784, it earned its name for be­ing a 'Port' as its name im­plies. Back in those days the ex­ist­ing south­ern-most street of Port-of-Spain was Rue de La Ma­rine, run­ning east to west. Be­tween this street and the shore­line was Place de La Ma­rine or Plaza de La Ma­ri­na, as the Spaniards came to call it though not by any means a ma­ri­na as we know it to­day, but sim­ply a sea­side play­ground of sorts for the city dwellers and vis­i­tors. The British, to ho­n­our their king, called the street "King Street" (lat­er Ma­rine Square North) and re­named the "Place/Plaza" Ma­rine Square, lat­er on when the area was filled in and paved. Un­til In­de­pen­dence in 1962, the area main­tained its name when it be­came In­de­pen­dence Square. To­day, it is known as the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, in hon­or of T&T's most fa­mous crick­eter. Port-of-Spain's wa­ter­front de­vel­op­ment, from a qui­et shal­low seashore with mud flats and man­grove/"sea lots" in places, to an ul­tra mod­ern port with a sky­line of of­fice and ho­tel build­ings, can be traced to a se­ries of land recla­ma­tion projects start­ing around the ear­ly 1800s. These projects were pre­cip­i­tat­ed by the vir­tu­al com­plete de­struc­tion of the town by the Great Fire of 1808. That shal­low seashore has evolved to­day in­to, for the most part, a mod­ern deep wa­ter har­bour that stretch­es from the light­house at the bot­tom of Fred­er­ick Street to the end of Wright­son Road, just be­fore Movi­etowne Plaza or In­vad­er's Bay.

The first large recla­ma­tion and de­vel­op­ment phase took place from 1803-1823 from Ma­rine Square south­ward and thus South Quay was born, which al­lowed for barges and small boats. In 1842, the now fa­mous land­mark the light­house was built amid some con­tro­ver­sy as to its use­ful­ness. By 1845, the ar­eas ad­join­ing South Quay to the west and south were de­vel­oped and were called the St Vin­cent Wharf and the Queen's Wharf re­spec­tive­ly. At this point Fred­er­ick, Cha­con, Hen­ry and Char­lotte streets were ex­tend­ed south­ward across Ma­rine Square to South Quay, while fur­ther west at the bot­tom of Rich­mond and Ed­ward streets. Cor­beaux town (though orig­i­nal­ly Coburg Town) grew out of that sec­tion of the re­claimed land with a jet­ty serv­ing such com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties as the cat­tle boats from Venezuela.

With the boom­ing town and cap­i­tal city be­com­ing a hub of trade and com­merce for the re­gion the au­thor­i­ties now had to think of fa­cil­i­tat­ing im­ports and ex­ports (and lat­er pas­sen­ger and cruise ships) via large ves­sels. Thus be­gan in 1935, the "Deep Wa­ter Har­bor Scheme." The sea at that time came up to what is now the mid­dle of the rel­a­tive­ly new­ly built Wright­son Road. This new phase in the wa­ter­front's de­vel­op­ment took five years to com­plete with dredged ma­te­r­i­al from the sea fur­ther out serv­ing as land fill. This phase in the de­vel­op­ment of the city's wa­ter­front be­fore and af­ter the build­ing of the Wright­son road made Cor­beaux Town a thing of the past.

The best way to con­cep­tu­alise this lat­est phase was to think of a bow string stretch­ing across the sea from the light­house to the area just be­fore the Movi­etowne com­plex where the cur­rent port ends.

This en­tire area with­in that arc and bow string was sea area that would have to be re­claimed, ex­tend­ed from Wright­son out to the bow string with deep wa­ters be­yond to ac­com­mo­date the large ves­sels. This new de­vel­op­ment would add a huge acreage to the city and sig­nif­i­cant­ly change the out­line of the coastal shore­line on the map. It is known as the King's Wharf ver­sus the Queen's Wharf to the east. Cer­tain­ly a lot of names (and names changes!) over the years. To­day, Port-of-Spain is the coun­try's ma­jor port for con­tainer­ised ship­ping. Cruise ships dock at the port which al­so op­er­ates the fer­ry ser­vice be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go as well as the Port-of-Spain to San Fer­nan­do fer­ry. The City Gate ter­mi­nal at the east end of the wa­ter­front serves as a trans­porta­tion hub for pub­lic bus­es and maxi taxis.

In 1999 the Port cel­e­brat­ed its 60th an­niver­sary as a recog­nised mar­itime fa­cil­i­ty. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment phase is The Port-of-Spain In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre aimed at re­vi­tal­is­ing, trans­form­ing and mod­ernising the wa­ter­front's sky­line and had among its mas­ter plan the con­struc­tion of two high rise of­fice tow­ers, a Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, a mul­ti-storey car park, and a well-land­scaped park. The Wa­ter­front Cen­tre was com­plet­ed in time to host the heads of state and gov­ern­ment from the Amer­i­c­as for the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in April 2009, which in­clud­ed US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma as well as the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in No­vem­ber 2009.

Fea­tur­ing a well-land­scaped wa­ter­front park de­signed for re­lax­ation, en­joy­ment and en­ter­tain­ment, the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre is al­so the new home of the Break­fast Shed, re­named 'Femmes du Chalet', one of Port-of-Spain's fa­mous spots for lo­cal cui­sine, and has be­come a pho­tog­ra­ph­er's joy for wed­dings and mag­a­zine fea­tures.