Bo­bie-lee Dixon

There is a beau­ti­ful his­to­ry be­hind what the com­mu­ni­ty of Wood­brook is to­day. Pre­vi­ous­ly owned by French Gov­er­nor, Phillipe Roume de St Lau­rent and bought by Hen­ry Mur­ray, the Wood­brook brook es­tate as it was then called, was even­tu­al­ly sold to Ger­man doc­tor, Jo­hann Got­tlieb Ben­jamin Siegert (cre­ator of An­gos­tu­ra bit­ters) and his fam­i­ly. To­day pop­u­lar streets in Wood­brook bear the names of his sons and daugh­ters-Ros­ali­no, Car­los, Pe­tra, Ana, Cor­ne­lio, Al­ber­to, Al­fre­do, Luis. Af­ter Siegert's death and bad busi­ness man­age­ment by his Venezue­lan born sons, whom he left to over­see the busi­ness, the es­tate of 367.5 acres was even­tu­al­ly sold to the Port-of-Spain Town Board for £85,000 on Jan­u­ary 1, 1911 and was of­fi­cial­ly made a res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hood by the board on No­vem­ber 1, 1911.

Now, to mark the 100th an­niver­sary, the Wood­brook Res­i­dents Com­mit­tee, head­ed by Lynette Dol­ly, has placed on its cal­en­der of events, a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties that will span the pe­ri­od of a year, and will cul­mi­nate in Oc­to­ber 2012 with the launch of a book on the his­to­ry of Wood­brook, writ­ten by Pro­fes­sor Dr Tony Mar­tin-for­mer res­i­dent of Wood­brook and cur­rent lec­tur­er at Welles­ley Col­lege in Boston. The ac­tiv­i­ties be­gan this month and will all re­flect the his­to­ry of Wood­brook and its peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to co-or­di­na­tor Jill Pad­more. She dis­closed that a me­dia launch was held on Oc­to­ber 25 where the his­to­ry, de­vel­op­ment and fu­ture plans for Wood­brook were high­light­ed and dis­cussed. She al­so re­vealed that the com­mit­tee's of­fi­cial Web site was launched at that event. Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude a fund-rais­ing din­ner card­ed for No­vem­ber 1, an art/es­say/video com­pe­ti­tion for schools in the Wood­brook area, and trib­utes and awards to great peo­ple who rose from the com­mu­ni­ty of Wood­brook.

Pre­serv­ing the spir­it that is Wood­brook

Some of this coun­try's great­est he­roes, in­clud­ing Dr Er­ic Williams, Rudranath Capildeo, Sir Vidya Naipaul, Pat Bish­op, William De­mas, Bish­op Clive Ab­du­lah, Joey Carew, Arthur Lok Jack, Lystra Lewis and the Sab­gas, to name a few, came from Wood­brook. It was al­so home to one of the this coun­try's first cin­e­mas-the Lon­don Elec­tric The­atre, sub­se­quent­ly re­named As­tor. As well as the home to Wood­brook es­tate of­fice, St Crispin's An­gli­can Church, In­vaders pa­n­yard and the Wood­brook Youth Cen­tre, to name a few. To­day it has be­come a bit more com­mer­cialised, with many busi­ness­es erect­ed in and around the area.

It is al­so pop­u­lar for the "night life." If you want to have a good time, you hang on "d av­enue," (Ari­api­ta Av­enue)-the up­scale din­ing and en­ter­tain­ment "strip." How­ev­er, with all that it has be­come to­day, it is the hope of the res­i­dents that the com­mu­ni­ty of Wood­brook will re­main a neigh­bour­hood, and the spir­it that was Wood­brook will be rekin­dled. "We start­ed this com­mit­tee in an ef­fort to pre­serve the unique­ness of Wood­brook," said Dol­ly. "We are see­ing lit­tle by lit­tle the very things that made up the essence of Wood­brook are be­ing take away. The com­mu­ni­ty of Wood­brook once rep­re­sent­ed strong fam­i­ly life and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. "One of the most trou­bling to us was the last ad­min­is­tra­tion's de­ci­sion to take away the Wood­brook Youth Cen­tre from the res­i­dents of Wood­brook,"she added.

"This cen­tre kept our chil­dren on the straight and nar­row. There are many up­stand­ing and well known peo­ple in so­ci­ety who got their foun­da­tion to suc­cess and dis­ci­pline right there, and now if we want to use the cen­tre we need per­mis­sion from the Sport­ing Com­pa­ny that now man­ages it, and we must al­so pay a fee if it is grant­ed," lament­ed a pas­sion­ate Dol­ly. She said peo­ple on the out­side may not un­der­stand how Wood­brook res­i­dents feel about the com­mu­ni­ty, but if they lived there they would cer­tain­ly re­alise why they are fight­ing to keep Wood­brook a neigh­bour­hood. "This cel­e­bra­tion isn't just about 100 years of growth and de­vel­op­ment of Wood­brook, but is a cel­e­bra­tion of what Wood­brook was meant to be af­ter it was hand­ed over to the Port-of-Spain Town Board. "This is our home....this is where we want to raise our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren- in the same en­vi­ron­ment that made us what we are to­day."