The dead will be brought to life when the Lapeyrouse Cemetery in Port-of-Spain is converted into a "museum." The tomb bearing the remains of the country's first president Sir Ellis Clarke will also be made into a "mausoleum." Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing who yesterday unveiled plans to enhance the city said the cemetery would be transformed this year.
Saying this would also be a boost to domestic tourism, Lee Sing said visitors would be required to pay a small fee to tour the Lapeyrouse museum. Lee Sing said the concept to make a cemetery into a museum was nothing new. He said he visited New Orleans two weeks ago and its cemetery was a major tourist attraction.
He said maintenance work was ongoing at the cemetery. A large portion of the plans would include restoration of many of the tombs. "There is need to give life to the physical plan. We have a lot of work to do in enhancing the streets and gravesites. "There was street cover throughout the cemetery which was provided by trees, but that is not the case again and we need to put that back," Lee Sing added.
Another aspect would be creating "landmark" sites with would include details of famous families in the cemetery. "Obviously people coming to the cemetery would not want to visit every grave. So we have to landmark those sites by providing as much information as possible on those who lay the country's foundation. "We also have to provide a detailed map of the site."
The move, Lee Sing added, would also generate employment as tour guides would be hired. He could not specify when the transformation would be completed saying: "I cannot say, given the speed at which things happen in the corporation. "But the plan is not a difficult one and I am optimistic things will be done this year." He said discussions were already held with Tourism Minister Dr Rupert Griffith.
Another plan to honour the dead entailed laying two marble tombstones in Memorial Park, Port-of-Spain, for the local fallen soldiers who served in World War One and Two. Lee Sing said at a recent meeting with members of the Ex-servicemen Association, 135 men whose lives were lost were not properly honoured.
"Their names are nowhere to be found. The two marble tombstones will be laid adjacent the cenotaph," he said. Another plan to uplift the city was to make the six-mile stretch from the Belmont Circular Road to the East Dry River into a jogging and cycling track.
Lee Sing said he intended to dig deeper drains-which serve as catchment areas-of the East Dry River to avoid flooding. "That would prevent water from coming on top of the banks. "Then we have to pave and tile the six- mile area and install proper lighting and have proper security." Lapeyrouse rich in cultural recordings
The Lapeyrouse cemetery dates back to a little more than 250 years and is rich in cultural recordings, said local historian and researcher Angelo Bissessarsingh. Bissessarsingh, who welcomed the idea to convert the cemetery into a useum, said there are epitaphs written in French which lay side by side with the gravemarkers of Chinese immigrants and also victims of the cholera epidemic of 1854 which wiped out almost one quarter of the Port-of-Spain population.
"Lapeyrouse is aesthetically important since it is the repository of sculpture and architecture ranging from the classical to the Gothic to the Oriental. "Even the walls are bristling with history such as the recently-restored Perry Gates and the Phillip Street entrance which is visibly marked dates back to 1867." He, however, said the idea demanded a professional restorer and proper security.
"The Lapeyrouse is a record book of our history but there has to be a specific emphasis on security since the cemetery is currently the haven of drug addicts and vagrants," Bissessarsingh said. He said although the cemetery is relatively well cared for, there are other resting sites in the country which are in a deplorable state and which "does not say much for us as people."
