–Can it be revived?

IN every country in the world, there is always a building or structure that the nation regards as iconic, and to which there is a deep psychological attachment.  In India, there is the Taj Mahal. In England, the Tower of London, and in the USA, the Statue of Liberty, while in Guyana, it is the Stabroek Market.  Every country maintains its iconic structure with care and respect, but Guyana, quite bizarrely, has consciously allowed its icon to fall into ruin, and the culpable party for this disaster is the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown (M&CC), which has custody of the building, and uses it as a revenue earner. The citizens have been complaining for decades, but the M&CC has remained passively insensitive, merely collecting revenues from the market, which is its second-largest source of revenue, and not spending any of the funds on its maintenance.  With such backward management, ruin and bankruptcy were inevitable.

This malaise of the M&CC began to occur only after the 1950s.  Before the 1950s, the M&CC was one of the best-managed institutions in Guyana. The town was famous as “the Garden City”, and it was clean and well-kept.  The LeRepentir Cemetery, for example, was like a well-kept park.  The M&CC’s finances were so well managed and healthy that whenever it issued bonds, these were immediately taken up.  Purchasing the structure of the Stabroek Market from Boston in 1879 is an example of its vision and business acumen.

BRIEF HISTORY
The structure of the market was shipped from Boston, and its reconstruction began in 1879. It was opened on November 1, 1881.  The Contractor was Nathaniel McKay.  There are several interesting features in the Market: The concrete floor of the market gradually slopes from the front, bordering Water Street, to the wharf on the river so as to accommodate quick cleaning and washing.

The original stalls were built with shutters and wooden floors, and could be secured when the owner was not present. The roofs were built in step form, with jalousie openings so as to keep the market cool and well-ventilated.

The roof area is 2 1/2 acres.  When electricity came to the colony, the same kind of street lighting was used in the market up to post-World War II, and provided good lighting for all parts of the market, for it was open for business until 8 pm.

The sonorous bell of the Market Tower with its large clock, could be heard over most of the town. The clock itself was serviced by a Dutch-descended family, the Oudkerks, until the 1950s. A spiral cast-iron stairway painted in silver led to the Tower, and going up to the Tower was severely restricted and regarded as a great privilege to be permitted to do so.
The passageways between the stalls were wide to allow for the comfort of shoppers and the easy movement of goods going to the various stalls.

There were special constables who were well-addressed and equipped and always on patrol, so that there was no crime.  There was a team of “scavengers” or cleaners who swept the entire market twice per day; this Victorian name for cleaners was used until the 1960s. The drains were kept clean, and there was never flooding. The Fire Brigade flushed out the market every Sunday, using the Middle Gate to enter, since the front passageway was not encumbered with stalls.

STALLHOLDING
Most of the original stallholders were Portuguese, with a few Syrians and fewer Indians and Africans. Having a stall in the market was a prestigious thing, and many of the large Water Street firms, such as Bookers, and Wieting and Richter, had stalls there.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Portuguese and Syrians left the colony, and the present groups succeeded them as stallholders.  The stallholders of the past knew each other, and there was a camaraderie among them.

The market was governed by “the Clerk of Markets”, whose office was in the centre of the market, high enough for him to see the top of every stall.  The Clerk listened to complaints and requests from stallholders, ensured the rules of the market were obeyed, was in charge of the cleaners and constables, and collected rents for the stalls.

One such clerk who served for nearly 50 years was the legendary Jão Antonio Machado Pacheco, whose relatives were owners of pawnbrokeries and jewellery shops. He was a wealthy man in his own right.

Under J.A.M. Pacheco’s clerkship, the Stabroek Market had a golden age, which began its end with the March of Democracy in the 1950s. With the March of Democracy, the franchise was given to every citizen of 21 years of age, and they elected persons to serve as M&CCs who were quite different from those of the past.  Past M&CCs consisted of persons who were established in the learned professions, and successful business people who never received or required any stipend for their service, who were trained in management and financial controls, and who employed persons with merit as the main criterion.  The new MCCs did not have managerial skills comparable to those of the the past, and they were slack in financial controls, resulting in theft, embezzlement and failure to do regular audits, and this was mirrored in the recent story of Stabroek Market.

POST-1960 M&CC

As we pointed out above, the M&CCs from the 1960s were elected by universal suffrage, and were very different in background and education than in the past. The first thing they did in the market was to appoint Clerks and staff who were not suited, and this is reflected in the newspapers of the time, which wrote of the corruption of the Clerks, the non-functional cleaning staff, who did not clean the market including the toilets, and who permitted garbage to be accumulated in various parts of the market, especially at the back.  Robberies of stalls and shoppers were unknown in the past, since the Constabulary performed. The new-style Clerks, in their drive to collect drawbacks and to increase revenues, permitted new stalls in the passageways, thus narrowing them, and in any other spaces, as for example, the four-feet storage areas behind the original stalls were seized and given out as stalls.  This accounts for the present congestion in the market, which makes it a fire hazard, prevents cleaning, obstructs ventilation, and takes away from the comfort of shoppers.

The drains in the market are never cleaned, and this, combined with the congestion, causes flooding, and the floors in many parts of the market to be permanently wet.  The Market Tower and Clock need to be repaired.  The M&CC, through the Clerk, only concentrates on collecting revenues, but spends no money on maintaining the structure, and this has resulted in leaks and parts of the roof collapsing from time to time, as recently occurred in June last.

The Central Government has been willing to assist the market, and has rendered much help in the recent roof collapse. Though the market could not recapture its glorious past, there is much room for its revival, and its rightfully regaining its iconic status, but such revival could only be achieved with proper and expert management.