Latest update April 17th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 16, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
When overseas-based Guyanese catch up to talk old talk, and whenever the talk is about Berbice, it is hard to avoid mention of New Amsterdam, for it is there that the main centres of commerce and administration are located.
The big stores are there. The Regional Administration Office is centered in the town. The main medical hospital in the country is in New Amsterdam. There are doctors and lawyers’ offices located within the town. And of course there are hotel and petrol stations and restaurants, offices, funeral homes and other service providers.
Things are changing. New business and commerce centres are emerging in other areas, but for those who have not been back, do not expect New Amsterdam to lose its significance. It is still the main town in the country and despite the modern buildings that are springing up, it is still almost the same.
New Amsterdam is however not your typical small town, even though it is small. It does not strike you as being a town at all. But it has all the basic features of a township and has long been recognized as a town.
Before the construction of the Berbice River Bridge, it was the gateway to the county. It stood on the bank of the Berbice River and when the ferry – which was the only public transport means across the river – docked, it was just minutes from the centre of the town.
It has never been a hectic place. Things moved at a leisurely pace, but yet New Amsterdam never had the feel of a small town. There is not much to see in the town. Its buildings are its major landmarks and attractions.
There is the High Court, an imposing structure that sits right opposite the Esplanade. Then there is the market, one of the largest if not the largest market in Guyana, located on the Strand, and which also houses the City Hall. One of the towers in the structure is now leaning. Another notable wooden structure is the Central Police Station which has been kept in excellent condition considering its age. These many wooden buildings hark back to the age when the town was first being established – when wood was the main construction material.
New Amsterdam was also known in the past for its cinemas, large buildings made mainly of wood. These have all closed. But when it came to wooden structures in New Amsterdam, none could top the old New Amsterdam Hospital – a massive wooden building designed by the renowned Cesar Castellani, a feat alone that should have allowed it to be preserved at all costs.
If over one hundred million dollars was spent to preserve the architecturally inelegant State House, surely several million could have been spent to ensure that the beautiful old New Amsterdam Hospital remained in admirable condition.
While there is a new hospital on the outskirts of the town, it does not compare architecturally with the new hospital. There is simply no historic significance attached to that new hospital and no design features that make it special. The new hospital is simply a concrete building.
To see what the old building has been reduced to is enough to bring tears to your eyes. And while this debasement of heritage structures is not restricted to New Amsterdam, the people of that town have a right to feel displeased about neglect of the old hospital and its irreversible decline.
The old New Amsterdam Hospital, without doubt the most beautiful and perhaps the oldest structure in the country, is on its deathbed. It is not going to survive. It cannot be restored. For all intents and purposes, the last rites have already been read. The building will have to be pulled down that is, if it does not fully collapse before that as a result of the vandalism and deterioration that was allowed to occur.
It is too late to save the New Amsterdam Hospital, but it is not too late to ensure that someone is held responsible for the condition to which the old hospital has reached. But this is not going to happen if the people of New Amsterdam remain silent. The people of New Amsterdam should have spoken out more vociferously while the building was falling apart, and there was ample evidence for a long time now that the old New Amsterdam Hospital was falling to pieces. There was sufficient proof that the building was being vandalized.
The old wooden hospital has been a feature of that town for as long as anyone still living and has seen it can remember.
And this is why it is so sad to see how it was left to go to the dogs. All that will be left is a space to remind us of what was there, an empty space on which eventually some concrete monstrosity would be built.
This is what is sad about the decline of the old New Amsterdam Hospital. There is simply not sufficient appreciation of the value of historic buildings and their worth beyond their valuation. Without this appreciation this country will lose more than just its buildings, it will lose a piece of its soul and become a place where history would have vanished, a place that is lifeless, cold and without feeling.
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