PowerPoint on the transformation of East Port Of Spain (E POS), Trinidad. The E POS Heritage City and the rehabilitation project must be an integrated, multi-tiered, multidimensional programme with culture-based, architectural-based, police-based, counseling-based, and social-programme-based solutions

3. THE BIG IDEAS
• People and their Gifts. That is all.
• Communities have a DNA, Gifts, Legacy, Destiny…
• Dream-making is the central act of human civilisation-
storytelling, myth- community is a function of it
• The centre and the periphery. Myths determine initiation
• Men are dangerous- the majority of socialising energy
• Men socialise in one way- gangs-
initiation, symbology, IRON JOHN- police, ‘tief’, priests…
• The further you are from the civilising centre the more the
collapse of sanctioned initiations
• Gangs emerge in hillside communities- areas distanced
from Centres- Yakuza, Mafia, Appalachia, Big Yard, Patna

4. THE BIG IDEAS
• Facilitate peoples Gifts.
• Fulfill their DNA, gifts, legacy, and destiny
• Allow the channels and vehicles of Dream-making to
function
• Connect the centre and the periphery
• Keep Men occupied!!!
• Sublimate gangs into socially constructive forms-
Native American dog soldiers
• Create new types of settlement and cultural socialising
patterns to deal with hillside communities and areas
distanced from the Centres

5. THE GOLDEN AGES
• Golden Ages erupted in different outposts of the African diaspora
during the 20th century
• Blues, Jazz, Rock, and Hip-Hop in America; Reggae in Jamaica;
Samba in Brazil; Hi-Life in West Africa, and more.
• Each Age was revolutionary, changing both the dimensions of their
societies and the world. Not just music- ‘ways of seeing’
• Each was propelled by the creativity of marginalized criminal-class
black boys aged 12 to 27 who transformed into princes.
• There were no ‘public or private sector interventions’... These were
spontaneous initiations & eruptions of creativity constellated
around the African science of Music…
• Golden Ages have provided us with the nerve point endings, the
sweet spots, the poetics, the DNA grid in which to transform and
initiate the youths. It is related to the DRUM- the African diaspora
are Rhythm Nations…

6. THE GOLDEN AGES

7. THE BIG IDEAS
• EAST PORT OF SPAIN IS THE CRUCIBLE OF PAN, MAS AND CALYPSO AND
COULD ARGUABLY BE SAID TO BE THE SOUL OF THE NATION
• OF THE 7 MOTHER COMMUNITIES OF T&T IT CAN BE SAID TO BE THE
MOTHER OF MOTHERS
• THE POWER OF THIS COMMUNITY IS SUCH THAT IN RENAISSANCE OR
APOCALYPSE THIS COMMUNITY WILL CARRY THE REST OF THE COUNTRY
WITH IT…
• During T&T’s Golden Age the gangs and marginal boys of T&T converted
themselves into cultural Secret Societies. One set became panmen-
orchestras and bands where they became
musicians, inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, managers and artists.
Another set converted themselves Traditional Mas characters and
small, medium and large size Mas bands Yet another set created Calypso
Tents and created the entire apparatus and aesthetic form of the Calypso
that became a global form of music.

8. THE HOLY TRINITY: PAN, MAS, CALYPSO

9. THE POWER OF THOSE CREATIONS
• There are 300 Trini-styles carnivals worldwide
• They are annually worth more than $15 Billion
• In metropolitan economies where you can’t get in to sell a ballpoint
pen- we’ve smuggled billion dollar economies
• More than 14 million people partake in these carnivals annually
• The 2 largest Western festivals are T&T style carnivals
• 4 million people are on the streets at their height
• These are in cities where if 2 black people lime together at a corner
its cause for police action- we have 3 million plus cavorting- a
million mutinies happening now- and all the State and City can do is
negotiate with it
• All this spawned by ‘gang boys’ of East Port of Spain.
• They were never thanked nor rewarded. No industries were refined
from out of their Gifts.

10. THE POWER OF THOSE CREATIONS

11. DNA

12. GIFTS

13. LEGACY

14. DESTINY

15. THIS IS A GHETTO

16. WHAT IS A GHETTO?
• The shadow or transitory space
• The way the West deals with the other
• The Jewish ghettoes
• The Reservation
• The Plantation
• The Ghetto
• The Jail, the School, the Army…
• The same thing- captive/control of stimuli/product
• The history of the American & African-American ghetto &
its global programming- elites programming projects
• The evolution of the Western city- lords & serfs, drugs/guns

17. HISTORY & POLITICS
• Global Western hegemony-
genocide, expansion
• The Apartheid/Slave Society- hierarchies
• Global and local post-slavery Colonialism
• Marginalisation & Resistance- creating
alternative institutions
• Independence- post apartheid politics & the
collapse of the indigenous- PNM and globally

18. DIAGNOSIS IS CRITICAL

19. EAST PORT OF SPAIN RENAISSANCE
• The E POS Heritage City and the rehabilitation project must be an
integrated, multi-tiered, multidimensional programme with culture-
based, architectural-based, police-based, counseling-based, and
social-programme-based solutions.
• These programmes must be creatively harmonized and resolved.
• The PUSH & PULL factors must be scheduled and deployed
simultaneously. Law enforcement must provide the PUSH-
progressive social programmes must provide the PULL. They must
work together…
• The choreography of how these programmes are deployed is
crucial.
• The processes by which these programmes are created, staffed and
sustained are as important and critical as the results themselves.
• EVERYTHING IS HARMONISED IN HERITAGE & LIVING CULTURE

20. THE PEOPLE!!!
• This is also not just an architectural exercise- this is
fundamentally about people. People who historically have
been amongst our most creative citizens and who have
gifted this country with a multibillion dollar multi-tiered
carnival and creative industry.
• These people have reciprocally been marginalized into
extreme poverty and dependence and into cycles of
intercommunity violence and criminality that now
threaten the entire nation.
• The challenge is to reverse the current polarity which is
towards disintegration and instead redirect it towards
individual and communal empowerment so that they
become amongst the most productive and significant
contributors to our national patrimony.

21. CREATE POLES OF STENGTH & INFLUENCE
• We must create Poles of Strength around existing
community institutions and cultural strongholds that have
resisted historical patterns of marginalization and overt
oppression. THESE ARE THE CIVILISING CENTRES!!!
• These centres must be resourced, redefined and
recalibrated as rooted but modern, purpose-built, people-
centred, and creatively administrated institutions. This
redesign of these institutions must be architectural and
programme-based and must come from the real needs and
solutions created by the people.
• The idea is to have the 90,000 people of East Port of Spain-
in all their various communities- all serviced by a series of
interlocking civic institutions that are harmonized around
the idea of the best ideals of the Community.

22. THE INSTITUTIONS THAT MUST BE THE CENTRAL
POINTS OF RESOURCE, REDESIGN AND ACTIVITY ARE:
• Community Centres- completely redesigned with a
minimum set of specs as ‘Centres of Citizenship’
• Panyards- using the Lloyd Best Schools-in-Pan model with
an architectural re-outfitting
• Heritage & Cultural Sites- the Memory Sites of the
community that connect it to its best Self
• Sports Grounds- must be plentiful including innovative
ideas like SMALL GOAL PITCHES
• Schools- must be completely re-envisioned along the best-
practice lines stated
• Shrines/Temples/Churches- have their place in the
provision of spiritual and social guidance
• Indigenous Industrial Centres- hosts of industries from gifts

23. THE COMMUNITY’S REQUESTS
• Community ownership: All interventions must
be owned by the community- at least 51%
• Consultation
• Education
• Industry & Business
• Culture & Heritage
• The Map & the Grid

24. THE MAP:
• A MAP MUST BE CREATED OFTHE ENTIRE COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTING THE POSITIONS OF
ALL THE MAJOR CIVIC INSTITUTIONS WHICH ARE IDENTIFIED AS POLES OF POWER. THE
ENTIRE COMMUNITY MUST BE DESIGNED IN SUCH A WAY THAT EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS
SERVICED BY AT LEAST TWO OR THREE OF THESE SIGNFICANT CENTRES WITHIN THEIR
RADII.
• Consultations within the community have conceived of a series of indigenous organizations
which are deemed critical to their advancement:
• The Credit Union (CU)- will be the central financial institution of the 90,000 residents of E
POS
• The Super Market chain- includes labeling, bottling-glass blowing industries- owned by the
CU
• The Guild of Masters- Carpenters, Masons, etc- this Guild will service reconstruction of all
Heritage buildings
• The African School- primary, secondary, tertiary level institutions based on African principles
• Green Technology Centre- the re-design of E POS is based on Green Principles
• The Reclamation of Carnival Industries- Music Trucks, Sound
Systems, Stages, Lights, Caterers, Drinks- East Port of Spain will be situating itself at the
centre of the global Carnival Industry

26. THE COMMUNITY’S PLAN:
• Versus the politician’s plan
• Versus the technocrat’s plan
• Versus international agencies’ plans
• Versus oligarchy’s plans
• Versus international criminal cartel’s plans
• Versus, versus, versus…

27. INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICES
• There are a number of cities and areas in the
world that have had similar problems to East
Port of Spain and who have developed best-
practice models in the reclamation of
collapsing urban centres.

28. “Our most beautiful buildings must be in our
poorest areas,” the words that transformed
Columbia’s Medellín

29. Reductions in violence were rewarded with
beautiful buildings. The most beautiful are
libraries and centres.

30. Former mayor Sergio Fajardo and the tramcars
that now connect the favellos with the city and
services

31. The programmes have reduced crime by 90%. Medillin- once
murder capital of the world is now a tourist
attraction. The programmes have also won numerous
international awards and monetary grants.

32. Communally-built hand-crafted
buildings using indigenous materials.

33. ‘El Sistema’- Venezuela’s historic music
programme at work in the community. It has enrolled
nearly 400,000 young people in it since its inception

34. The Promise Centre, centre of the Harlem
Children’s Zone- the revolutionary educational
district

35. Children who were once doomed to a life of
poverty are now enrolled in top Universities
and Colleges

36. RELEVANT MODELS:
• LA Harmony Music Project- Harmony Project, an LA-based non-profit is
making thousands of the most vulnerable kids in Los Angeles commit their
non-school hours to learning to play a musical instrument in Harmony Project
youth orchestras and jazz ensembles
• The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa- a girls-only
boarding school that officially opened in January 2007 to provide educational
and leadership opportunities for academically gifted girls from impoverished
backgrounds
• Carlinhos Brown transformed childhood slum of Candeal into a national
musical warehouse. Pracatum Association created professional possibilities
for young people from the community- trains them in musical professions.
Public/private Partnership has transformed the traditional image of favelas. Tá
Rebocado (It’s Plastered) developed methodology founded on community-
based, participative and democratic construction-work. Tá Rebocado bases its
actions on opinion polls, census data, weekly community
meetings, socioeconomic studies and photo documentation.

37. POETICS: THE PREMIUM PROJECT
THE
HOUSE
OF
MUSIC

38. THE HOUSE OF MUSIC: This would be the entire block of George & Nelson
Street based around the historic Christopher’s Recording Studio
A faithfully reconstructed Heritage Building complex like Carnegie Hall

39. with Halls like these below

40. The building would feature modern digital
exhibition displays as well as Heritage based
performance spaces

41. Naturally the full recording legacy of T&T will be on
display- the 2nd oldest recording industry In the world

42. also book, record, CD and online
libraries

43. A catalogue of 100s of thousands that must
be repatriated and made accessible!!!

44. Displays of old phonographs, historic
instruments… An earphone tour and interactive
displays will abound

45. The world’s first platinum album, ethnographic
documents, modern multi-platinum local
artists all find a home

46. THE PROCESS IS AS IMPORTANT AS
THE PRODUCT
• Immediately acquire 2 of the largest collections of memorabilia and music. George
Maharaj’s from Canada, and Shawn Randoo’s in Trinidad
• Commission Ray Funk from Alaska to finish digitise his collection
• The greatest collectors (Maharaj, Randoo, Funk, Hall, Pinehro, Scientist, Robin
Forster, Sprang) should immediately be employed as core curators and preservationists
• A multi-purposed curated Heritage warehouse must be created to store all acquired
artifacts until they find their intended homes
• The House of Music site is the centerpiece of the development of East Port of Spain
• The site also must be the seat of the Renaissance of the local recording scene with a vinyl
record-pressing facility (alongside modern methods)
• Project Memory’s audio-visual histories are critical to this enterprise; with books, TV
shows, etc
• Scholarships must be offered for curators, sculptors and public art persons from the area
• The Guild of Masters graduating apprentices (the Guilds of the Brass Band tradition, East
Indian musics, African and East Indian Drumming, etc) will form the House of Music’s core
cadre
• From construction to staffing this project provides the lever for the transformation of the
community- Rehabilitation and Renaissance!!!

47. THANK YOU!!!