Be Resilient
transactions with relative ease. The cash flow is steady because market people, higglers, hustlers, merchants, housewives, schoolchildren and everyday bargain hunters all converge in this space to transact business of one kind or another. But that aspect of the city alone is not truly sustainable as outside of business, no one sees downtown as a place to ‘hang out’ with friends and family. Downtown Kingston has experienced a steady decline going back several decades. Once the Myrtle Bank Hotel was the place for Kingston’s elite; the Majestic, Gaiety and Palace Cinemas did brisk business showing cowboy movies and any act that hoped to make it big on Broadway first had to ‘audition’ at the Ward Theatre, where the likes of Oscar Wilde and Gilbert and Sullivan have performed to sold out crowds. However by the 1970s political violence and polarization began to take a toll on the once buoyant, beautiful city and by 1982, statistics show that 36% of the labour force within a two mile radius of Downtown Kingston was unemployed. Though a shadow of its former self, all is not lost and though there had been talks for many years about restoring the city to its former glory, finally there seem to be concrete plans afoot. New businesses are moving in and the ‘open for business’ signs are going up all around, though definitely not in an organised fashion. In response to the rapid decline of the social and economic condition of the area, the Kingston Restoration Company
Limited (KRC), an urban regeneration agency, was established in 1983. Shortly after their formation, they undertook research on the restoration costs for the buildings along the Harbour Street corridor where a cluster of businesses not only thrive but assist their surroundings through a series of sustainable initiatives. Home to such well known businesses as Industrial Commercial Developments Limited (ICD) Group and Grace Kennedy Company Limited, Harbour Street bustles with executives because their businesses are household names that have stayed the course even in the midst of the turbulent years when many of their neighbours fled. Instead they have fostered stronger community relations not only with the adults but moreso the future generation, the children.
…they undertook research on the restoration costs for the buildings along the Harbour Street corridor where a cluster of businesses not only thrive but assist their surroundings through a series of sustainable initiatives.
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Places & Spaces