Laventille
| Laventille | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
|||
| Coordinates | 10 ° 39 ′ N , 61 ° 30 ′ W | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Trinidad and Tobago | ||
| San Juan Laventille | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | TT-SJL | ||
| Residents | 21,454 (2011) | ||
 View of Port of Spain. Center back: Laventille
|
|||
Laventille is a city in Trinidad and Tobago . It is located in the north of the island of Trinidad in the San Juan-Laventille region and is spatially merged with the state capital Port of Spain .
Location and structure
Laventille is located southeast of Port of Spain, in the middle of the East-West Corridor , the metropolitan region of the state capital south of the Northern Range from west to east. Since Port of Spain is bounded in the north by the Northern Range and in the south by the Caroni Swamp , the city expanded to the east over time. The resulting east-west corridor is so densely populated that in the past independent cities merge into one another and now have the character of districts of the capital agglomeration. However, they are still formally independent. Laventille is bordered by Port of Spain to the west and north and Morvant to the northeast and east . South of Laventille is the Caroni Swamp, a nature reserve. The city is divided into the communities Laventille, St. Barb's and Eastern Quarry. Politically it belongs to the constituency Laventille / Morvant.
| Community | Residents |
|---|---|
| Laventille | 11,311 |
| St. Barb's | 5100 |
| Eastern Quarry | 5043 |
| total | 21,454 |
history
The area of today's Laventille was named in the 18th century after the prevailing east winds, which reminded the Spanish settlers of the Levant . Occasionally the name is traced back to the French term "ventaille", which referred to that part of an early modern helmet that regulated the air supply.
In 1787 the Spanish governor of Trinidad, José María Chacón , diverted the St. Ann's River (then still called Rio Santa Ana), which until then flowed through the middle of Port of Spain and regularly caused flooding, so that the river at the foot of the Laventille Hills flowed southward, marking the western boundary of the area. In 1792, Chacón had a fort built above Laventille that served as an observatory for the Spanish naval officer and astronomer Cosme Damien Churruca . On January 2, 1793, Churruca determined the first meridian of the American continent there. The building was later named Fort Chacon after its builder; the foundation walls are still preserved and serve as the basis for telecommunications masts. In 1798 another stone fort was built 300 meters further west under Governor Thomas Picton and named Martello Tower after a Corsican defense tower ; the building is now called Fort Picton and is used for tourism. Until 1834, only a few freed slaves lived in the densely forested Laventille. Attempts to grow coffee there failed because of the unhealthy climate. Until a leprosy station was built on the western outskirts of Port of Spains in 1940, sick people were referred to Laventille.
In 1834, as everywhere in the British colonies, slavery was abolished in Trinidad. The released slaves, most of whom had African roots, needed housing. Since Port of Spain was experiencing an economic boom at this time, the former slaves settled in the vicinity of the city that offered jobs, including in the Laventille area. Laventille owes its present-day appearance of chaotically winding, narrow streets with innumerable dead ends to the lack of a regulated settlement policy at the time. In the 1870s, the City Council of Port of Spain had the city's powder and ammunition depot built in Laventille.
Laventille is known as the "cradle of the Steel Pan ", the place where the Steel Pan was first used to a significant extent as part of the Trinidadian Carnival in the 1930s. Several steel bands such as the Desperadoes Steel Orchestra still have their headquarters in Laventille today .
Until 1990, Laventille was administratively a suburb of Port of Spain, which was part of what was then County St. George. In 1990, Trinidad and Tobago was divided into various administrative units as part of a territorial reform; Laventille was added to the newly formed San Juan-Laventille region , which in Germany and Austria roughly corresponds to a federal state. In common parlance, Laventille continues to be referred to as part of the capital, also against the background of the complete spatial merging with the metropolitan region of Port of Spain. Today, the city is considered a focus of crime in Trinidad, which is plagued by gang and violent crime. In 2008, 60% of the homicides in Trinidad took place in the area of the neighboring towns of Laventille and Morvant and a neighboring suburb of Port of Spain, Beetham Estate.
In 2015 the Trinidadian filmmakers Patricia Mohammed and Michael Mooleedhar Laventille created a cinematic monument with the documentary City on the Hill, which was shown at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival .
Economy and Transport
Laventille is a purely residential area and apart from small businesses has no business. The exception to this is the Eastern Main Road, which runs south of the city and along which small businesses and some larger companies such as Angostura Holdings Limited, manufacturers of Angostura bitters , have settled. Despite the high level of crime, tourism plays an economic role, albeit a minor one, since the ruins of Fort Piction are a tourist destination and tour operators offer guided tours to the Pan Yards, the practice areas for steel bands . The blue limestone, which was quarried in Laventille until the middle of the 20th century and used in the construction of many villas and government buildings in Port of Spain, is of historical importance.
Laventille borders the Eastern Main Road to the north and the Beetham Highway, an extension of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway . Laventille is thus connected to the two most important west-east axes in the country, which connect Port of Spain with Arima and Sangre Grande along the east-west corridor . To the north and east, Laventille is bounded by Lady Young Road, an important access road for the northern Port of Spains.
Facilities
Educational institutions are the Laventille Technology & Continuing Education Center as well as five elementary schools and two secondary schools. Due to the primary settlement by African-born Trinidadians, there is neither a Hindu temple nor a mosque in Laventille, which is unusual for Trinidad. The Catholic Church Our Lady of Laventille shapes the townscape with its construction on the top of a hill, its 16 meter high bell tower and a statue of the Virgin Mary donated by the French government in 1876. Sites of various other Christian movements are spread across the city.
Personalities
- Sterling Betancourt (* 1930, musician)
- Bertie Marshall (1936–2012, musician)
- Rudolph Charles (1938–1985, musician)
- Robert Greenidge (* 1950, musician)
- Leslie Stewart (born 1961, boxer)
literature
- Selwyn Ryan, Roy McCree, Godfrey St Bernard: Behind The Bridge: Poverty, Politics And Patronage In Laventille, Trinidad . Institute of Social and Economic Research, UWI, Trinidad, 1997
Individual evidence
- ↑ Census 2011
- ↑ Caribbean History Archives: Churruca. Retrieved December 3, 2015 .
- ↑ Localgov.gov.tt: San Juan-Laventille Regional Corporation: A strategic planning framework for metropolitan Port of Spain ( Memento from April 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Olga J. Mavrogordato: Voices in the Street, p. 31. Inprint Caribbean 1977.
- ↑ CitizensForConservationTT.org Churruca's Observatory. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
- ^ CitizensForConservationTT.org: Fort Picton, Laventille. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Caribbean History Archives: Jamette Society. Retrieved December 13, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Trinidad Guardian, March 15, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2015 .
- ↑ Trinidad Guardian, March 22, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015 .
- ↑ Geisha Kowlessar: CoP gives alarming statistics- 188 hot spots In T&T . In: Trinidad Guardian . May 10, 2013.
- ↑ Vice News: Corruption, Cocaine and Murder in Trinidad. Retrieved December 15, 2015 .
- ↑ Small Arms Survey 2010, p. 141. Cambridge University Press 2010.
- ↑ TriniJungleJuice.com: City On The Hill Makes Caribbean Debut At TTFF. Retrieved December 14, 2015 .
- ↑ Youtube.com: City on the Hill Trailer. Retrieved December 14, 2015 .