The Tribune

WHILE a mostly jubilant public is still congratulating itself, gloating over the vote to throw out the reigning Progressive Liberal Party like a 78rpm vinyl record missing its cover, the clock is ticking quietly and dangerously on one of the most critical issues of the day.

We are not talking about crime. Or education. Or moving toward a balanced budget, albeit all are critical and must be addressed with urgency.

We are talking about a critical issue that for too long has received too little attention. The heart of the city of Nassau, the heartbeat of the nation.

Once a thriving mini-metropolis with dining and clubs, high-end shops and financial fervour, Nassau today is a sad and dirty shadow of its former self. In a window next to where a $60,000 crystal table once stood, there is now a sign offering three t-shirts for $9.99. Where Mademoiselle’s headquarters buzzed as the house of fashion, a second-storey wooden balcony railing is rotting. Just off the main street, derelict buildings stare back with blown-out windows and roofs, glaring eyesores. The magnificent mahogany and olive trees that dotted the street are struggling to survive.

There are remnants of Bay Street’s beauty. The good bones of Nassau’s historic architectural treasures so frequently mentioned by the late Jackson Burnside are still there, but they are shrinking, replaced by large glass panes and concealed behind garish signs.

Notable treasures survive. Dignity remains intact at John Bull, where soft sounds emanate from the grand piano in the gallery and a sense of style never seems to go out of style. Up the hill at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and on West Hill Street with the Graycliff spin-off crafts and museum, the art of the possible portrays a canvas of hope.

There are the quaint finds of a Café Matisse and a Coin of the Realm, both establishments that cater to those whose good taste is buoyed by healthy wallets. There are, of course, the government buildings that create a scenic backdrop. In the majestic leaded glass windows of the Masonic Temple, at John Watling’s Distillery and along the ridge of Historic Charles Towne, there exists hidden beauty and promise.

Between such high spots, there is the reality of a city in desperate, urgent need of rebirth.

What has happened to Nassau is what happens to every great city at some point in its history. Lacking leadership, vision, direction and focused funding, it ages, veers off course and wanders down a path until it finds the stream of least resistance, and when it nears death, then - and only then - does its revival begin.

There are those who argue Nassau would have gone down that path long ago had it not been kept alive by artificial respiration, cruise passengers flooding the streets searching for cheap souvenirs.

Unlike the old vinyl record that could be tossed out because there is no reason to save it - nothing to play it on and without a jacket, no story worth preserving - there is every good reason to rescue the city of Nassau.

Its history is the history of The Bahamas. Its buildings are like none other in their concentrated density and their design. Its harbour views are unmatched in the region. And it is, on top of all of that, a magnificent city that begs to be saved.

All it takes is management.

As the former executive director of the Nassau Tourism Development Board often said, if the Smiths or Joneses were smart enough not to open a convenience store over the hill without someone in charge, why do we think we can open our national living room without a single entity with responsibility and authority to look out for it?

How do we think half the ministries of the government tripping over each other trying to carry out some parallel task, one for sidewalks, another for garbage, another for planning, can do it when there is no single entity responsible for consultation and vision?

How can a people so smart be so recalcitrant, resisting the reality that they must provide proper management for the capital city with the largest population, highest profile, a soaring crime rate, the greatest potential of all? How long will the situation persist and how far downhill will Nassau slide with no one in charge and no plan or vision?

It is time to heed the findings of the Historic Nassau Study, the National Development Plan and the Sustainable Cities Nassau study, all of which call for management.

As Jane Jacobs wrote in her oft-quoted work, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’, “Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon. Decaying cities, declining economies and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.”

It is a non-coincidental combination that we are already experiencing. Our social, cultural and collective responsibility dictate that the City of Nassau be resuscitated before the coroner pulls the sheet over her eyes and we all lament the death, sighing and saying what could have been to save the grand lady in whom we once took such pride.

Is it not better to forsake a little authority from central government to local government rather than shed a tear for having left a patient to die because there was no authority there to save her when she needed it most?