Where It's AT- Newsflash Trench Town Rock
Errol McKinson
Oil on Canvas 14x14
From the Trench Town Rock Experience featuring some of lifestyles of Kingston 12 .
Trench Town is the birthplace of rocksteady and reggae music, as well as the home of reggae and Rastafari ambassador Bob Marley. The neighborhood gets its name from its previous designation as Trench Pen, 400 acres (162 hectares) of land once used for livestock by Daniel Power Trench, an Irish immigrant of the 18th century (descendants of the Earls of Clancarty).
The Trench family abandoned the land in the late 19th century. It is a common misconception that the name comes from the large open storm-water drain that runs through the neighbourhood in the middle of Collie Smith Drive. Trench Town is home to the communities of Wilton Gardens [Rema], Federal Gardens, Arnette Gardens [Jungle], Havana, Buckers and others.
Trench Town today is also the home of two of Jamaica's top Premier League football club teams, Arnette Gardens and Boys' Town.
During the 1930s, Trench Pen, in southern St. Andrew (neighboring western Kingston), was a growing squatter settlement for the rural to urban migrants. Trench Pen was developed into Trench Town when the colonial government's Central Housing Authority (CHA) initiated a model township project which included owner occupied housing, rentalsocial housing, schools, a theatre (The Ambassador), a park (Vin Lawrence Park), YMCA & YWCA, health clinic and fire station.
Approximately 200 acres (81 hectares) of Trench Pen was used to create Trench Town while the remaining land became known as Rose Town, a residential community. Many who came from rural Jamaica to find work settled in the western side of Kingston as there were available "idle" lands and also the area was a desirable location being close to downtown and the market district.
Cheers,
Errol