A Saint John heritage group is getting a revival.
A public meeting of Heritage Saint John is being held this week to reactivate the group, which worked to raise awareness surrounding our heritage building stock.
Historian Harold Wright says the revival of the group is ‘most definitely’ in response to what has been happening with heritage in the city with the latest example being the demolition of the historic Jelly Bean buildings on Wellington Row, which were built circa 1860 and were torn down to make way for a mixed-income housing complex on the land.
“That has caused a lot of people to say enough is enough,” Wright tells CHSJ News, “we’ve got to get reorganized, we’ve got to take a pro-active stance so that this type of thing doesn’t happen again.”
Jelly Bean buildings, before and after demolition
Wright believes that the majority of Saint Johners do appreciate what we have, however:
“I don’t think our business leaders, our community leaders are always sympathetic. We’ve had a 200-year history of economic booms and busts so if someone comes along with a dollar bill saying ‘I can do something better’ we sort of jump on that bandwagon…That’s my own personal opinion,” says Wright.
“We throw words around very easily like the building is unsafe, the building is beyond repair, or too far gone in reality, in most cases, it’s cosmetics.”
The public meeting is happening on Thursday evening from 7pm to 9pm at the Bennett Room at Trinity Church and is open to anyone from the Greater Saint John area.
Memberships will be available at the meeting.
