Harbormaster Tower is high and dry
By Ida Indawati Khouw
The historical Menara Syahbandar (The Harbormaster Tower) that the Dutch colonial administration built in 1839 beside Jakarta Bay is deteriorating from weather, heavy traffic and lack of maintenance. This 57th article on old and protected buildings in Jakarta provides a brief history of its origin.
JAKARTA (JP): The capital city has its own version of the Pisa "leaning tower". So, if you want to have the thrill of climbing to the top of a gently-swaying, leaning tower, you don't have to go to Italy. Try the one located in the oldest part of the city, Pasar Ikan area near Jakarta Bay.
The tower is called Menara Syahbandar (Harbormaster Tower) and it now leans toward Jl. Pasar Ikan. Certainly, it was not designed as a leaning tower, but over time, its foundations have succumbed to the relentless passage of heavy vehicles on the nearby road.
However, this historic minaret's departure from the vertical has not brought it fame like that of Pisa Tower. And as a consequence, its condition has deteriorated from lack of maintenance.
Those who manage the climb to the top of the 40-meter high tower will feel tremors whenever heavy vehicles pass. Heavy vehicles entering and exiting the port rumble by day in and day out. According to local residents the tower also moves in strong winds, that is why they call it "Menara Goyang" (the Swaying Tower).
The tower, built mainly from bricks, is crowned with a wooden observation cabin with wide windows on its four sides providing visitors a panoramic view of the oldest part of Jakarta.
The Dutch colonial government built Uitkijk (the lookout tower) in 1839 to replace an old flag pole of the VOC shipyard (see Save Old Batavia, The Jakarta Post, Sept. 12 edition). It was used to watch for incoming ships at Batavia port (now Sunda Kalapa port).
The tower was constructed on an old bastion, built of coral in 1645, called Culemborg, after a village in the Netherlands. It was part of a wide wall encircling the old Batavia city until 1809.
Troops were stationed within the bastion to watch over the so called waterpoort, the city entrance from the sea (now gone).
"Through this entrance all foreign envoys once entered Batavia. Ship's captains passing the Culemborg used to give tips to the guards," Adolf Heuken wrote in his book Historical Sites of Jakarta.
The tower was less functional after a new port at Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, was built in 1886. But it was still needed to watch the Pasar Ikan harbor and was used as office for the harbor between 1926 and 1967, according to Bangunan Cagar Budaya di Wilayah DKI Jakarta (the Heritage Building in Jakarta).
A stone in the floor of the tower office bears an inscription in Chinese indicating that it once was used as the bureau of standards and place of weighing.
The Uitkijk was abandoned in 1967 when the (new) Sunda Kalapa port was constructed.
During the Japanese occupation (1942-1945) it was used as logistics warehouse, and in the 1950s it was turned into the Penjaringan police post.
In July 7, 1977 it was made part of the Marine Museum (Museum Bahari), as a model of a warehouse during the Dutch era and preserved until the present day.
The museum is particularly interesting because it is there that the remains of the oldest walls in the city are located.
The museum is part of the Westzijdsche Pakhuizen or the warehouses on the west bank (of Ciliwung River), built in 1652 but altered on several occasions. Its age is confirmed by dates on stones over some doors like "Anno 1718", "Anno 1719" and "Anno 1771".
Experts believe that the inscriptions show the years of the buildings' renovation or construction of its annex.
The museum complex consists of three separate elongated two- story buildings with wooden floors in the second stories. Like the tower, these warehouses are empty now with no evidence indicating the their past importance.
The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC, the Dutch trading company) stored voluminous stocks of pepper, coffee, tea and clothes here before being transported to the Netherlands. Of course, the valuable commodities were closely guarded.
"The company would burn part of the spices if there was an abundance so that prices would not plunge in Amsterdam," said Heuken and Grace Pamungkas in their book Galangan Kapal Batavia selama Tiga Ratus Tahun (Batavia Shipyard in the Course of Three Hundreds Years).
The areas surrounding the lookout tower and the warehouses were very unhealthy and in the 18th century as soon as higher areas surrounding Batavia were free of danger from wild animals and bands of fugitives, people moved southward.
Later the abandoned houses were demolished in order to fill in the mosquito-infested canals and to obtain building materials for the new town of Weltevreden (present Central Jakarta areas) under the instruction of Governor General Herman Willem Daendels.