Heritage buffs hope to re-energize Kota
Heritage buffs hope to re-energize Kota
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Winda Malika Siregar, 25, no longer invites her friends to visit
old buildings in downtown Kota, after most of them have bluntly
refused the idea.
"They mentioned the chronic traffic congestion, the insecure
situation and bad odor of the stagnant, sewage-polluted river as
their reasons for not coming to Kota," complained the 25-year-old
resident of the upmarket Kebayoran Baru residential area in South
Jakarta.
"Imagine if Kota were clean and secure and most of heritage
sites, such as buildings, here were fully restored, with some
converted into cafes. This area would become a favored hang-out
place for the young," she added.
Many Jakartans, including Winda, are dreaming of a day when
Kota can return to its role as the center of business, sleek
residences, cultural activities and even tourism, as it was
during the Dutch administration's heyday.
A group of heritage enthusiasts, who call themselves Jakarta
Old Town-Kotaku (JOK), have teamed up to revitalize the
historical area.
Kota is currently notorious for its poorly maintained antique
buildings, traffic nightmares, recurrent flooding, on-street
parking problems, ubiquitous street vendors clogging the roads
and the main river polluted with waste.
"After five years of preparations, we are ready to see our
dream materialize (to revitalize the old town)," said JOK deputy
chairwoman Shanti Lasminingsih Poesposoetjipto.
She said that JOK had garnered support from officials
in the Jakarta administration, the owners of the old buildings,
artists, architects, businesspeople and heritage buffs to work
together to make the program a success.
JOK will officially mark the launching of a program to
revitalize the old town in a ceremony to be held on Sunday, Dec.
12 at the original Bank Indonesia (BI) building adjacent to Kota
railway station.
The ceremony, with foreign ambassadors, city officials and
heritage lovers on hand, will also be enlivened by the Vienna
Chamber Orchestra.
During the ceremony, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso is scheduled to
announce a new group of civil servants, who will regularly ply
the Kali Besar river on bamboo rafts to clean it up.
The JOK chairwoman Miranda S. Goeltom, who is also BI's Senior
Deputy Governor, emphasized that the river clean-up program would
be funded by a Rp 100 million donation from Hong Kong Shanghai
Banking Corporation (HSBC), and would hopefully improve the
environmental quality in the area.
"The effort to revive Kota will be meaningless without
improving the existing poor conditions of the environment such as
the sewage system, security, the parking system and water supply.
Those factors are necessary to attract people to come here and
open businesses," she said.
BI, which owns one of the heritage buildings in the area, will
restore its colonial-era building and convert it into a museum,
while some parts of the building will be converted into a fine
dining restaurant and cafe.
"Hopefully, by mid 2007, the new museum will be operational
and open to the public," an official with BI, Ishadhi, said.
Another owner of one of the older buildings, Magdalene Liela
Ubaidi, said owners were not interested in financial support from
the administration because there were more pressing programs such
as poverty and education that should be prioritized.
"All we need is the administration's support in terms of
policy in the revitalization program. And, let the rest, like
financing, be carried out by other (private) parties," she said.