No Main Street in Long Beach

I hail from distant shores, a 2K square mile island in the Caribbean named Trinidad. It’s one of a pair of islands that together makes up a single nation, Trinidad & Tobago. It was home to me once. Now Long Beach, CA is my home.

High Street

As a teenager growing up in Trinidad, I remember going down after school to the main shopping street in downtown San Fernando. It’s the same San Fernando that is described in Trinidadian author Michael Anthony’s book, The Year in San Fernando. The street was called High Street. I took a quick look online and found this definition for High Street:

• the main street of a town, especially as the traditional site for most stores, banks, and other businesses.

That’s what I thought... High Street is to the Trini (and Brit) as Main Street is to the American.

The secondary school that I attended (like high school here in the US) was St. Joseph’s Convent, San Fernando. It was an all girl’s Catholic school run by nuns who lived in quarters across the street from the school. I recall there being a Sister Anna and a Sister Theresa. The nuns made very imposing figures in their white habits. I don’t recall them smiling much, and I was even quite afraid of them. The school was a couple of blocks from High Street.

Some of the older, more responsible girls were designated with the title “Prefect”. I was not a prefect, but I recall that my friend, Sherry was one. I think my friend Hannah was one, too! The responsibility of a prefect was to ensure that the other girls were behaving as well as would be expected of St. Joseph’s students. I could be wrong, but I recall it being a closed campus. Occasionally some of us girls escaped at lunch times to go shopping. The prefects were responsible for approaching other students in the St. Joseph’s uniform to ensure they had valid reasons to be off-campus.

Well, back to High Street. We’d go shopping at a store called Woolworth’s. I found some great photos here. There was a jewelry store. There was Manhin’s, a book store where we purchased our books for school and reading. Mr and Mrs Manhin also owned a haberdashery store where, as a teenager, I got a summer job selling laces and fabrics by the yard. There were little clothing boutiques and there was a mall with a supermarket and a sewing machine store. One of my doctors had his office in that mall. I forget what else there was there.

I suppose that it’s all different now. I found a Mohammed’s book store at 49 High Street. Perhaps Mohammed bought out the store that was owned by Mr and Mrs Manhin. I found a fabric store called Fabric Land that was at 84 High Street. It looks like it’s on the wrong side of the street, though. Glad that folks are still sewing in Trinidad.

Main Street

I was thinking about Main Street because I was thinking about the types of stores that are on a Main Street, and somehow it took me back to my childhood days. Interestingly enough, Long Beach has no Main Street. There’s Pine Ave in Downtown, and 4th Street’s ”Retro Row”, 2nd Street in Belmont Shore and Atlantic Ave in Bixby Knolls. No Main Street.

I think a lot of kids here in the US have after school sports, music, classes and clubs. I suppose that some of the kids who go to the high schools here in the US will head over to the nearest of these streets after school ends to go shopping. I don’t know if they’re welcome or watched with eagle eyes. I suspect a little bit of both, then as well as now. There are no prefects watching the kids. I don’t know if any American child would want that responsibility.

Trish Tsoiasue has been spending some time at a store called Made in Long Beach that is like a store you might find on a Main Street or a High Street. There’s a little video about the store here. She’s amazed at what she can find out about Trinidad on the internet today. Take a closer look at the (closed) Art and Craft shack picture, taken in Tobago in 2004. So cool!