Grays Green Community getting ‘knuckled’ at Knuckle Block

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We are not sure how the area derived the name ‘Knuckle Block,’ which in the vernacular, denotes an area for those who have been jilted or cheated on – aka, ‘knuckled.’ Ah, the pain and heartache of unrequited love.

We’re talking about that area just west of the King George V grounds where sits the relocated St John’s Magistrates Court.

If you recall, this was supposed to be a community haven for the young people of the area, who ware desperately in need of a decent place to engage in sporting and other activities. It was a gift from the government and people of China.

But before the Grays Green youth could shoot a hoop or toss a ball, the ne’r do wells in this administration commandeered it as a ‘temporary’ home for the St. John’s Magistrates Court. Mind you, the operative word here is ‘temporary.’ The promise was that the decrepit St. John’s Magistrates Court would be rehabilitated as a matter of urgency. Sigh! Promises, promises! This administration is so full of them, and they seldom deliver!

As you can imagine, the people of Grays Green, a community plagued by aimless and drifting youth engaging in drug use, prostitution, crime, and other forms of unproductive, anti-social behaviour, were up in arms.

They’d been looking forward to the new community centre, which would have been an oasis from the decay and blight and hopelessness so very evident around them. Of course, the elected representative for the area, he of absenteeism fame, sat by idly as the ‘temporary’situation turned into over two interminably long years. The youth of Grays Green were cheated out of a safe redoubt were they could have been gainfully engaged. They were ‘knuckled’! We submit that many lives that conceivably could have been saved, had they been gainfully engaged at the Knuckle Block complex, fell through the cracks in those two years. Not that the elected representative much cared. He was content merely to collect his fat paycheck and tread water.

The word on the street in the area is that the elected representative makes Houdini look like an amateur; what with his remarkable ability to disappear and not be seen or heard from.  Some pf the constituents have difficulty recalling his very name. Manifestly, their vote for him was a wasted one. He has done, and continues to do nothing! As the Latinos in the area would say with disgust, “El no hace nada!”

Anyway, as reported in today’s DAILY OBSERVER, in a story by our court reporter, Latrishka Thomas, the loquacious Minister of Works, the Honourable Lennox Weston, has promised that work on the old Magistrates Court on High Street will begin in “a couple of weeks.” (Don’t laugh) Yes, the good Minister of Works, he of much high flown rhetoric and hyperbole, but little else, made the grand declaration with a straight face. Of course, if you believe him, we here at NEWSCO have a government-issued coronavirus stimulus cheque to give you.

As is his wont, the good Minister of Works, began to lay on the stuff rather thickly. He said that, “We wanna start shortly so we can get out of that facility at Gray’s Farm …. maybe in another couple weeks we should start. We are just waiting on the architectural drawings to be adjusted and completed.” (Again, we urge you not to laugh, folks). The operative words here are ‘maybe’ and ‘should’. Good grief! Plus, there’s more ‘iffyness’ and conditionality.

They are just waiting on some drawings to be adjusted and completed.’  Say what? We thought that that had been done in the early months after the relocation when the promise was made that it would be temporary. Clearly, when the promise was made back in April 2019, it was a vain promise that they had no intention of keeping. In any event, how long does it take for an architect to draw plans for the two-by-three courthouse on High and Temple Street? Forgive us for suggesting it, but the good Minister of Works sounds much like a fast-talking professional who is stalling for time by attempting to baffle the inexperienced client with . . . uh. . . bs. Suffice it to say, we are not impressed. We will believe that ‘couple-of-weeks’ crap when we see it.

Then again, maybe this time around could be different, what with a general election in the offing. This is a calculating administration. This is the administration that could not dole out a stimulus for the suffering people of this country at the height of the pandemic, yet now, they have found huge gobs of money to fix roads and bridges and courthouses and most things, in a cynical effort to curry favour with the people – the people that they’d neglected and ignored these past several years. The effort to finally hand over the community centre to the people of the Grays Green community is of a piece with that dastardly calculation. The Grays Farm and Green Bay people ought not to be deceived thereby. Or they could be ‘knuckled’ again.

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