NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2022 3 Sylton Sibblies, manager of the Black River Market, St Elizabeth, said Black River is rich in history, but not enough to attract people to the town. and stalls are scattered all over. The brand-new market with brand-newmetal stalls were bereft of shoppers. Only a few vendors were holding the fort. The others are elsewhere selling on the streets, while they used the market stalls only to store their stuff. “We have a market that the Government invested so much money in and you can’t get the people of the streets,” Sibblies claimed. The underuse of the market means that income for the corporation is dwindling. And there is a market being operated on a private property nearby, which is the subject of a legal matter between the operators and the corporation, as that market is said to be operating illegally. What, then, is going to become of the town of Black River? Will the line on the monitor to which it is attached, fighting for its life, finally go flat? Sibblies is hoping not, for there are plans, he said, to keep it going like the river that bears its name. The establishment of a restaurant in the market to generate income for the corporation, as“there is no proper cookshop in the town,” is an idea. It has the boat rides on the river and history on its side. And, according to Sibblies, “Black River needs some injection of capital into the town, needs somebody to come in and put in some investment. That is key.” And until that key is turned, the town of Black River continues to be moribund, like the little fishes wriggling from the hooks of three youth whom The Gleaner team saw fishing for their supper in Jamaica’s longest navigable river. JAMAICA AT 60: ST ELIZABETH
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