Museum sights in Kingston
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Bob Marley Museum
For many, Jamaica means reggae, and reggae means Bob Marley. If this sounds like you, a visit to Kingston definitely means a visit to the reggae superstar’s former home and studio. The creaky wooden house on Hope Rd where Marley once lived and recorded is the city’s most-visited site. Today the house functions as a tourist attraction, museum and shrine, but much remains as it was during Marley’s day. The house is guarded by a sentry of faithful Rasta brethren and sisters and shielded by a vibrantly painted wall festooned with Rastafarian murals. Dominating the forecourt is a gaily colored statue of the musical legend. Some of the guides are overly solemn (focusing with …
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B
Trench Town Museum
Trench Town, which began life as a much-prized housing project erected by the British in the 1930s, is widely credited as the birthplace of ska, rocksteady and reggae music. The neighborhood has been immortalized in the gritty narratives of numerous reggae songs, not the least of which is Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, the poignant Trench Town anthem penned by Vincent ‘Tata’ Ford in a tiny bedroom at what is now the Trench Town Museum. In the days before superstardom, Bob and Rita Marley were frequent visitors and for a time even kept a small bedroom here. The museum is stocked with Wailers memorabilia, including Marley’s first guitar, some poignant photographs from …
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People’s Museum of Crafts & Technology
On the west side of Parade Square is the porticoed Georgian redbrick facade of the ruins of the Old King’s House, a once-grandiose building erected in 1762 as the official residence of Jamaica’s governors. The building was destroyed by fire in 1925, leaving only the restored facade. Today the stables, to the rear, house the People’s Museum of Crafts & Technology. A reconstructed smith’s shop and an eclectic array of artifacts – from Indian corn grinders to coffee-making machinery – provide an entry point to early Jamaican culture. A model shows how Old King’s House once looked.
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Maritime Museum
The marvelous Maritime Museum stands in the courtyard and contains a miscellany of things nautical from the heyday of the Royal Navy, plus a fabulous model of the Jamaica Producer cargo ship. Nelson lived in the small 'cockpit' while stationed here, and his quarters are replicated. Also of interest is a platform known as Nelson's Quarterdeck.
It was here that the young Horatio Nelson was said to keep watch for enemy ships, and once you climb to the top you'll agree that it does offer a splendid vantage point. A plaque on the wall of the King's Battery, to the right of the main entrance of the museum, commemorates his time here.
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White Marl Taino Museum
Jamaica owes much to the influence of the Arawak Indians, whose history is on display at this meager museum atop a large pre-Columbian settlement. Archaeological research has been ongoing here since the 1940s. Hunting and agricultural implements, jewelry and carvings are featured. A reconstructed Arawak village is up the hill behind the museum. The museum is 200m north of the A1, about 3km east of Spanish Town. Don’t try to walk there; instead drive or take a taxi from the taxi stand east of Spanish Town’s bus terminal.
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C
African-Caribbean Heritage Centre
Presided over by the Institute of Jamaica, the Heritage Centre houses a library and a small yet informative gallery that is dedicated to the history of the Middle Passage and a sociocultural exploration of the African diaspora. It is also home to the Memory Bank, an engrossing oral-history archive created to preserve Jamaica’s rich folkloric traditions. The center also stages cultural events from lectures and symposia to readings and dance performance.
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Institute of Jamaica
Toward the south end of East St, the Institute of Jamaica is the nation’s small-scale equivalent of the British Museum or Smithsonian. The institute hosts permanent and visiting exhibitions, and features a lecture hall, plus the National Library with Jamaican newspapers and texts dating back more than two centuries.
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E
Museum of Coins and Notes
The Bank of Jamaica, the national mint and treasury at the east end of Ocean Blvd, is fronted by a tall concrete statue of Noel ‘Crab’ Nethersole (minister of finance from 1955 to 1969). Inside the bank building you’ll find a small Museum of Coins and Notes displaying Jamaican currency through the centuries.
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F
Natural History Museum
In the same building as the Institute of Jamaice, but accessed by a separate entrance around the corner on Tower St, is the Natural History Museum. The dowdy collection offers an array of stuffed birds and a herbarium, rounded out by an eclectic miscellany playing a historical note.
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