The Original Two Monrovias

Kru Town, 1932 by Paul Julien. As posted on the Liberian Observer. 

This upcoming exhibit has been written about elsewhere, most notably at Liberia Past and Present, where Fred adds some interesting context to the unique and itinerant Dutch Liberiophile Paul Julien, who seemed to be a particularly curious and observant fellow, just the sort of witness to the footnotes of history that could be hoped for, such as this under-documented era of Liberia's history.

I was particularly intrigued by his remarks about the contrast the indigenous settlements so close to Monrovia with the mannered and increasingly prosperous hilltop capital. From his comments on the juxtaposition of Krutown, which was situated approximately where the Freeport is today, and the central city:

Paul Julien visits Krutown and describes it as being in a "sharp contrast to Monrovia, of which it is not even two minutes walking distance away. [It] consists completely of square huts with grass thatched roofs. It is obviously situated on the shore, with a wide sandy beach separating it from the surf." 

When comparing the two he makes sure the Belgian audience will understand what he means, by relating to what they should know. "Up, in Monrovia, the city still reminds one of a capital city, with streets and buildings that, even though only from afar, remind one somewhat of Europe." While in Krutown, "The narrow muddy alleys that wind in a marvelous disorder through the village are the set for the life of the coastal residents. Small naked youngsters run around in the sand.

It seems even in the pre-war era, the phenomenon of the Two Monrovias existed.  Julien's photographs and a film will be on display at the National Museum in July and August.

Liberia for Beginners

Now running into it's fifth year, AARP-territory for most weblogs, Moved2Monrovia is not an easy thing to define anymore, but one thing it is not is a beginner's perspective. There's a recent Tumblr (how second-decade-of-the-21st-century) that is dedicated to that experience: Liberia for Beginners, which has been posting since October. Although it features a good heaping of gee-whiz-President-Sirleaf-and-oh-Daily-Talk type of stuff, who am I to look down my nose at the young whippersnappers? I was one once, too.

This contemporary perspective in-and-of-itself is interesting too, as in some ways there is no better measure of the transformation between the Liberia of then and of now than each crop of fresh-faces lands at RIA, and what the post to the web. For a more compact example, check-out the brief flourishing of Liberian Summer, another Tumblr which flashed across the sky in mid-2011 to coincide with a development student's summer internship in Monrovia. Amazing how quickly the potholes-and-pehn-pehn Liberia has transformed into the pad-Thai-and-Pintrest Liberia.

Welcome to Liberia and to the internet, kids.

Liberia '77 Photos of Monrovia

RELDA Cinema, looking fine in 1979.

A handful of semi-unbelievable vintage photographs of Monrovia from the growing collection of the Topham brothers, viewable on the website of their awesome documentary, Liberia '77.

I've mentioned Liberia '77 back in December, but wanted to remind everyone about it, and also spread the word about the Topham brothers' project, blessed by President Sirleaf, to encourage the contribution of vintage and historic photography of Liberia to reinvigorate the Liberian National Archives.

Jeff & Andrew Topham have been successful these last few months of starting a wonderful collaborative archive of photographs from his own family as well as other contributors, including, it seems, Helene Cooper.

Here are a few of many gems from what is already there. The captions are as good as the images. A couple of more posts follow with some other highlights of the Liberia '77 collection.

Sheila on Broad Street: My beautiful mother on Broad Street in Monrovia. We lived there 1967-72 and she came to visit me and her friends when I returned as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She loved Liberia and my family considers those years the best of our lives.

Gurley Street, 1974. Anyone who lived in or near Monrovia knows about Gurley Street. I remember it as a 15 year old where I would go to the “juke joints” and learned how to dance to James Brown and Sam and Dave. Around midnight would step outside and buy some pepper chicken and round bread from the lady cooking on the street. Also, a small bottle of Stockton Gin. My mother thought I was staying with my friend in town and her mother thought she was staying with me out in Caldwell. She nearly fainted when I told her all about it years later! Took this picture when I returned as a Peace Corps Volunteer

Fruit Sellers on the Street, possibly outside Abi Jaoudi supermarket, 1977

Tim Hetherington's Diary (2010)

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Journalists and photographers, as well as the Liberiophile community are still reeling from the loss of both Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington. In case you missed it, Tim Hetherington's 2010 Diary, above, is more than worth the 19 minutes. In fact, its an astonishing, emotional journey that is like nothing I have seen before.

Heart-stopping clips, from Tim's work in Liberia years ago, show the rebels' hellish, earth-scorching caravan advancing towards Monrovia throughout the sequence. As much an auditory artwork as a cinematographic collage, scenes completely envelope the viewer in the horrors of contemporary war, but abruptly transform into the mundane sound-byte summaries of the same events of international news headlines, heard in taxis navigating the streets of London or on a glowing screen in a Heathrow Express carriage, thousands of miles away from the carnage.

The rain blurs the windshield view of a dilapidated, war-scarred bush settlement, rushing by in the chaos of battle, slipping imperceptibly to become the drops running down the screen of a black cab making its way through an immaculate, bone-white Marylebone, a juxtaposition that is an incredible feat of technical precision. A firefight in the mountains of Afghanistan is later echoed, visually and acoustically, in the fireworks over the rooftops of Brooklyn.

A dreary, banal hotel room view of an immensely overbuilt Hong Kong is suddenly the sun-blinded, view of the burnt-black Darfurian ground in the silhouette of an immolated human. Randall Street becomes a Bangkok Expressway, which becomes a dirt road in Chad, crossed by cattle. The chaos of wanton, violent rebels scaring off desperate looters raiding a Freeport warehouse, loops into a dream-like scene of a young British girl running through a field in a delicate light of English autumn.

"Stunning" is an unfortunately overused word in our age of hyperbole, and is no longer reserved for experiences and artworks which so arrest the audience as to have a physical component to the reaction they induce--but this is what this startling film does, again and again, and reminds us further of the huge loss of such a talent storyteller.

Ducor Palace Hotel Postcard 1964

Although last week was officially M2M Ducor Hotel week, but I had to put up this latest addition to the Moved 2 Monrovia postcard collection. It was sent in 1964, so it depicts the hotel when it was nearly brand new, and shows how denuded the hill was when the hotel finished.

The back of the postcard is embossed "DUCOR PALACE HOTEL" which is confusing because the Neil Prince memorial website credits him with designing the Ducor in 1962 as part of his worlwide portfolio of properties for Intercontinental Hotels, which was at the time the hospitality arm of Pan American Airways, which was obviously very focussed on Monrovia. But I looked back closely at an earlier M2M post on Pan Am's 1963 World Guide, which recommends the "brand new Ducor Hotel" --so it seems the property was originally called the Ducor Palace, then called the Intercontinental, then back to the Ducor Palace.

Below is a picture I took in 2008, showing how wooded the top of Snapper Hill is now, by contrast.

The postcard was sent to Wadsworth, Ohio, and shows classic ex-pat love for the city:

9-11-64

"This is a fabulous place--beautiful country-- Temp average 70degrees- Rainy season now -- 6 more weeks, then Liberians tell me it get hotto-- everything has an O on the end of words. Ha!"