The Disappearing Panyard

Brooklyn, New York, USA - The Chantwell got it right. All over there is a natural tension between the ‘progress’ of development and the sheer size of space that you need to create a vibrant panyard. Here in NYC, where we can only realistically maintain a panyard for a several months out of the year due to the costs and weather.

The panyard, however, is more than a place for us to practice music in preparation for the Panorama. It’s a living, breathing, organism; it’s a center for community. As some of this sentiment gets lost, I implore us to think about panyards and what they mean.

I was lucky enough to have played for three bands in NYC that created an amazing panyard scene. This isn’t to say that others don’t, but there has always been a special place in my heart for the memories created in these places. Close your eyes and think of some of these images from summers gone by:

• Eating one of Kathy Trebuse’s doubles behind Tilden Hall (remember that?)

• The day we would devote to getting out the muriatic acid to clean the pans, after which we would start repainting the background and the racks.

• Coming out to decorate before Panorama.

• The sheer joy of Pan Alley – the block on Parkside between Rogers and Nostrand where Pan Rebels, Metro, Nutones and Pantonic practiced.

• Turning ice-cream in Nutones’ yard

• Unfurling the new banner for Panorama that was sent up from Trinidad

“Plenty ol’ talk; a set of skylark...”

In its heyday, Radoes has gone above and beyond to make the panyard a place to call home. The hard work of clean up slowly gives way to the building of a bar. Eventually, appliances (stove and refrigerator) find their way in. One year we had a satellite dish. All the accoutrements of a place that people will feel comfortable spending a ton of time. Finally, the murals are mounted. Yes, plywood that has been adorned with images of Laventille, Clive Bradley, Rudolph Charles and “BJ” Marcelle are mounted on the walls. We are home and ready for business.

   

Why all the hard work when you can just get a school-yard for a couple of weeks? Because we are trying to do something more than have a place to practice. We create an environment that is conducive not only to ‘liming’ and isn’t limited to the music. When I walk in, sticks in hand, I am transported into a different world. One in which the influence of American culture can wane and I can be washed clean of this place. Here we can listen to the oral histories of pan. Talk about the times when. This is how we preserve our culture, and I for one wouldn’t change that for the world.

The summer of hard work is punctuated with moments of pleasure. Someone may go to the Terminal Market to get a bunch of watermelon. Maybe there’s a cook and some food is prepared – bluefish anyone? Strawberry Supligen is sought out for a magical elixir. The pandemic taught us all how much we missed Miss Ingrid’s aloo and fish pies. Time has a different meaning here, and that’s okay too. What are we all rushing to? To see the latest ‘reality TV show’ instead of just chilling with our comrades? This is the setting that you walk into and forget your troubles. You shed the troubles of the world and free up yourself in this kind of panyard.

When we make it so that there is no incentive for a big band to come out, and create a panyard, we lose some intangible piece of our culture that I, for one, think is worth preserving. Yes, we have to struggle against gentrification, but we must also preserve some of the more abstract things that draw us together and define us.

“As I turn around, a next panyard gone.”

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