End of year report from St. Croix : Horst and Isabel Cerni

ST.CROIX IS AMAZING

At least five weeks of partying! Since Thanksgiving, St.Croix has been celebrating the CHristmas Season with several big events, like Christmas Spoken at the Garden, Old fashion Crucian Christmas at the Whim, the Boat Parade, the lighting pf the amazing trees at Limpricht Park, and then, of course, the Crucian Christmas Festival. By good rescheduling, the Lantern and Car parade took place yesterday,.and this morning on Three Kings Day, the Tramp and Crucian breakfast seemed to conclude the Season. But some will continue, because tomorrow is the Eastern Orthodox Christmas.

The old year ended quietly, and 2025 started with beautiful fireworks from the Buccaneer. An hour later we saw the ball drop at Times Square, One million people waited for hours for this moment and for Frank Sinatra to sing “New York, New York”. Times Square (named after the New York Times building, which was the newspaper’s Headquaters) has become - at least for us who used to live many years in Manhattan - a kind of essential part to start a new year - a glass of champagne and hugs at 12 o’clock St.Croix, and again at 1 am NY..

An enterprising Crucian decided to lean on the NYT name and called his bar “Time Square” - just dropping the ‘s’ from time and creating a brandnew concept, Whatcould a Time Square mean? I wondered, and chose old wall clocks with different times to indicate the complexity of “time”.

The entire area. where the bar was, became known as Time Square. In 1998, the St.Croix Foundation bought most of the dilapidated buildings, and Architect Bill Taylor was able to restore the Sunday Market Square to its old glory, In the process, of course, parking spaces were lost, and eventually the TIME SQUARE bar had to close.  Some replicas exist in several US cities and in Mexico. 

 

Unfortunately, the Sunday Market Square has not yet regained the popularity it had about two hundred years ago, when enslaved Africans took advantage of their only free day and met on the Square to meet friends and to sell their produce and other goods. More restoration work is needed, including in the ALexander Theatre, which is scheduled for movie shows and other presentations. And the ruins on King Street, next to the former Time Square Bar, where the Boys and Girls Clup advertises their activities.

John C. Maxwell said: “Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking, regardless of how we live our lives.” 

And Benjamin Franklin: “Time waits for no-one.  Never leave for tomorrow, that which you can do today.”

Albert Einstein used to say “I never think of the future. It t comes soon enough.”

In this spirit, happy and healthy new year to all. Live each day to the fullest.