By JOE COCHRANE
A 19th-century warehouse that lies off the main square of Jakarta's Dutch Batavia quarter once held supplies for the needs of traders, seamen, colonial civil servants and foreign adventurers.
Today, inside the terra-cotta colored building, giant trees stretch more than 20 meters into the air through a caved-in roof. What were once wooden floors in the 400-square-meter dwelling are now uneven hills of dirt and debris that has fallen into the gutted-out structure for more than half a century.
The shop house's owner is Ella Ubaidi, leader of a local conservation group. She bought the building several years ago and has plans to restore it to its former glory. But Ms. Ubaidi, an Indonesian who has a Dutch grandmother, says she won't act until a comprehensive revitalization program for the Batavia quarter gets underway.
Also known as "Kota Tua" or the Old Town, Batavia is an 87-hectare neighborhood of centuries-old colonial buildings that are abandoned and steadily decaying into ruins.
"Twenty-five years ago, Amsterdam was crumbling. So a Dutch company bought the [old] buildings, developed them and rented them out," Ms. Ubaidi says. "We need that model here."
The first Dutch sailing fleet arrived in Jakarta in 1607, and in the ensuing decades the Dutch built a trading post in the city. During its economic peak in the 1650s, Batavia was where the Dutch East India Company, or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, ran its spice trade of cloves, pepper and nutmeg and administered one of Europe's most-envied colonial possessions. Surrounded by Batavia's high walls that kept out hostile local tribes and invading Central Javanese armies, traders, merchants, bankers, civil servants, engineers, soldiers, plantation operators and tax collectors worked here through the 17th and into the 18th centuries. Around the main square, known as Taman Fatahillah, there were packed warehouses, busy trading houses, Dutch administrative offices, a church, and ale houses that served warm beer amid the tropical heat.
Batavia was in decline in the mid-1700s and by the 1770s was nearly a ghost town. The city had become overcrowded, its rivers packed with garbage, and diseases such as dysentery and dengue fever were rife. By the 20th century, it was a shadow of its former self. Today, Central Jakarta lies several miles inland, surrounded by high-rise office buildings and outlandish upscale shopping malls, while the capital's main port lies eight kilometers to the east of the old Dutch quarter.
The fact that Batavia lies in an area where demand for commercial property is low may have saved it from the wrecking ball, unlike colonial Asian buildings in Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi and Shanghai. In today's Batavia, there are preserved buildings with original stain-glass windows, and arched bridges over Dutch-built canals and waterways. But aside from one restaurant and a few museums—a karaoke bar and pool hall recently closed—the area is neglected.
Jakarta Gov. Fauzi Bowo, who as a boy played in Batavia's dusty streets, is trying to become the first city leader since the 1970s to make economic use of its past. In 2008, his office drafted a new revitalization master plan for Batavia — the ninth since 1991. Taman Fatahillah square and its surrounding area were closed to traffic, and jackhammers tore up the old pavement. New cobblestones, a new drainage system and ground lighting were installed at a cost of $5 million.
The square buzzes with life during daylight hours, hosting weekend music concerts, cultural exhibits and historic walking and bicycle tours. Foreign and local tourists roll off of buses to walk through the dungeons of the old city hall, which was built in 1710 and is now a museum. The square is also a favorite spot for young couples to do pre-wedding photo shoots. Café Batavia, which opened in 1993 inside a 19th-century restored warehouse, has become a must for new Jakarta expatriates and foreign visitors.
But beyond the main square, nearly all of the 59 colonial-era buildings surrounding it remain empty and unused. Some are occupied by squatters while others are literally falling apart, like the Jasindo Building, built in 1912, which in March saw two-thirds of its roof collapse. When the sun goes down, affluent city residents scurry home, and squatters, beggars and garbage scavengers come out and occupy the streets and the main square.
"The city did what they could do, but it didn't bring any change because there is no economic activity," Ms. Ubaidi says. "Starbucks could consider opening an outlet if it gets traffic. But if people hanging out at night only spend 10,000 rupiah ($1.17), who will invest?"
The main obstacle to revitalizing Batavia, according to local officials and conservationists, is that about half of the historic buildings surrounding Taman Fatahillah are owned by the Indonesian government. Current state regulations restrict them being leased for commercial use. With so many other problems to be solved, there's not much appetite among some locals for tackling this heritage issue.
"Conservation is still the idea of the elites, not the general public," says Mohammad Danisworo, chairman of the Center for Urban Design Studies in Bandung, West Java, and an adviser to five Jakarta governors. "Batavia is not their history. It's the Dutch history."
The Jakarta Governor's Office and national Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises have a vague agreement on leasing out the buildings for private commercial use as well as public use, including restoring a building for a satellite campus of the Jakarta Arts Institute. Gatut Dwihastoro, the new head of a city government redevelopment unit for Batavia, said he remains hopeful that the Jakarta city administration and national government will finally implement their agreement so the buildings can be saved and turned into privately run shops, restaurants, galleries, and wine bars.
"I will not give up," he said.
Ms. Ubaidi, meanwhile, is considering renovating the front porch of her 19th-century warehouse to turn it into a hangout lounge with free Wi-Fi and soft drinks."I'm curious to see what happens, what the impact is," she says. "Somebody has to start to think about how to take those abandoned buildings and make the area alive."