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by Gerald Singer www.SeeStJohn.com
My name is Gerald Singer. I came to St. John in 1970. That year there were 800 people living on St. John. I was one of the approximately 50 white residents on St John. We were called Continentals.

At the time there were 50 Jeeps and 12 pickup trucks on the island.

There was one small grocery store, Miss Lilly’s, located in the building now occupied by La Tapa, and Smiths, a small bar and liquor store, next door where Woody’s is presently.

Oscar James owned, managed, cooked and served at Oscar’s Beanery across the street.

Patio Bakery - Cruz Bay Park - St John Virgin Islands - 1970

Miss Meada’s Restaurant, where excellent Native dishes were prepared, was inside the Cruz Bay Park.

Also within the park was the Patio Bakery, a popular early morning gathering place for St. John ex pat community, which one could categorize into two classes, the drinkers and the hippies.

Customs House - Cruz Bay, St. John USVI - 1970

A small wooden building housed the St John Virgin Islands office of Customs and Immigration.

Eric’s Hilltop a bar, restaurant and night club was where the Legislature Building now is and Mooie’s Bar was where it still is and that was about it for Cruz Bay…

Photos by Hannele Koivumaki

More 1970s St. John Photos

St. John was and still is a very special place. Even though I was from a different part of the world and of a different race, I was welcomed into the St. John community with open arms. People lived together and helped each other out mostly without problems. Crime was practically non existent. The biggest social event were Fish Fry’s for which almost everyone attended, young and old, black and white, native and down islander. Food , drink, music and good times abounded.

John Gibney and Gerald Singer circa 2000

I became a fisherman in partnership with my friend, the late John Gibney. John was born and grew up on St. John. He and his family were very well liked and respected on the island by both Native West Indians and Continentals alike.

With John’s island know-how and experience and the help of native fishermen like Basil Harley from Cruz Bay and Mr. Walter Dalmida from Coral Bay we made our own fish traps, cut our own birch sticks for fish pot braces and cut tyre palm to string up our fish, which we sold right on the Cruz Bay dock when we’d return from a morning of pulling our fish pots.

What a thrill it was for me to set out before dawn and watch the sun rise over the Caribbean Sea. Our traps were almost always full then. I would love to look down into the water as we raised the traps and sometimes, as much a 80 feet down, we’d see the reddish colors of the fish within the traps.

John and his horse - St. John circa 1970

John wrote a story that appears in Tales of St. John and the Caribbean called “Papa Doc,” which took place on St. John in the late 1960s.

Read John Gibney’s “Papa Doc.” … more to follow…