‘Together We Rise’ brings buzz to Hip Strip

WESTERN BUREAU:

The S Hotel in Montego Bay, St James, officially unveiled its new ‘Together We Rise’ monument at its Jimmy Cliff Boulevard property on Wednesday as the island marked the one-year anniversary since Hurricane Melissa’s destructive landfall.

The 62-foot-tall structure, which was built in the hotel’s courtyard, was completed in August. It depicts two large hands gripping each other, with images of people assisting each other upward from the bottom. The tip, which lights up at night, resembles a sprouting tree.

Sculptor Scheed Cole explained that the theme of collaboration did not just embody the spirit of Jamaicans after the passage of the hurricane but was also inspired by assistance he received from a kind stranger in 1990 when he was 13 years old and was going through a difficult period.

“My life today is the consequence of a helping hand. So many persons have their family challenges, and persons have to lend you a hand for you to be where you are today. If we do not walk hand in hand, then there is no future for us, and we will dry up like a tree that lacks the nutrients to survive,” he said.

“This sculpture is supposed to embody who I am and what I have been through, and that speaks to so many that have gone through what I have gone through,” he continued. “It is with feeling in spirit that the sculpture is created, and I pray that all who visit the sculpture will not only look at it and say, ‘It’s a nice, wondrous engineering and it has wonderful colours’ but will see that the faces on it tell a story.”

Christopher Issa, the owner and chief executive officer of S Hotel, said that discussions about the sculpture’s creation began shortly after the successful commissioning of the hotel’s hummingbird monument, also created by Cole.

“The idea of this statue was really born after the hummingbird structure that we put up [on the side of the S Hotel building] in August 2025, and it went over so positively, and people were really admiring that structure, and they would say how they would pass this way just to look at the hummingbird,” said Issa. “I thought that the Hip Strip was just beginning to come back, so to speak, and just like how a bird cannot fly on one wing, a second monument would really be an additional boost for it.”

Issa said that after Hurricane Melissa devastated western Jamaica, he told Cole that the monument had to be of national and international importance.

“So this statue is not really about Melissa, but it was born of Melissa, and the message is the resilience of our Jamaican people, the suffering and loss of life that happened in the strongest hurricane to hit this part of the world, and also the message of the help we got both from fellow Jamaicans and the international community,” the hotelier added.

Jimmy Cliff Boulevard, formerly known as Gloucester Avenue and rededicated in honour of the late reggae icon James ‘Jimmy Cliff’ Chambers, has been targeted for revival after experiencing a decline over the years as a result of hotel closures and ageing infrastructure.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced a $1.2-billion upgrade in 2021, and in 2022, Tourism Enhancement Fund Executive Director Dr Carey Wallace pitched a $1-billion transformation plan.

Meanwhile, speaking at Wednesday’s ceremony, businesswoman Rena Forbes said the Together We Rise monument has already been receiving rave reviews since its completion.

“We are already seeing many persons coming to the Hip Strip, taking photographs and having expressed how lovely the structure is. This is a well-needed attraction to the strip, and monuments such as this one that we are commemorating will certainly add value to the strip,” she said.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com