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