Nelleke tells about; Utrecht city center

Intro Nelleke tells about….

I am a real UTREGSE: Until I was 23 I lived in Zuilen, on the van Egmondkade and starting from my wedding day I lived on the Mariaplaats for 30 years.

I have been living in the Zeeheldenbuurt for many years now, to my great satisfaction. So you could say I know the city like the back of my hand.

Mariaplaats

Opposite our house on the Mariaplaats was the hospital St. Johannes de Deo. It was a small-scale hospital, initially only for men, but later women were allowed to be nursed as well. We heard from various patients that it was a nice place, you didn't come there for your rest.

The hospital was once moved to Overvecht, but that no longer exists either.

When the hospital was gone, the conservatory, which was first located in the Lange Nieuwstraat, was transferred to the vacant building.

That was also a happy affair. When the weather was good, the windows were open and the public on the street could enjoy the musical antics performed by various musicians. All kinds of things mixed together: violins, trumpets, singers, drums, etc. That was not always fun for the audience because there were a lot of exercises. Especially in the spring, when everyone was practicing for exams, the spectacle sometimes went on until late at night.

Another memory of the Mariaplaats:

On Christmas day 1963 it started to snow terribly. It was impossible to remove it with normal sliders. Because the entire center was still open to traffic at the time, something had to be done. Soon the army trucks arrived. The soldiers started shoveling the snow into the trucks and as soon as a car was full, they throw the snow into the Catharijne Singel. That cleared up nicely. Only a few slippery sidewalks remained.

This was followed by that terrible winter in which e.g. the cars drove over the Lek and the IJsselmeer.

In Utrecht there was of course great skating on the frozen canals and on the Oude Gracht. That was beautiful I will never forget it! Here and there it looked like an old painting.

Living in the city

Noise pollution is part of the city center. The buzz of the bars and nightlife goes on well into the night. In the past, that turned into a sound that you no longer hear: trucks with rattling milk cans on their way to the milk factory. It was on the Vissersplein, but also on the Amsterdamstraatweg and in the Adelaarstraat there was such a milk factory.

If you were still sleeping well at 7 in the morning, you would be woken up by the lorry with the milk cans as if you were living in a village. When the farmers switched to milk tanks, a lot changed. The dairies were moved to industrial estates because the traffic in the city center no longer allowed these trucks. Traffic used to go straight through the city.

I still remember when the first traffic light appeared. That was shortly after the war at the intersection Lange Viestraat / Vredenburg. At that time you could also just drive through the Lange Elisabethstraat and the Steenweg, but later that became a pedestrian area. We had to get used to that because suddenly we had to take a detour to our house at Mariaplaats.

Even earlier, a tram ran through the city that also took you to Zeist. It was discontinued in the late 1940s.

There were many (secondary) schools in the city center, but most have disappeared to the suburbs. The girls H.B.S. van de Wittevrouwenkade, the Lyceum in the van Asch van Wijk quay, De Rijks H.B.S. in the Kruisstraat, the Municipal Gymnasium, H.B.S. de Munnik, the Christian HBS, the domestic science school and the craft school. They often became large school communities. Today, the Gregorius School and the Bonifatius Lyceum are all still located in the city centre.

Fires in the city center

I've seen a lot of fires in that old town.

The worst fire was in the Arts and Sciences building on Mariaplaats. We were used to the sirens of the fire trucks because the fire department garage was on the Ganzenmarkt behind the town hall. Several times their fire trucks drove through the Zadelstraat with their sirens screaming. We didn't pay attention to that anymore until March 12, 1988, such a car stopped in front of our door. We had a fire pit in front of the door, so I went to have a look and saw that the Arts and Sciences building was on fire. With great difficulty, the fire brigade managed to limit the fire to K&W. It started on Friday evening and Tuesday morning there was still a bit of fire left. Only the side walls were still standing after the intensive extinguishing work. It was very scary. Fortunately, there were no injuries, but the material damage was enormous. Many precious musical instruments (the building belonged to the conservatory) were lost…. I can now imagine that in the past half a city center was lost because the fire brigade could not always easily reach it.

Another memorable fire, just outside the center was in mid-December 1938, the Central Station burned down and because it was freezing so hard, an ice palace was created the next day. I didn't see that myself, because I was only 3 weeks old. After that, one of the first renovations of the station began. Many more would follow.

Tivoli

I have also seen many buildings burn down. Often there were ceilings with straw in between for insulation and when they burned, the straws flew around your ears and they ended up everywhere. Very dangerous because a lot of wood was used in old buildings. For example, the wooden emergency building of Tivoli in the Lepelenburg Park went up in flames. The 1st Tivoli was in Kruisstraat, which was demolished because it was too old. The emergency building was neatly built around a tree in the park. That building had been there for 40 years and it burned down in 1 night. Unfortunately, the tree did not survive either. After that, the N.V. house on the Oude Gracht became the new Tivoli, followed by the new music center on the Vredenburg. During its short existence, that too has already been extensively expanded, a few extra floors were built on it.

Dom Tower and Dom Square

The real center of the city is of course the Dom Tower with the Dom Church next to it, which was built on a Roman settlement. Parts of it still remain underground and from time to time remnants are uncovered during archaeological excavations.

The collapse of the nave of the Dom Church was, of course, very spectacular. That happened during a gigantic summer storm on August 1, 1674. Houses, church towers, churches, mills and various other buildings had a lot of damage. There were also deaths. The ruins of the Dom Church had to wait a long time before they were cleared; over 100 years! This is how the Domplein was created. A crazy sight actually: church and tower are now separate from each other. You can watch the whole event at Domunder on Domplein. It is re-enacted underground and it feels like you were there yourself. Recommended!

Vredenburg and Hoog Catharijne

And then Vredenburg Castle. It was built sometime in 1529 to keep the citizens of Utrecht under their thumb. But they did not accept that and under the leadership of Catrijn van Leemputte the castle was demolished. Due to the demolition of the castle, Utrecht got a square, which only after a while

name Het Vredenburg. Livestock market was held here until the twentieth century. During the construction of the current music center, the foundations of the forced castle were exposed. Hugely thick walls and gigantic amounts of bullets came up. I watched it for a long time and often. Fortunately, much has been preserved and you can still see remnants in the underground bicycle shed at the Vredenburg.

Previously, a monastery dedicated to Saint Catherine was established on this site. Hence the name Catharijnesingel and later Hoog Catharijne. The monastery was moved when the castle had to be built because it was dangerous with all those flying bullets.

And so this place has a long history of demolition and renovations.

The Jaarbeurs buildings once stood between the Rijnkade and the Vredenburg, which were blown up one early morning in the 1970s. What a huge bang that was! Most of the inhabitants of Utrecht were there and when the dust clouds had disappeared, we saw that there was still quite a bit left standing. So, even more, bangs followed after that and meanwhile, the sandwich shop on the Vredenburg was doing good business. They stood in line all the way out.

The gigantic amount of rubble was removed and dumped in the Overvecht district, where Park de Gagel was just being built. That's where the big hill in that park comes from! The work also had a lot to do with the girth damping; a black page in Utrecht history, but luckily we now have the singles back.

A while later, the new construction of the Central Station started and Hoog Catharijne also had to be renovated.

This part of the city has therefore seen the most changes.

The former cattle market on the Vredenburg was moved to a site next to the Croeselaan, which was appropriately called the Veemarktplein. This livestock market was also moved to the Voordorp district and, it is being sawed off, the Veemarkt also had to go there. It's not clear to me where. New buildings were built on that spot and the only thing that reminds of it are the street names of different types of horses, cows and sheep.

Wijk C

What many Utrecht residents find a pity is the demolition of part of Wijk C.

It had to give way to the traffic although some houses were due for demolition. During demolition, many old remains from the Middle Ages emerged. Great for archaeologists! More about Wijk C you can read in one of my other Blogs

And there is much more to tell about the city center. But I would say: go investigate. Then there is much more to be found.

#Drawing Henk Naderman Nelleke’s Partner