Kortrijk celebrates the Capuchin Festival
In the 1980s, the Kapucijnenstraat was transformed from a dilapidated alley into a bustling street where it was over the top. The metamorphosis from a dead and dilapidated street to a hip café street could not be greater. Kortrijkzaan and Deputy Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne thinks it’s fantastic: “From young to adolescent I have experienced here. I have fantastic souvenirs. That street in 1980 meant nothing, it has become a Mirakelstraatje. And in the meantime Kortrijk has become a ‘miracle town’ .”
Book of history
After the heyday came a decline. The cinema moved to Hoog Kortrijk, the alcohol checks and the smoking ban did the rest. Some cafes closed their doors. Marc Lerouge reconstructs the entire history in a booklet: “Everyone I spoke to still knew that street, had an anecdote: I met my first love here, I drank a thousand pints here, I slept in the gutter here. The most impossible stories were in it.”
New dynamics
The Mirakelstraatje may become what it once was, also due to the metamorphosis of the city center. “The enterprising spirits of 40 years ago and now have joined forces. I think it is flourishing again and that it is ready to explode again,” says mayor of Kortrijk Ruth Vandenberghe.
The Capucijnenfeesten are already a first sign of a new dynamic in the Mirakeslstraatje.