Prosperity is a memory on the Kreekplein

‘You don’t have that many, not really a ball,’ says an elderly lady who is just turning the corner home. She means: “You can’t sit outside for a while and there is only one store.” She lives in a flat behind the square and carries a bag of vegetables. Bought in that one store, the Nutrition Center, which sells leftovers from gardeners and growers, among others – with a free loaf of bread.

On a weekday it is quiet on the Kreekplein in the IJsselmonde district of Rotterdam. Just say: dead. A number of takeaways, a beauty salon, the Nutrition Center, two hairdressers and a cafe surround a faded lawn, in the shadow of a flat that is moaning for maintenance. The paint has peeled off, a window of a corner house on the top floor has been boarded up. The glass blew out months ago during “a stormpie”, says a local resident. There are two hairdressing salons, but the square itself also seems to urgently need a haircut.

In the surrounding area, the languid tranquility of the suburb prevails. Green lawns bordered by single-family homes and gallery flats. Here and there a fountain splashes in a garden or a baby cries through the open window. A typical seventies new-build neighborhood where, like the journalist René Zwaap, who comes from the area, The Green Amsterdammer once wrote lyrically, “smells of flowers and grass in summer.” The wage explosion around 1963 – the year that the now oldest flat on the Kreekplein was built – launched half of the Netherlands into prosperity. For the first time a private car, a fridge, even central heating and a shower – and that wonderful box that, in addition to the adventures of Bonanza and The Thun-der-birdsbrought the world news into the living room.

The Kreekplein was a product of those optimistic years – once there was even a roller skating rink – and is now a shabby memory of it. It has been overtaken by time. When the square was set up in the early 1960s, the omnipotence of XXL supermarkets and megastores was still in the future. But it came quickly. In 1969 Prince Claus opened De Keizerswaard shopping center a kilometer away. A fifteen minute walk, two or three stops by bus or tram. Neighborhood squares crumbled in the heat of the new shopping giant, which now has 16,000 square meters and 82 stores. The consumption caravan moved on, the squares stayed behind.

But there is definitely life on the Kreekplein – and there are people of good will. Although they look at each other with a bit of suspicion: the favorite bar of Rotterdam football fans who flock on the field on heyday, the newer barbershop, where young people smoke in front of the door during the day.

We walk across the square with the chairman of the district council, Luuk Wilson. He is a former municipal councilor (Leefbaar Rotterdam) and in daily life he is head of finance at the Netherlands Forensic Institute. Wilson (56), good-natured and diplomatic, was born where the Rhine enters the country, but has been a Rotterdammer since he was six. And yes, it doesn’t look very cheerful here, he says, but he has seen worse squares.

And at least something happens during the day. We peer through the windows of the takeaways, all still closed. Cardboard boxes and a pinned note promising the business will open “soon”. The letterbox of a delivery shop (note: “no takeaway!”) hangs outwards crookedly. The Chinese restaurant has been there for much longer (or takeaway), which is well known. In an adjacent building there are ‘neighbourhood circles’ for single people, run by the Pameijer Foundation, ‘for everyone for whom it is difficult to participate in society’. On a first exploration of the square a few days earlier, “long will she live, long will she live” clattered through the open door. A group of elderly people drank coffee and celebrated a birthday.

Feyenoord cafe

The door of the cafe is now open on the corner. “We are trying to make something of it,” says Sylvia de Kreek (59) behind the bar. The Hide Away, which she runs together with her brother Rob, has been a Feyenoord café since 1984 and a household name in the city. Last year there was a fire at night; suspected supporters of a rival club less popular here pushed a firecracker bomb through the bus. Two suspects were arrested.

But the biggest concern, says Sylvia de Kreek, are the scooters racing around the corner at the cafe. Why can’t the municipality install a fence, she wonders, or arrange something else for safety? There are also children running across the square, after all.

Chairman Wilson listens kindly. He can imagine that she would want “a traffic calming measure.” The cafe already keeps an eye on things on the square, says De Kreek. A bit of social control. Yes, on busy football days there is sometimes nuisance from pub guests peeing against a wall. But that too must be easy to solve, with a mobile toilet.

Diagonally across the street is hairdresser Hak D’Barber (by appointment). Inside it is lively. Two men get their haircut, others walk in and out. “What is here in the square is going quite well,” says a hairdresser cheerfully. “You have to have a little respect for each other, that’s what it’s about.” During the earlier exploration of the square, a conversation arose for the case that quickly fanned out from life in IJsselmonde (“a nice place to grow up”) to the cynicism of geopolitics, Bush and the invasion of Iraq, sky-high petrol prices and Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Unyielding idealism can be found a little further on, next to the café. That’s where Isaak & de Schittering is located, a center against food waste with three locations in Rotterdam, where everyone can do their shopping at rock-bottom prices. Two boxes of tomatoes for 75 cents, a kilo of fries for 50 cents, ready meals 1 euro. The center, set up ten years ago by the spiritual medium Tresi Barros (Isaak is her ‘guide and master’), buys and receives residual supplies from growers and market gardeners, collects from supermarkets and receives donations from bakers. With purchases of more than 50 cents you get a loaf of bread for free. The last remnants “go to the horses.” Nothing is wasted.

debt counseling

In the afternoon, local residents and other customers come and go. They shuffle between the shelves in silence. “We have a lot of people in debt counseling,” says manager Anneke Kromsigt (63), a sprightly Rotterdam, “but everyone is welcome here”. People are in spiritual distress, she knows, but “you have to fill your belly first, otherwise you will get into a negative spiral”. The center wants to teach people to keep sharing and to be grateful despite everything. These are very difficult times, now with rising prices. “People are crying here,” says the older lady behind the cash register (cash only).

Sometimes a customer is also ‘disturbed’, says Kromsigt. Out of desperation or because he necessarily wants something for free or on the bill. She understands where it comes from, but “negativity is not accepted here.” Sometimes she would like to go to the Binnenhof. “I’ll talk them out of their seats.” In the case hangs a Prayer for Peace. On the window a police placard that promises 750 euros for firearms tips. They’re doing a great job here, says ward council president Wilson, once outside. And you won’t get a regular supermarket here anymore.

Still a new beauty salon. When Trudy Vissers (68) opens the door of the Aquarius salon, sandwiched between the hairdressers, a soothing aroma hits the visitors. Vissers has been there for twenty-five years and has seen the square deteriorate. Although it has been quiet lately, she says. Every now and then some cigarette butts in front of the door, you wipe them away. The business is still going well (by appointment). Yet Vissers, who likes to paint ‘intuitively’ in her spare time, has given up. She didn’t want to sign another five years. In the hallway of the salon is one of the paintings she is still looking for a place for, the subdued purple Rising Star.

Rumor has it: new flower boxes will be on the square

There is hope for another rising star. The case has been taken over by one of its specialists, who is not present today. When we call her, a young sun breaks through on the square. “I’m really looking forward to it,” says Eva Lexmond (24). Exciting, her own business, she has big plans. There will be a new name, Beautyflow, and a major renovation. She also wants to work with the other shops to make the square a bit more pleasant. She knows the people at the cafe. “When I walk to my car in the evening, I always wave. They are really very sweet.”

And the rumor goes: new flower boxes are coming. Provided that the shopkeepers maintain them themselves. Must be possible, says Sylvia from The Hide Away. “Everything that makes the square better helps.” As long as the flowers are not stolen from the boxes again. Chairman Wilson gets on his bike: “Something has to be done, but if the people here can get a little closer together, then I see a well-functioning Kreekplein in front of me.”

Optimism is never far away, in Rotterdam.