The old studio of RTL Boulevard on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam is still empty. The children of Peter R. de Vries have taken a look. “It’s just such a loaded place.”
Yesterday it was a year ago that Peter R. de Vries was shot after a broadcast of RTL Boulevard. The program decided a few days later to leave the studio on Leidseplein. The Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema had urged a move years earlier, because she said the location was too difficult to secure.
Loaded place
The floor on Leidseplein is still empty. Yesterday RTL Boulevard showed how the children of Peter, Kelly and Royce, took a look. “It looks much bigger this way,” Kelly said.
Royce: “Yeah, huh? It’s very empty like that. It’s just such a loaded place too.”
Kelly staring out the window: “Weird that it’s so empty in here and it just goes on like nothing happened here.”
Symbol
Royce: “If you know why this is empty and the threat that was on the program after the attack, then I think it is an ultimate symbol of what happened.”
Kelly: “At the same time, we are also in a place where our father was always very happy. He liked going to work and having fun with his colleagues. I also feel that this is a special place for that reason.”
Royce: “I also notice in myself: I have been to Leidseplein once before since the attack and then I still feel in my stomach that I am in the vicinity of Lange Leidsedwarsstraat.”
Border
Kelly thinks it’s a strange place. “For me, this studio is almost the limit. You look out and you see the positive: the beautiful side of Leidseplein, the buzz, and then the back, that’s where he left to a really nasty, horrible place.”
“To me it almost feels like a dividing line between beautiful and sad.”
Fragment
The excerpt from RTL Boulevard:
Tweet
A tweet from Rob Goossens: