Pietermaai 2

Den Dam

From the former office of the newspaper Vigilante in Pietermaai, various little alleys run eastwards from the Waaigat, laid out in such a way that they almost always end with a view of the sea. This is part of the cityscape. Via these alleys one could walk to the coast, and boys swam from there along the Pen all the way to Marie Pompoen.

The Waaigat had an arm that was called "'t klein watertje" (the little water). It was filled in around 1827. Another name for the location was also the "Damplein" or "den Dam", after a former dam that held back the water of the Waaigat here.

When the siren howled during the Second World War, everyone ran — although it always turned out to be a false alarm — to the Damplein, where air-raid shelters and food depots had been built. Air-raid shelters had also been built on the Julianaplein.

The Damplein was later a social meeting place with a bandstand and a playground for the youth of Pietermaai, and there were parties and even circus performances. The neighbourhood therefore protested loudly against the government's plans to build the Cultural Centre and the Public reading room and library here. They came anyway, united in one building, and the Damplein was renamed the Johan van Walbeeckplein.

The building stands in the middle of the square and has been a protected monument since 1999 because of its architectural Art Deco style. The design is by Kees Bakker, then an architect employed by Public Works. Bakker was inspired in 1943 by the somewhat triangular shape of the square; the archaeological and anthropological foundation NAAM is now housed there. The building is now owned by the Algemeen Pensioenfonds Curaçao.

Filling in the Waaigat

Santa Anna was for more than a century the only church in the city for the more than 3,000 Catholics who lived mainly in Pietermaai and Scharloo. Believers would have had to walk 4 hours around the Schottegat or else pay a ferry for the crossing in the harbour, which is why people never went to church. A church on the Punda side was therefore urgent. And so in May 1860 bishop J.F.A. Kistemaker submitted a request to be allowed to receive the government land south-east of the Waaigat — the present Julianaplein — for the construction of a church on the Punda side. The Protestant administration, which obstructed the Catholics wherever possible, only after 8 months designated the easternmost part of the Waaigat as a building site: not the present Julianaplein, but the shallow end of the Waaigat, which was then a stinking swamp where neighbourhood residents dumped excrement. The large pool of 6,700 square metres first had to be filled in, and with it the money for the construction literally fell in the water.

Only 16 years after the permit was granted, namely on 22 November 1876, was the first stone laid for the foundation of the church of Pietermaai. On Sundays believers, even from Santa Rosa, accompanied by kachu i heru (drum and iron — traditional percussion), carried in sand and stones for the construction of the church.

Emergency chapel

Pietermaai still fell under the care of the Santa Anna in Otrobanda and bore the construction costs of 80,000 guilders for the church, those of the rectory and the schools in Pietermaai.

Earlier a cemetery had been laid out on Seru di Pietermaai — near Chèr Asil — so that believers could nevertheless be given a Christian burial. This cemetery was consecrated on 20 April 1882 under the name Our Lady of the Rosary.

As for education, the sisters came by ferry from Otrobanda and walked from there to the little school, which at first stood in the Wittesteeg and on Sundays turned into a little church. At number 5 in that street lived a woman who gave catechism lessons, for which reason the Wittesteeg was also called Hantji di Katisashi. The Ansinghstraat too was formerly called Hanchi di Misa, because it was the road that led to the Misa di Pietermaai.

In 1863, after the filling in, a new school, located in an alley to the Waaigat, was taken into use: the Sint Jozefschool. In that same year the rectory was also completed, and between the Sint Jozefschool and the rectory an emergency chapel arose, formed by the side walls of both buildings. The upper floor of the school was the men's gallery and the choir's station, and to go to communion one had to go down the stairs, cross the street, and come back again.

Cathedral

The construction of the church was also delayed by the delivery of stones for the building. These were first delivered by ferry, but because of the filling in, a large part now had to be transported over (reclaimed) land. The supplier refused to do that, construction work was suspended, and the result was a legal case that again took two years. Only on 20 April 1882 was the church completed under the direction of pastor Frie of Santa Rosa. He is also responsible for the new, very spacious rectory next to the church, which has meanwhile been raised to cathedral: the Katedral Reina di Santisimo Rosario (Cathedral of the Queen of the Holy Rosary) at Julianaplein 5 became in 1958 the seat of the bishop of Willemstad. Since 1997 it has been on UNESCO's World Heritage list as part of our historic city.

Holy bath

Striking in the cathedral is the Rosary statue, consisting of mother Mary with the child Jesus, whose special clothing is changed on special occasions. Also striking are the stained-glass windows behind the altar, which were made in the Netherlands and depict the 12 apostles. Further, at the back of the church, high behind the organ, stained glass can also be seen with an image of the Rosary.

The organ is the oldest on Curaçao and consists of 1,300 pipes, the shortest of which is 2.54 cm and the longest almost 6 m. The organ still dates from the 19th century but — adapted with, among other things, an electric turbine — is still in use. On special occasions one of the few specialist organists on Curaçao is called upon to play it.

Furthermore, there is no longer any holy water at the entrance in the cathedral: the winged residents had made a habit of using the bowl as their bath…

't Klooster

A stone's throw from the cathedral, between the Julianaplein and the Waaigat, stands the former St Albertus College House, the dwelling house of the Brothers from Tilburg who taught, among other things, at the nearby Sint Albertus College. After the departure of the brothers the house became Boekhandel Sint Augustinus (bookshop). Partly thanks to documentation material provided by the brothers, the property has now been restored as the city hotel 't Klooster (The Cloister). All income from the hotel goes back into restoration and maintenance of the property, which stands on reclaimed land: after digging 60 centimetres there is already salt water. The building, by now more than 90 years old, has been officially declared a monument. Striking is the hotel's Grand Café, which is the former chapel, with authentic stained-glass windows still in place.

Pietermaai District

During the hurricane of 23 September 1877, 30 houses on Pietermaai Smal were completely swept away by the high waves. Others were badly damaged and later demolished, so that few houses from the 18th and 19th centuries still stand here. In the second district of Pietermaai only 3 houses were hit.

Years later the trek of the well-to-do to the outlying districts began. Their empty villas in Pietermaai were used as brothels for the benefit of sailors arriving in Punda. The ghetto look of Pietermaai was completed in the second half of the 20th century by a flourishing drug trade.

Whereas at the end of the 17th century it was still enslaved people who walked in long lines from the harbour over the Steenen Pad to the slave camps Zuurzak and Groot St Joris, in the twentieth century it was drug addicts who defined the street scene in Pietermaai.

Until at the beginning of the 21st century a few entrepreneurs dared to restore some old town houses, which have meanwhile become monuments. This for the benefit of Dutch interns, the only ones who then dared to live here. The ghetto then underwent a metamorphosis, slowly emerged as a trendy district and came to life again under the old name Pietermaai District, with numerous boutique hotels, apartments, suites, restaurants, bars, family and student housing and two "beaches".

A development that spread to Nieuw Nederland, given the number of restaurants at the start of the Penstraat and the interest of project developers in the area along the coast in the neighbourhood.