Pietermaai

In the Jewish synagogue in Willemstad stands a fine example of joinery art from 1700. It is the ark, a large cabinet in which the Torah scrolls are kept. These are parchment scrolls with Hebrew Bible texts, the 5 books of Moses. They were written by hand centuries ago according to special rules and play a prominent role during synagogue services.

The Torah cabinet was made by the captain's son Pieter de Mey (1651–1713), namesake of the first suburb of Punda.

Pieter's father fetched sugar from Brazil for the West India Company. There he also met his wife, and when the Netherlands lost its Brazilian colony, the family moved to Curaçao. It is 1654 and Pieter is then three years old. He later becomes a joiner, marries Ana van Ruyven, and they live together with their 10 children in "the little garden Zeelucht" east of the city wall, between the sea, the Waaigat and the neighbourhood Altena. The neighbourhood is soon called Pieter de Mey, which then corrupts to Pietermaai.

Walled city

The origin of the neighbourhood Pietermaai was a direct consequence of overpopulation in Punda. Around the 18th century the walled city was built full, stuffy, cramped and unhygienic, and cholera moreover broke out. Some of the richest residents, Dutch and Jewish merchants, chose to go and live outside the city gate — Fo'i Porta.

At the city gate, called the Stenenpadpoort (Stone Path Gate), you left the city and the kunuku began (the present Alameda). From here to the Theaterstraat a bare plain remained until the middle of the 19th century on which building was not allowed. It was kept free as a field of fire for the cannons on the fort and on the city walls, and was also used for parades and as a military training ground. At the end of this plain, further along on the sea side, stood a battery where, at the beginning of the 19th century, during English rule, a meat and fish market was set up. Only from here were the first dwellings outside Fo'i Porta allowed to be built.

Fo'i Porta

That happened on a narrow coastal strip, over which the Steene(n) Pad, the later Pietermaaiweg and now Kaya Wilson "Papa" Godett, was laid. The Steene(n) Pad was also called Patrouilje-pad (Patrol path), because it was the shortest route for the military to outposts such as Fort Beekenburg.

It was regularly flooded during storms and hurricanes such as in 1681, 1760, 1807 and in 1877 during the orkan grandi, the fiercest ever to hit our islands. This narrow strip — Pietermaai Smal — formed the start of the neighbourhood. Here houses were built on both sides for the first time in 1750.

Although this year is given as the origin of Pietermaai, houses already stood before that in the area that was then still called Altena.

A century later, in 1858, building began on the former field of fire outside the city gate — the present Alameda — of various buildings, such as the government building or Raadhuis, which was carried out in 1858–1861, the Masonic lodge de Vergenoeging, and the temple Emanuel of the Dutch Reformed Israelite congregation. Next to the Temple, on the site of the meat market and the abattoir that were destroyed by the hurricane of 1877, the public MULO arose in 1884: the old Hendrikschool, designed by one of the first local architects: Antoin Martis.

Cemetery

From 1821 one had to pay six stuivers in the evening between 9 and 12, and after 12 o'clock until the gate opened 12 stuivers, for the benefit of the guards and the porter.

Fo'i Porta was an address designation for residents outside the city gate, but it was also the name of the burial ground that lay just outside the gate. First wealthy citizens were buried here, and later also poor souls.

The cemetery was often the subject of social discussion in connection with desecration of graves and corpses that were secretly thrown over the city wall onto the cemetery. When, as a result of the orkan grandi of 1877, corpses floated about everywhere, the cemetery was definitively demolished.

The Waaigat

Years later part of the remaining mondi was cut down, under the leadership of governor de Rouville, for the construction of the present Julianaplein. The original narrow coastal strip was enlarged over the years by filling in the Waaigat. This eastern arm of the Sint Annabaai was originally 7 times larger, and as the Waaigat became smaller, Pietermaai kept growing further.

After the city walls were demolished in 1861, houses were also built between Punda and Pietermaai, and the neighbourhood grew into the first important suburb of Punda.

Be'i Palu

The houses east of the former sand plain outside the city gate form the third district of Pietermaai. The present Julianaplein also belonged to this third district and also lay at the end of the Waaigat. It was then called Pietermaaiplein, later Concordiaplein and finally Julianaplein.

In the 19th century the Concordiaplein was still the training ground of the militia, which at first consisted only of white people. Its task was to protect the island and maintain order, such as during the revolt of enslaved people in 1750 and 1795. Around the turn of the century the militia had only a ceremonial function.

The north-eastern part of the Julianaplein was formerly called Be'i palu (under the tree) because people waited here under the big Indju tree for the tram, which was pulled by mules and horses. From 1884 the tram ran from the Breedestraat in Punda, over Pietermaai to the Concordiaplein (Julianaplein) and on to Scharloo. In 1911 the tram runs on gasoline and is enormously popular until it was abolished in 1920 when the first bicycles appeared on Curaçao.

At the Julianaplein, in the building of Botica Juliana, stood since 1884 the Panaderia El Gallo Cojo (The Lame Rooster bakery) and the Gran Agencia Funeraria of J.R. Welhous, a striking combination, as can still be seen in the façade of the building. But according to Brenneker it happened more often that large bakeries at least also rented out a hearse or even ran a funeral business.

District Pietermaaij

The Julianaplein — from the beginning of the Penstraat at Botica Juliana to roughly the Avila Beach Hotel — was, according to a map by Gerard Verhulst van Keulen from 1836, still known as the third district of Pietermaaij. To the fourth and last district of Pietermaai belonged the houses north of the present Oranjestraat. But on assessment lists for the land tax of Pietermaai in 1906, Goede Hoop and Vianen, country houses almost at the end of the Penstraat, also still appear. That means that the whole area between Alameda and Steenrijk, including the present Nieuw Nederland, still belonged to Pietermaai at the beginning of the twentieth century. After the hurricane of 1877 many ruins remained standing in Pietermaai for years, but at the end of the 19th century town houses were built there again. The empty spots between the buildings still recall the stately houses that were swept away during the hurricane.

Residents

In 1818 Pietermaai had 2,334 inhabitants, and the neighbourhood was strikingly mixed in terms of residents, most of whom were born on Curaçao. At first there were many white Protestants and Jews such as rich merchants and ship owners and captains and owners of plantations of the East division, but also many people of colour and formerly enslaved people.

Thus the free mulatta Cathalina Roenoe owned around 1800 a spacious yard here where since 1884 the Panaderia El Gallo Cojo and the Gran Agencia Funeraria of J.R. Wellhous stand.

Years later an adjoining part of the terrain, where Botica Juliana now stands, was in the hands of the formerly enslaved Simon Martis Jacobus Trouwloon, who was a shoemaker by trade. Other tradesmen in Pietermaai were a baker, tailor, joiner, a lawyer and interpreter/translator, shopkeepers and administrators and civil servants.

District division

Pietermaai thus began at Punda and covered roughly the whole area to the present Marie Pompoen and Steenrijk. It was bounded in the north by the Waaigat, Scharloo and Berg Altena (alias Seru di Pietermaai) and on the south side by the sea. In 1817 it was divided, according to the new district division, into 4 districts, each with its own district master. There were no street names; houses were numbered consecutively from one district to the next.

Teatro Naar

In the 18th and 19th centuries Fo'i Porta was known as a popular entertainment area with small factories, little shops, bars, social clubs, restaurants and various theatres.

The best-known theatre was that of Jacob Josuah Naar, a theatre lover who founded an amateur company and gave performances of French- and Spanish-language plays in the yards of private individuals. These performances also took place in the hall of his own house in Pietermaai until in 1871 he opened the first stone theatre building on Curaçao. Theater Naar became the theatre of Curaçao where foreign artists performed and concerts were held. The first theatre was destroyed by the orkan grandi but rebuilt. Years later the more modern Roxy Theater appeared, and the curtain finally fell on Teatro Naar.

Kurá di Sneif

Another well-known member of the family is Jacobus Naar, founder of a snuff (tobacco) factory in 1812. And this because of his Shon Cobus snuff, which proved to be of very high quality. Naar was owner of one of the eight snuff factories that appeared outside the city gate from 1783. At the former Roxy lay the "Kurá di sneif" (snuff yard), where snuff was made from burnt Palu di Kaoba mixed with a powder. Snuffing finely ground, irritating tobacco was trendy in those days and was offered to one another by rich residents from beautiful silver, gold or pearl-decorated snuffboxes. The snuff industry was lucrative; snuff was also exported, and factories passed from father to son for generations. But at the beginning of the 20th century snuffing went out of fashion and the factories closed their doors.

The hat-plaiting industry

Another economic activity that also originated in Pietermaai is the straw-hat-plaiting enterprise Arbeid Adelt (Labour Ennobles). The driving force was H. J. Cohen Henriquez, member of the Chamber of Commerce and postmaster. Assisted by his closest collaborator Isabel Crefte, he personally led various courses and gave lectures outside the city and on Aruba and Bonaire. He travelled abroad in search of higher-quality raw materials, supplied these to course participants at low prices, arranged for sales abroad and experimented with new techniques.

From his house at the former Pietermaaiweg 8 the hat plaiting was intensively promoted for 35 years, and Curaçao enjoyed international fame in this field. In 1904, for example, 560,000 hats were exported, accounting for 40% of total local exports. In 1943 the plaiting enterprise at Pietermaai was closed and moved to Santa Rosa, but through changes in fashion, diminishing interest among course participants and better-paid jobs on Curaçao, the industry died a slow death. The house Pietermaaiweg 8 still stands, directly opposite the Tourist Office. On the façade a commemorative plaque of the hat-plaiting school can still be seen.

De Curaçaosche Courant

Pietermaai was also the cradle of the very first and only newspaper on the island. William Lee (1786–1823) fled during the war of independence in Venezuela to Curaçao with, reportedly, "his printing press under his arm". He settled in the Theaterstraat as the first Curaçao journalist, editor, designer and printer, and from his hand appeared on 11 December 1812 the first newspaper on the island: The Curaçao Gazette and Commercial Advertiser, forerunner of the Curaçaosche Courant. When Lee was appointed official printer of the government in 1816, the weekly paper changed into De Curaçaosche Courant. Until the end of the nineties of the previous century, official announcements were still published in this paper. The printing house moved in 2005 from the Theaterstraat to Saliña.

Also read Pietermaai 2.