4. "The demolition of the ruins is not related to the Aalmarkt project."

ANSWER: The projects are separately administered parts of a large overall plan and they are next to each other. Another part of the same total approach resulted in the destruction of Pilgrim William Bradford's house in 1985.

The destructive renovation of the Vrouwekerk Square is part of a total policy of modernizing the medieval and 17th-century parts of Leiden, which has been going on for thirty years. This grand plan has been split into numerous smaller projects for financial management reasons. It is only in terms of convenience of administration that they are not related to each other. The Vrouwekerk demolition area is only half a block from the beginning of the Aalmarkt Project, which is in the Haarlemmerstraat, where a new street is to be created by tearing down one 16th century house and two 17th-century houses. The new street would lead to a new bridge across to the actual Aalmarkt (street) itself.

Since the early 1970's large areas of the historic center of Leiden that could have been preserved and restored have been bulldozed and replaced by modern buildings with no architectural continuity with their surroundings. Ca. 1972-1975, the area of the Oranjegracht and Waardgracht with surrounding streets, forming a large neighborhood on the eastern side of the old city, was totally flattened and replaced by a housing project which thirty years later is reported in the Leiden newspaper to be so decrepit that it must be torn down and replaced. This neighborhood had until the 1970's been the country's largest area of 17th-century middle-class houses. It was suggested by concerned Leiden citizens that one of the typical weavers' houses could be moved near the Leiden Archives to serve as a Pilgrim museum, but the town government refused; and almost all the old houses were simply destroyed. The reason given for the wholesale demolition was that the architect refused to incorporate the existing monuments in his new plan for a complete new neighborhood. In the later 1970's similar destructive replacement occurred in the streets closer in to the mid-point of the town, in the Uiterstegracht and Middelstegracht, particularly along the Ir. Driessenstraat. This altered beyond recognition the area where Pilgrim Richard Masterson's house had been (itself destroyed earlier). The urban renewal just described represents an alteration of the ancient character of the eastern part of the old town, north of the Nieuwe Rijn River. At about the same time and into the early 1980's, most of the remaining 17th-century houses along the Lange Gracht, a major street that goes all across the north side of the city, were torn down. The (east-west) Lange Gracht connects with the Hooigracht (north-south) to form part of the City Ring. The place where these major thoroughfares connect forms a large area where the old buildings were torn out. Part of that resulted in the construction of a large university dormitory, the Pelikaanhof, and behind that, along the Van der Werfstraat, new housing was built for non-students, as part of the same construction campaign. This group of buildings resulted in the demolition of William Bradford's house in 1985. At that time I was a city employee at the Leiden Municipal Archives. The archivist, Mr. Theo Schelhaas, ordered me not to protest or contact anyone about the demolition of Bradford's house. As a city employee I was told that I was required to go along with decisions taken by the city government. I had offered to organize efforts to save Bradford's house and had suggested that it could be used as an annex to the Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center, of which I was the curator, open one or two days a week. My suggestion was ridiculed.

Moving inwards to the middle of town, from the Lange Gracht and from the northeast corner of the City Ring, large areas in blocks that are more or less surrounded by main streets were demolished and replaced by housing projects. Although some quite successfully employ materials and designs that are consistent with the older houses that remain along the main streets that surround them, there are several blocks of new buildings that clash incredibly with the character of the supposedly protected, monumental cityscape. A couple of these are west and north of the Vrouwekerk Square, about half a block away in each direction. Instead of using traditional bricks, for example, a light grey cement brick is employed, set off by steel, and typically with flat roofs. Such buildings are set down next to and across the street from ancient convents, hospitals, and almshouses, harshly destroying the visual context of the remaining monuments. When the long-range planning was being announced ca. 1980, it was claimed that the areas to be destroyed had deteriorated beyond repair (which in some but not all cases was true, and partly to be blamed on the owner's failure to repair the buildings, - the owner in many cases being the city). The historic character of the inner city would be preserved, it was said, by the fact that the main streets would not be attacked in this way, and that the areas to be thus renewed were selected and would not go beyond the Haarlemmerstraat. The area south of the Stille Rijn river would not be part of this.

At the same time as the conception and presentation of this demolition and reconstruction plan (distributed over several individual projects), the Vrouwekerk ruin was being freed of later construction that had hidden much from view, it was excavated, and it was restored. This activity was sponsored by people in the city government (who have since been replaced) who carried it out with national subsidy, despite its location in an area that other people wanted to clear for modern construction. It is this conflict of politically and economically motivated planning ideas that is now still going on. After the preservationists retired from the scene, the town allowed a clothing shop to expand with an exceptionally ugly brick, glass, and steel building that sits on the nave area of the church and hides the nave wall from view. Although permission was granted on condition that the nave wall be visible within the new building, the operators of the store boxed in whatever may really remain of the church (large parts were in fact destroyed during construction).

The idea of demolishing the rest of the Vrouwekerk is presented as a plan in itself. But it is not isolated from the next intended step, which is to demolish six medieval houses that still stand across the street from the Vrouwekerk, where the city intends to put shops, a hotel, or apartment buildings. The plans for this, commissioned by the city, have been published, but the city has not yet made a public announcement of it, as far as I know. Because no official announcement of that aspect of the planning has been made, the reaction period has not officially started and those construction plans could not be discussed in court as an aspect of the objections to the demolition of the Vrouwekerk. No one would claim that the city officials have not been clever in splitting up the destruction into supposedly separate projects.

Following the demolition of the Vrouwekerk and the houses across the street from it, the next major project is the Aalmarkt Project, which is geographically contiguous with it. This plan brings the destructive renovation territory across the Rijn River (conveniently forgetting that approval for the overal plan 25 years ago was obtained partly because of the promise that the historic areas south of the river would be unaffected). The Vrouwekerksteeg (which runs from the churchyard to a bridge to the Aalmarkt and beyond) is one of the streets that would be incorporated in the project and widened along parts of it by demolishing medieval houses. Half a block away from the Vrouwekerk, in the Haarlemmerstraat, a new street would be created, as mentioned above. The Aalmarkt Project puts about twenty medieval and 17th-century houses at risk, but the town's spokesmen like to hide behind the fact that no choice of plans has yet been made, so they can say that it is too early to claim that any particular destruction is intended. All the variants they have published for discussion include demolition of numerous monuments, and all include the demolition of the 1571 wing of the St. Catharine's Hospital.

The ongoing destruction of the historic city center is seen also in another "unrelated" project, which is the complete replacement of Leiden's medieval and 17th-century street and sidewalk pavement with uniform modern brick. Leiden is the only major city in Holland where much of the original paving is intact. Only protests by concerned citizens have resulted in a temporary halt to this destruction, by which about a third of the paving was torn out within the last four years. The plans have not been rescinded, however, merely put on hold. In the meantime, the town refuses to fix the ancient streets, so that they can collect complaints to use to justify total replacement with modern brick. The paving replacement is described as a red carpet that would invite people to go from one shop to the next, visually encouraging people to leave the main streets and enter the smaller streets and alleys where small shops can be found. The only demonstrable advantage, however, is the gain to be made by the contractors who replace the paving. The bright and inviting red bricks turn dingy within six months, incidentally, and they lack the visual variety of the colors in the original bricks and paving stones.