Nostalgia for Urban Vices: Cultural Reminiscences of a Demolished Port City Pleasure Neighborhood

Abstract

Contradictions and conflicts lie at the heart of port cities, with contemporary waterfront redevelopments offering the latest controversial associations to traditional maritime history. Tracing back classic urban renewal and modernization processes in maritime areas, this article develops a case study on a notorious pleasure neighborhood (the Zandstraatbuurt) in Rotterdam, eradicated when the Dutch port city entered a new stage of urban and industrial development in the decades around 1900. The case study is embedded within a conceptual framework on nostalgia and its connections to bygone sailor culture. Significant cultural imaginations of the historical pleasure district are discussed, and notable journalistic accounts help to assess how nostalgic sentiments attempted to shape the legacy of the neighborhood around the time of its dissolution. Finally, general newspaper coverage of the district after its turn-of-the-century life span is analyzed, thereby demonstrating the potential for further research on urban nostalgia in historical contexts.