“..not necessarily better, just different”

The Wolmarans is not the street it used to be. What started as a street of workers’ houses for the Nieuwenhuizen factory where large families and bitter poverty were the standard, transformed into a working-class district where people lived together as one big family - squabbles included.

Nowadays, it’s a street where people live more isolated from each other - which is the price they pay for increased freedom and independence. But the hospitality of the inhabitants never faded away. When we come by to take a picture from the neighbors house, they warmly let us in and immediately offer coffee.

As Ton leans in the doorway, looking out on the street, he manages to beautifully summarize all these developments in a single sentence: “Back in the day, life in the Wolmarans was not necessarily better, just different”.