That’s What You Call Shopping!

Fifty years ago, the Morsweg was a vibrant shopping area. On this street alone there were thirteen shops, and in the entire Transvaal neighborhood there were over thirty, which is six times as many as today!

Grocery shopping back then was different compared to what we are used to now. Every type of product had its own store. There was a green grocer for fruits and vegetables, a milkman for dairy, a butcher for meat, a grocery store for miscellaneous products, and a pharmacy for health supplies. Doing a week’s worth of groceries was less usual than it is nowadays. Getting everything that was necessary usually required multiple trips. Fortunately, people did not have to walk far in the Transvaal neighborhood with so many shops so close to each other!

You won’t see many shops walking through the Morsweg now. Why have all these shops disappeared? They were certainly popular among the residents. Everyone had their regular stores. Still, there is no longer a grocery store or a pharmacy in the Transvaal neighborhood. From the ‘80s onwards, the shops started disappearing and in the year 2000, the majority had been turned into homes.

Lia Kerkvliet was born and raised on Morsweg 7, where her father worked as a milkman from 1936 onwards. Around 1967, Lia and her husband took over the business. She tells us about the atmosphere between the (many) shop owners:

“Of course you had your green grocer, another grocery store, and another, and… yes, three more. In such a small neighborhood. There were a lot.” Didn’t they interfere with each other? “Of course there was competition,” she recounts, “but this was normal. Healthy competition, with no hard feelings.” There were patterns in people’s shopping behavior as well: people knew who was Catholic and who was Protestant, and this influenced where people did their shopping. But other things mattered as well: “The fishmonger, Mr. Plezier, rooted for Feyenoord, and Theo, my husband, rooted for Ajax. So yeah, we wouldn’t go there.”

She reflects on the downfall of the shops: “In the year 2000, we decided to stop with the business.” The disappearance of shops really became visible from 1995 and 1996 onwards. “Other shops, the bakery, the green grocer, had quit before. Yes, actually, they were all gone already. We were one of the last ones to close down. And this was in part because of the supermarkets. At some point, you can’t compete with them anymore.”

From the 1980s new competitors stormed onto the market: big supermarket chains. Previously there had been healthy competition between the smaller shops, but now they had to face the big supermarkets, competitors against whom they did not stand a chance. In the Transvaal neighborhood, the local shops suffered a double blow: the rise of supermarkets coincided with the departure of many residents to the new neighborhood De Stevenshof. Many buildings on and around the Morsweg were bought by slumlords, and rented out to temporary tenants, who did not necessarily feel a strong connection with the local shops.

Not many shops lasted after this. Some of them, like milkman Kerkvliet, changed their shops to look more and more like small supermarkets. But to no avail. Nowadays, the supermarket is the main shopping location for local residents to get their daily groceries. Looking back, Lia remarks: “It is definitely more efficient, but the local shops were better for building social contacts.”

If you want to read more about the social function of local shops, then click on the longread below.

Still, life has not fully disappeared from the Morsweg. A few shops are still in business. Let’s take a look at some of the surviving shops on the Morsweg. Let’s turn around to find our first stop at Morsweg 40, where we find snack bar De Smulshop.