We Used to Shop Together

When walking on the narrow sidewalks of the Morsweg today, you will encounter a mishmash of buildings in a street full of cars and bikes. Old shop windows have turned into living rooms, but still serve as a reminder of a time when the Morsweg was not only an infrastructural vein, but also a place for neighborhood residents to meet.

There is a big contrast between the local shops from back then and the supermarket nowadays. The latter may be more practical, but the local shops brought so much more to the neighborhood besides their wares. As we have seen, local shops were not just shops. They were places of socialization for the community. Both on the way to the shops as well as within the shops, neighbors would meet and share their stories with each other. Local shops were the perfect place to catch up on the latest gossip, and shop owners would often join in too!

Shop owners played an active role as nodes in the social networks in the neighborhood. People would come to them with problems, but also for an extra cup of sugar after closing time. If a shop owner hadn’t heard from someone for a long time, it was not uncommon for them to drop by that person to check up on them. Shop owners had a big network of close neighborly contact.

Young residents nowadays are often surprised when they hear that this street used to accommodate over 30 shops. One resident remarks: “Back then we had shops for the local social traffic, now we have WhatsApp groups.” But is that really the same? Lia sold her shop in 2000 and has moved out of the neighborhood since then. Still, she misses the good old days: “If I had to return someday, I would definitely not be sad.”