Cutting away the decay

“That horrible quay twists along the bosom of the city like an adder covered in duck weed. Mud and slippery slime, speckled with the blood stains of cast off bricks, stick to its belly. Her side is decayed, afflicted with wood rot and clad with a messy green bark.” That is how J. Van de Venne described Antwerp's port at the end of the nineteenth century.

The nineteenth-century port and its canals no longer could cope with the city's economic and industrial expansion. Steamers had to anchor on the river and transfer their cargo onto smaller boats that could sail to the quays. The time-consuming canals were inefficient for navigation as well as basically being unhygienic open sewers. The city's old core was considered a decaying place in the city. Prostitution was rife around Guldenberg and Riedijk. Well-known houses of ill repute with names like “Palais de Cristal” or “Madame Jamar with the Cave” fuelled people's imagination.

The Central Administration of Bridges and Roads came up with a radical solution which consisted of the re-alignment of the Scheldt quays (1877-1887). The gigantic iron pontoons and zinc caissons of the contractors Couvreux & Hersent travelled towards the old city centre from the south and north. Only Steen Castle survived this modernisation operation which would last ten years.
The re-alignment of the Scheldt quays at the end of the nineteenth century solved two problems simultaneously: the port was modernised and the decay was cut away.