Manhattan on the Meuse
holland america line,
hall to trybe-experiment.
In september 1988 the HAL-building,
the former headquarters of Holland
America Line in Rotterdam
was pictured in NRC-Handelsblad.
A bunch of young artists had
squatted the building
(in the Netherlands a legalizable action)
in order to create
accommodation for working & living.
Claudio & Eugene left De fabriek and joined
in with their studio-plans
and their concept about a foundation on cityrenewal.
The building was splitted up very fast.
The chambers for the board of direction became
luxury livings;
the office-units metamorphised in art studios.
There was a "cuisine
avec cantine" and the grand reception
was a good place to party and to exhibit.
An extra dimension to use the building was given by the memories,
traceable in huge safes,
cellars & strongrooms;
memories of them who had left Europe,
in crises before &
after
the big war, that had destroyed Rotterdam (1940-1945).
The area was priorated for urban renewal
and this building had an impact beyond
art-studios.
A workgroup to develop a plan based on
individual ambitions & capacities
went to work.
December 1988 "Grand Manhattan" was founded with board members:
Zoot,
Eugene, Claudio,
Broetske, Allard,
Marie,
José, Ralph & Ben.
Spijker
& Vester were also part of the HAL-collective.
Jan was moved into the workgroup by
Eugene, Claudio & Zoot to
study the possibilities of saving the building as:
"an
accommodation for artistic projects & experiments for
support & consolidation of
an interactive relation between
arts, urban renewal and environmental living &
working,
auditing on a universal cultural approach of renewing Rotterdam
and a realisation
concept within the opportunities of the HAL-collective".
March, 24th, the plans were accepted: "The Hal-project".
The owner of the
building wasn't touched.
He continued his legal way. On the 31 of March 1989 the judge
spoke:
"urgent necessity for accommodation"
wasn't demonstrable. So were the other rights to squat:
"dilapidation of the area by the community" or
"the abuse of the right to use the building by the owner".
So the HAL-collective had to leave the building "one of those brighty days".
The
days after the foundation was set "stand-by", Zoot left for Amsterdam. Others
followed.
The HAL-collective anarchised and became a melting pot of Rotterdam initiatives by
squatting.
In september 1988 the HAL-building became the cradle of House in Holland.
Nowadays it's called Hotel New York,
a good place to retreat to when you're tired of
Rotterdam's Flexcool Citylife.
Those days Claudio & Eugene squatted (legalized)
a unit in Porcellis
Street.
How to continue Manhattan?
In 1992, Foundation Inner Road was
already started, Zoot asked
Claudio, Eugene & Jan
to take over the responsibilities concerning
Foundation Grand Manhattan.
Inner Road, specificaly working on innovative initiatives in the direction of
wellbeing &
policy, had not yet integrated "accommodation & environment" as such.
The opportunity to include these items again created the possibility
to evoluate the
gaingate-principle to a keystone for social cohesive living & working:
the trybe.
nowadays
the hal-building is a fameus hotel-restaurant:
http://www.hotelnewyork.nl/
part of
the city renewal project
"kop van zuid"