Goodbye old building

In 1976 the paper I work for, Haarlems Dagblad left its residence in city center to move to a new building in the industrial outskirts of Haarlem, the Waarderpolder. The inner city had become too crowdy to be the home of a modern newspaper.

I first set foot there on March 1st 1990 – as an intern for three months. I studied journalism back than, in Utrecht. Since that day the Waarderpolder became an almost too familiar place for me.
In the years that followed I kept writing for the paper on a freelance basis. Until our relationship faded. But not for long.
Somewhere in the Spring of 1996 we met again. That is: I found myself upstairs at club Paradiso in Amsterdam together with J.O. We were waiting for a showcase of Maria McKee to begin and talked a little. J.O., then head of HD’s art department, asked me why he never saw me in the Waarderpolder anymore. There were no real good reasons, I guess. And I was flattered when he asked me to step by somewhere the following week to see if we could work together.
So I did. In that same year I moved to an appartment only 6 minutes from the HD-office - by bike that is. Four years later I got my recent appartment, whitch is even closer by.
March 1998 - eight years after my first day as an intern I signed my contract for a steady post. For the next seven and a half years I worked as a pop- and rock journalist, seeing a lot of concerts, interviewing some of the finest artists. Until things changed and my work would never be what it was ever again.
That was some 17 months ago. I changed jobs. Since September 2005 I am HD’s city hall reporter, a position I still enjoy every day.

The Waarderpolder is no longer, though. After the last merger there weren’t too many people working in the Haarlem office anymore. The building got too big for those of us left behind. In November we moved back to city center. We have an office now right next to Haarlem’s main railway station. It is a great place to work. And it feels good that the paper is back in town.
Today I went to see the old building one more time. It has been sold and the new owner is tearing it down.
Looking at the rubble I realized that, although I had some great years here, I have never really grown attached to the building itself. It’s strange to see it shattered, but that is all.