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The Antwerp South docks, once active harbour basins, now form an open space of 800 X 80m. Surrounded by monumental buildings and street lay-out, they testify of Antwerp's aspiration to international greatness as well as the personal investment of citizens, art museums and entrepreneurs to revive what had become an ailing and dilapidated neighbourhood.
Built in 1860 and filled up unceremoniously in 1969, this former hub of fish merchants, breweries and a thriving business community became a dump-yard for the disenfranchised as well as the location of the annual Sinksenfoor (Easter fair). See picture.
In 1993 the Antwerp City Council, unable to redevelop the area itself, decided to lure back inhabitants and private investors by promising to move the annual Sinksenfoor (Easter Fair) to another location. This decision was much overdue, as the fair has, over the years, grown into an open-air game- and festival park, with ever louder attractions, sanitation problems and friction between inhabitants and itinerant workers,
However, in 2007, City Council has not even begun to make good on its promises.
Therefore every year, for nearly 2 months, life and business grinds to a halt when the trucks and mobile homes start arriving. To inhabitants this is not the quaint little fair of days gone by. It means traffic congestion, human waste disposed off in the street, garbage piles, cleaning the remnants of food and booze from their doorstep, loss of much needed parking space and clients who stop coming for the duration of the fair. The fair itself is outdated and too expensive for the general public, which typically holds out for the “final day” reductions.