This place was home to the Great Hospital, better known as the Coolsingel Hospital. City architect Willem Nicolaas Rose designed and built it. The first pile was driven in 1839. Almost 10 years later, in 1848, the hospital opened, which at that time was the largest in the city. The first director of the hospital was Dr. Jan Bastiaan Molewater.
Curing Costs Money
A welfare state as we know it today did not yet exist. Until 1853, the hospital only accepted paying patients. Moreover, in the beginning, there were different classes of nursing. The more you paid, the better the care.
Fortunately, later on, poor people were also admitted, and after several expansions, it became one of the largest and most modern hospitals in Europe. It had to keep up with the times, as the population of Rotterdam had grown enormously in just 20 years. This growth was primarily due to the port. And all those dockworkers who did heavy and dangerous work often needed a hospital visit.
Bombing of Rotterdam
At the beginning of World War II, a large red cross was painted on the roof of the Coolsingel Hospital. This did not help on May 14, 1940, when the city was hit by German bombs. The hospital was severely damaged. Patients and staff could barely be evacuated. After the devastating fire that plagued the city for days, only the outer walls of the hospital remained standing. And one of the access gates at the back.
Most buildings designed by city architect Rose did not survive the war. Only the network of Rotterdams canals that he designed can still be seen today. His name lives on in Rosestraat and 2nd Rosestraat in the South.
Dijkzigt
On the site where the Coolsingel Hospital stood, construction of the Rotterdamsche bank, later ABN Amro, began in 1941 in the spirit of reconstruction. Behind it, parallel to the Coolsingel, the Lijnbaan was built from 1949. The back gate of the old hospital has remained here, as the only tangible memory of the Coolsingel Hospital – along with a large plane tree that has been here since 1851.
After a long period of temporary accommodations, the new Dijkzigt Hospital opened in 1961 as a replacement for the Coolsingel Hospital. It was built on a polder of the well-known Rotterdam family Hoboken. On this piece of land stood villa Dijkzigt, after which the hospital was named. This villa now houses the Natural History Museum.
Erasmus MC
Where the Coolsingel Hospital is the predecessor of the Dijkzigt Hospital, Dijkzigt in turn is the predecessor of the Erasmus Medical Center. In 2002, the hospital received this new name when Dijkzigt, the Sophia Childrens Hospital, and the Daniel den Hoed Clinic merged.
On the site of the old Dijkzigt now stands one of the largest and most modern hospitals in Europe – and the largest university medical center in the Netherlands. The entrance to the hospital is located at Dr. Molewaterplein. Thus, the name commemorates the first director of the Coolsingel Hospital, and the circle is complete.
Relocation?
At the beginning of the 21st century, there was briefly talk that the old access gate would be relocated to new construction of the Erasmus MC. In 2006, the municipal council decided that it would remain on the Lijnbaan as a reminder of our history. And the centuries-old plane tree? It is now on the list of monumental Rotterdam trees. Link opens an external page. In 2019, it came second in a national tree election.
Perhaps you will look at the gate and the tree differently the next time you do your shopping here or eat a spring roll.