heerlijk in de tuin geslapen, vanavond weer. Jullie?

20eu.. maar heb je wel een mooi uitzicht.

This Leiden Station was the second (or third, depending what you include) railway station in the city, designed by Dirk Margadant (later responsible for the current Den Haag HS and Haarlem stations) and Theodor Sanders (who had his hand in the Haarlemmermeer Railways as well). It was the first "Union" station of the city, combining services on the "Old Line" (Amsterdam-Rotterdam) and the Woerden-Leiden railway, operated by competing companies. The station's design was clearly inspired back to Berlin's Lehrter Bahnhof, which was also the template for Budapest's Keleti (East) Station. The reception hall central in this image was placed slightly to the southwest of the current one, roughly in the spot of the current hairdressers' salon.

The original for this image was photographed in 1899 by Jan Goedeljee and is in the collections of Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken. I colorized it for the German edition of my book about Berlin railway stations because of its link to Berlin's Lehrter Bahnhof, which once stood at the place of the current Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It turned out to be a bit of a time pit, though. I looked at the original specifications in the Utrechtsch Archief, so I know which materials were used. However, the information about important details such as the tiling is lost.
However, we know which tile factory (in Harlingen) supplied the tiling, and what colour combinations and patterns were current at the time, so what you see here is educated speculation. Thankfully, there is good documentation to fill in the details, such as the coloring on the mailbox and uniforms. I did however replace the sky, but with one from a photo taken at the same location (it was tricky to get one which didn't show airplane condensation trails).

beetje ver weg

Leiden in the winter ❄️

Wie kent of herkent deze dame. Telefoon is in Leiden gevonden Helaas geen medisch dossier of ice ingesteld

I shipped this from the UK to a friend in Leiden who just had a baby. It was sent back to the UK due to a customs mistake, then reshipped and Royal Mail is showing it as delivered on 9/14, but she reports no such delivery!

If you or anyone you know got this package, please DM me! No questions asked re: whether it was a mistake or a probably-disappointing result of theft (sorry if you thought it was a laptop!). I handknit the blanket especially for her baby, it took a really long time. Happy to buy you a drink or an ice cream on my next trip to Leiden if you have any info!

We zijn er weer klaar mee..

Mooie dubbele 🌈 over onze mooie stad.

Amazing clicks by Irma Booij