Historical Tour GuideYesterday, while I saw some grand structures and spaces, I felt as if my walks, in a pretty impromptu fashion (if directed at one point), tended more towards small streets and a few pretty narrow houses, one almost impossibly, and joyously so, if its (inhabitant?) is not clinically depressed.....
Early on in the center, I tried to find out more about the history of the Magna Plaza, seen here in another grand pose at a point I began to see that it might partly be an homage to the onion domes of an exotic east....
[looking north on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal from south of Paleisstraat]
and was unable to get more information from plaques, etc., but aside from too much hipness for me in its fashion and other stores, was completely unsurprised (and happy), to see a grand atrium....
Shortly after that, I went way down in building scale, and probably solidity, but again with pleasure, as I noticed a leaning house, beyond the ones I had already seen, just north of Magna Plaza and just to the right of center here....
Before the trip, I might have said - don't romanticize, that is TOO quaint, but it looks like a lot of houses in Amsterdam's center are both leaning and loved.
Shortly after turning around the corner of this house, I entered one of many narrow streets in the city and saw a top contender for "narrow house" honors at Molsteegstraat 5....
but as it is obviously muscling out its companions I will post a more flattering view....
As I walked inside the antique store there and at 7 Molsteegstraat, I appreciated the nformation given to me by the owner of both 5 and 7 - Robert Dusarduyn....
who, sitting in #5, noted buying both properties in 1975 and living upstairs from them since then. He said that 5 was "2 metres, 20" in width and 7 was "4 metres, 50" and, when I inquired further, he noted a much narrower house than 5 Molsteeg, just two blocks to the west and then to the right.
Approaching this freak of man-ture, I said "is this it?!! But based on his directions, and it not being 168 Singelgracht ("single canal") to its left, or 170 Singelgracht to its right, it is probably the one and only Singel-ur 166 Singelgracht....
[As to my flipness above, I doubt that the ("inhabitant"?) is going insane, but it takes all kinds of people, I guess!
Just feet away, I got a classic European view towards the monumental "Nieuwe Kerk" of Amsterdam (built just recently in 1485, as opposed to the nearby "Oude Kerk of - the 1300's??***), looking east on the Torensteegstraat from which I'd just come to the Singelgracht....
In further walks, I loved the shapely curve of 170-72 Herengracht ("gentleman's canal" at least gives the gist there) - as the Herengracht curves to the southeast in front of it ...
This grand presence includes the headquarters on its far (south) side of the "Vereniging Hendrick deKeyser" (Hendrick deKeyser Society), an historic preservation organization (yeeaay!! it looks like Amsterdam still needs 'em, like every city, despite its multitudinous blocks of past richness maintained).
My journey soon wound up at the Dam Square, one of a few large open spaces in the center of town, but first, I came again to one of the highest-volume bicycle crossings, very close to Magna Plaza above.....
[looking east on Paleisstraat towards the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, the Dam Square and, in the center background, the city's "Koninklijk Paleis" ("Royal Palace")]
Here, and elsewhere, you can definitely see that bicyclists are a huge part of the dynamism of the city, coming perhaps equally at all age levels, if, naturally, more younger than older; they are both casual and intense, but OFTEN intense, and, for me as an American, my greatest danger of injury is absolutely from them, because I am hard-wired, in the U.S., to look for cars, but not for bikers and scooter-riders in their narrow red lanes, but all-in-all, I hope I have seen the future for many American cities in this aspect.]
I went on to see "tourism central", bustling at Dam Square with human mannequins, such as this man, who wrote down his name as "Costica" [ed. - huh?]....
[honey, I destroyed the ground floor! Burger King, of course, at Nieuwendijk 218]
[Subway winning an historic preservation prize by comparison, at Nieuwendijk 218]
More soon, I hope, on my sedate night life in Amsterdam.....
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DRAFT
***more on this and other matters perhaps when I'm not paying 1.50euros for the internet, but loving this time at "All in one", Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 53 (and gracing this blog with a lovely picture soon I hope just below), but for now, picture tourist souvenirs (a dime a dozen in these blocks, two staffers of South Asian descent, but local residents I assume, and two (Russian?) men in their 20's who've been patronizing the internet as well.....
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