Exploring Amsterdam's center on March 6, 2012

DRAFT
Yesterday, 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....

[The house in question is at the southeast corner of the Molensteeg  (corrections accepted on this spelling!) and the Spuistraat]

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?]....

[but looked more like a combination of Joe Paterno, Elvis and JFK] and other entertainers, clearly vertical as opposed to what is suggested here...

 

  a Madame Tussaud's Museum here on the south side of the square....

and then a more concentrated onslaught of the international economy and both the thin maintenance of sense of place and destruction of that sense, going east on the Nieuwendijk....

[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.....

***************************************************************

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.....  

Exploring Amsterdam - a few blocks in the "Oud Zuid" section on March 6, 2012

Today, on the way to some quick shopping at an "Albert Heijn's" (maybe the major "man" on the supermarket block in this country), I had one colorful diversion, and then another one I hope to cover here tonight.

Turning the corner on to a main street known as Amstelveenseweg in the "Oud Zuid""(Old South but not like in the U.S.!) section, I saw a streeetscape somewhat like parts of the North Side of Chicago, as shown here at "Eerste Schinkel Street" looking south....

though making good on that would require a FEW modifications, including subtracting that little red bike lane towards the left, tram tracks, AND Dutch facades. In any event, this is an interesting neighborhood, blessed by the nation's most famous municipal park - the Vondelpark, to its north and seen in small part here....

Shortly after passing this spot, I easily noticed an amazing burst of Swiss chalet-like exuberance in what I learned is appropriately a center geared to kids, but which sounded as if it came from a while before those kids were born....

Buzzing on the doorbell (something you might have to do a lot if in this very friendly, low-crime city), I learned from a staffer there named Erica that this was a tram "remise" - which she understood to be the French term for "garage", but for horse-drawn and not electric trams and a facade design possibly from as early as 1860, by an architect of the surname "Salm". Hopefully this blog will give a more infomative Salm shout-out, but in the meantime, strut your stuff, baby.....

and in context, with a former church now "te huur" (to rent), to the left, and a dance studio to the right....

Erica informed me that besides this building, at Amstelveenseweg 134,  there were two other buildings which were also designed by Salm, one on the first side street to the south (the above-noted Eerste Schinkel Street)....

and another at 27 Schinkelhavenstraat....

Erica noted that (at least) the first and most colorful building was "squatted" in 1984, with my only contribution to that right now being that a huge squatter's movement helped upset an often stodgy Amsterdam "establishment" in the 1970's and 80's and helped, in all of its illegality, to make it the young adult's hive of activity that it is today, and it looks like a courtyard next to the yellow-doored building includes a memorial to that....

where, near the bottom, you can see an inscription for the "binnenpret" organization, which Erica said is the umbrella for several entities including in part the children's center where she works, an alternative music venue, and other organizations, including the "Teatro Munganga", advertised in front of its offices by this colorful truck

and co-founded by Brazilian native Carlos Lagoeiro, seen here with the company's office manager Annemieke Baauw, both of whom very courteously took time away from work in a second-floor office seen behind them to answer some impromptu questions....

Before returning to work in the office, Carlos confirmed Erica's information that this structure (as well as the "yellow..." one) were part of the horse-tram building, and that he thought that the facade for Munganga's office dates from 1893. Annemieke noted that Carlos came to the Netherlands 25 years ago and added that the term "Munganga" relates in large part to "making funny faces", and in a Dutch note posted on a front window at this location, one can at least guess the English meanings of "grimassen (grimace?), danse met grote gebaren (dance with big arms?)...." etc., but a card which she gave me strikes a more mission-oriented note, saying in part that the group focuses on people including the "socially excluded" and wants to raise awareness on respect for each individual, through puppet theater, body language and other means. [See munganga.nl for further information!]

DRAFT

I hope soon to deal with a relatively ancient house for the general Vondelpark area, but for now, it's on to a brief sense of the center of Amsterdam as I experienced it on March 6.  

Acknowledgements

Besides Carlos Lagoeiro and Annemieke Baauw, I wish to echo Annemieke's reference to another "Munganga" co-founder, still active in the theater - Claudia Maoli, while I was not able to meet her in my short visit at Schinkelhaven Straat.

  

Amsterdam, March 5, 2012

I arrived in Amsterdam late this morning at its "Centraal Station", royally impressive....

while also under a massive reconstruction to bring back much of the historical fabric, as in its main hall....

so as to look partly like this in (I don't know what year!)....

where the glass span in the center will in part be connected with a new entrance on the north side of the station, on the river known as the "ÏJ". This new "face"of a great European railroad station will add to the impression in the first picture above (since I believe 1888), where the front "ÿard" is very much one of constant heavy foot traffic and of trams galore...

all part of a bus, streetcar and subway system, known in short as the "GVB" (Gemeentevervoerbedrijf Municipality Transport Company of Amsterdam)) which I was eager to get on, but not before buying a four-day pass in its very nearby information and sales center, good for beginning to see some of the diversity of Amsterdam, the tourist demographics, including a boyfriend and girlfriend from Cornwall in England (underscoring a sense, as in a current Heineken commercial, that this is a HUGE magnet for the young) and, as always, cute kids, like this one who I'm guessing helped to make a GVB staffer's day as she and her Mom were assisted....

Once I got on the "1" tram to my hotel on a main street known as "Overtoom", southwest of Amsterdam's heart, I saw that very beating heart, and the joyous visual overload there reminded me again that there are just a few cities in the world which are spectacles at this level - sustained largely as international playgrounds, something to celebrate and to criticize when we think about the service workers who support them. Seeing a blind lady on the Leidsestraat was also a reminder of how lucky the rest of us are to see these incredible accretions of history and style, as here, at 68-72 Oudezijds Voorburgwal....

where the "Änno 1901"building on the right hints as with many others in Amsterdam of the rich store of Art Nouveau and other styles, well beyond the 17th-century row structures for which Amsterdam is known, and here, at one of the great canals of the city - the Keizersgracht (""gracht" meaning "canal" and "Keizers" meaning - I'll guess "rulers"), seen as the "1" tram crossed it on the Leidsestraat (not too far southwest of the Centraal Station....

The high style of Amsterdam is quite obvious here as well, with apologies for not knowing mroe about this show-stopping structure, now known as Magna Plaza and also on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal....

That's all for now from Satnam's Super Magic Wash, Overtoom 486, where, as on the front window, you can "wash and surf internetten", and it ain't free, but only 2 euros per hour (about $3.00), the music, so far at least, is gently Asian Indian and the bathroom is heavy with wholesale detergent....

DRAFT

The Netherlands, March 2012

Yesterday, on March 2, I started my first visit to Europe in about 37 years, coming back to the general location I was in back in 1975, partly because of friends here in the Netherlands, partly because of a sentiment for the "Golden Age"of Dutch culture in the 17th century.

My general impressions so far are of a huge degree of modern architecture, an impressive train system (certainly compared to the U.S.) and great architectural heritage as well - none of that surprising, all of it fun to see. And lots of bicycles as well!
In terms of society here, I've begun to hear about the clash and controversy here around immigration, some of it overblown as you can see the blending of long-established communities, partly from former Dutch colonies (Surinam, etc.), some of it alive, on grounds of economic policy (whether to give generous benefits to immigrants or not) some of it based on cultural differences.

As the US Airways plane descended into at Schiphol Airport south of Amsterdam, I saw many greenhouses, whose exact uses I did not ask about, but which naturally reminded me of the "tulip culture"of the Netherlands, a big reality if also a sterotype:

Once in the airport, I began to get a sense of how easy it is to find English signs and English-language and American culture here, as at Schiphol, if with a mix of Dutch themes (e.g., a mock wind turbine representing one of the many such successors to windmills on and off the coast of this very flat country)....

and since then, one of the very fun "Dutchified" (my word) American imports I've listened to (while staying briefly at the home in part of... a 7-year old named Chris!), has been the Dutch-language version of the "Cartoon Network":

Very soon after landing, I went with Annette, one of my Dutch friends, to her hometown of Roosendaal, in the southwestern Netherlands (see http://maps.google.nl/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109491266309856142472.000442977f34a686fafb8, but with a basic explanation that the town is very close to Antwerp, Belgium). The train we boarded went through a succession of towns in what may be the most densely-populated section of (the densest country in the world? - I've read about 1000 people per square mile, which may or may not be accurate); those cities included....

Leiden, which offered a convenient sense of the old and sometimes romanticized, as with the windmill here (there haven't been many of them here for a while)

and its modern steel, glass and so on, here colorfully covered in a tower across from the city's railroad station....

The Hague, where I was impressed (sometimes favorably but not entirely from an old-building bias) with the extent of the contemporary and the "large", again knowing that this quick train ride only gives one slice of one part of the cities in question....

 [not trying to make more of an impression above than this building's dramatic form already does, and I'll hopefully correct this mis-direction soon!]

and including some late-19th century elegance in its train station, where my view below may only show actual original portions just to the right, with most of the elements here likely to be tasteful but retro renewals....

Delft, which I think of very favorably for Vermeer's famous 17th-c. "View of Delft", even though I did not see that view reflected in my passing through the city, but seeing any part of this town for the first time was certainly one segment of a "celebrity ärt history locales" route for me on March 2; Delft presented visual delights including what I'll guess is a late 19th-c. water tower....  

an 1878 (concert hall? library?)....

and one of the number of trams found in Dutch cities....

and Rotterdam, where the main sense was of modern towers, but just before them, hints of a somewhat older residential character....

The (1980's and up?) corporate style to follow was not surprising partly because I had read of the city being largely destroyed by bombing in World War II; a few days ago, near the end of a wonderful history called "Ämsterdam" by the historian Geert Mak, who is well-known in the Netherlands, I read a disturbing comment, from a Dutch official in the 1950's, somehow saying that maybe Amsterdam should be renovated (a la 1950's U.S.-style urban renewal) like Rotterdam - which one could say was in the context of European cities which were not bombed still sometimes succumbing to the sense that "newer and bigger" would mean better; in any event, my first introduction to Rotterdam was big on such very formerly "Ämerican" looking sights as these....

[again, not trying to be artistic here; modern forms are already catchy enough, and hopefully I can redirect these forms more vertically:)!]

The biggest human attraction for part of the ride was Tara, a beautiful 16-month old on the train with her parents, all of them from the town of Zoetermeer near the Hague.... 

She was not shy about reaching out in curiosity....

 as I will not be here in Roosendaal this Sun. afternoon, March 3, so more to come after that....]