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Amsterdam

Amsterdam-Continuing in the Red Light District

Introduction

Amsterdam
History

Amsterdam again before visit

Rijksmuseum 1

Rijksmuseum 2

Rijksmuseum 3

Oudezijds to the Red Light District

Continuing in the Red Light District

Cannabis museum- Drugs problem

Amsterdam and Jews

Kroller Muller Museum

We are now in the area of the Oudezijds Voorburgwal where sex dominates. Numerous strip show video stores, cinemas and parlors, and the ladies in their windows of course. The sit and wait there, night and day, in a sort of salon-bedroom. Usually a shade is attached to the window. When the shade is closed it means the joint is busy! They never or rarely walk up and down the  streets, like they do in Paris, but stay warmly inside, letting you the choice  to enter and have a little commercial chat before doing a business. They are covered with the legal minimum of clothes. Some are very suggestive ! ;-) But let'(s face it: it is the best way possible, you know what you buy and instead of prohibiting or denying, it is tolerated and housed....and taxed. Yes, folks, they pay income tax as any other employee or simple working man ( or woman). I wouldn't cut off my hand and swear they declare their total revenue, but in a certain way they contribute to the economy of the Netherlands! They are all filed, have regular health and hygienic controls, every six to 10 weeks.
It's certainly the area of Amsterdam where you se the most police: so be sure; it's the safest. Don't be afraid of the junkies you will encounter inevitably , juts ignore them and don't hazard yourself in small alleys at night. Use your common sense. Anyway, at night you'll see thousands of tourists wandering around. You will not be the only one ;-) By the way, as a hint: the Red Light district is mots concentrated in the Warmoesstraat, the Oudezijds Achterburgwal and .....let's get back to the CULTURAL visit I proposed of the Oudezijds Voorburgwal ! It stays sleazy  until you cross the Prinsenhofstraaat, when the neighborhood suddenly buttons itself up and turns respectable.  Close to the end of the canal, cross the canal by a small bridge for a glimpse of another building: the Stadsbank van Lening started life as a storehouse of peat which was one of the city most vital means of heating . It became the municipal loan office in 1614, a sort of city-)owned pawnbroker where people and businessmen who needed money could raise capital against family assets and get ready cash for it.
Retrace your steps ate the other side of the canal, turning right, then left  at the tip of the Old Side into Grimburgwal. 

Sint Nicolaaskerk

Here is a house that is unique in Amsterdam: "Het Huis op de Drie Grachten". Surprisingly, in  city filled with canals this house is the only to lie at three canals at the same time : Oudezijds Voorburgwal, Oudezijds Achterburgwal and Oudezijds Grimbergwal. The house is a brick building with four-tiered-step-gables at each and in the center of its facade, This way each step-gable faces each of the three canals. The house is (I hope it still is now) occupied by an antiquarian library.
Cross now the east side of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal and , turning  left again, follow the canal to "Spinhuissteeg". The Spinhuis, on you left has a very funny story, so typically Dutch!
It was a 16th century attempt to rehabilitate the prostitutes of what was even then Amsterdam's ill repute. They reasoned that by locking the women up and forcing them to spin thread  for the clothing of the poor, it would bring some more Christian activity in this neighborhood.
The city officials, naively thinking that they saved the whores to make spinsters out of them; hadn't counted on the wickedness of the wardens. These  cynical men turned their heads ( for a substantial baksheesh) into the other direction when "gentlemen visitors " came to honor the spinsters. So the spin-house just turned again into a bawdy house!

Bibliography

Holland, by Adam Hopkins (Faber and Faber, 1988), Penguin Guide to Amsterdam (ed.Vincent Westzaan, Penguin 1990), Guide du Routard 1998 (ed.Hachette), -Dwalen door Amsterdam en reizen door de Benelux, ( ed. Lekturama 1984)