Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [53]
Brouwersgracht
The Jordaan and Western docklands |
The Scheepvaartsbuurt and the Western docklands
The Scheepvaartsbuurt – the Shipping Quarter – is an unassuming neighbourhood which focuses on Haarlemmerstraat and its continuation Haarlemmerdijk, a long, rather ordinary thoroughfare lined with cafés and food shops, which once bustled with stevedores and working ships bound to and from Haarlem. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this district boomed thanks to its location between Brouwersgracht and the Western docklands, a narrow parcel of land dredged out of the River IJ immediately to the north and equipped with docks, warehouses and shipyards. The construction of these artificial islands took the pressure off Amsterdam’s congested maritime facilities and was necessary to sustain the city’s economic success. Stretching from the Western to the Eastern docklands, these riverside wharves functioned as Amsterdam’s heartbeat until the city’s shipping facilities began to move away from the centre, a process accelerated by the construction of Centraal Station, slap in the middle of the old quayside in the 1880s. The Western docklands hung on to some of the marine trade until the 1960s, but today – bar the odd small boatyard – industry has to all intents and purposes disappeared and the area is busy reinventing itself. There is still a vague air of faded grittiness here, but the old, forgotten warehouses – within walking distance of the centre – are rapidly being turned into bijou studios, and dozens of plant-filled houseboats are moored alongside the narrow streets.
The Jordaan and Western docklands | The Scheepvaartsbuurt and the Western docklands |
Haarlemmerdijk
Before World War II the Haarlemmerstraat and its westerly extension, Haarlemmerdijk, were congested thoroughfares, but the trams that once ran here were rerouted and this is now a pleasant if unremarkable pedestrianized strip with bars, shops and cafés. The only architectural high point is the meticulously restored Art Deco interior of The Moviescinema, near the west end of the street at Haarlemmerdijk 161. Just metres away, the busy Haarlemmerplein traffic junction sports the grandiose Neoclassical gateway, Haarlemmerpoort, built on the site of a medieval entrance to the city in 1840 for the new king William II’s triumphal entry into the city. The euphoria didn’t last long. William was a distinguished general who had been wounded at Waterloo, but as a king he proved much too crusty and reactionary to be popular, only agreeing to mild liberal reforms after extensive rioting in Amsterdam and elsewhere.
The Jordaan and Western docklands | The Scheepvaartsbuurt and the Western docklands |
The Western docklands
To visit the Western docklands, proceed north from the near (east) side of the Haarlemmerpoort. Walk through the tunnel beneath the railway lines and then turn right along Sloterdijkstraat, which soon crosses the canal over onto Galgenstraat (Gallows St), once the site of the municipal gallows which were made clearly visible to passing ships to discourage potential law-breakers. Galgenstraat bisects the smallest of the Western docklands islands, diminutive Prinseneiland, a pleasing mix of houseboats, former warehouses and old canal houses, guarded by a pair of dainty little bridges.
Continue straight along Galgenstraat, over the next canal, and then turn north up Grote Bickersstraat for the bridge over to another Western docklands island, Realeneiland, whose houseboats, ex-warehouses and mini-boatyards give it a distinctly nautical flavour. On the island, tiny, waterside Zandhoek once offered an uninterrupted view over the harbour and was long a favourite with the city’s sea captains, who constructed a clutch of fine old canal houses along here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A number of them have survived and several are decorated with distinctive facade stones,