Van Ostadestraat

Sarphatipark in April

Looking at Venus and the Sarphati Monument

A while ago I got a letter from the municipality where they warn the citizens for criminality and aggression in the neighbourhood. Apparently 4 people were murdered in the last few months.

When I met my neighbour Miriam this afternoon she said the letter got her quite upset, although she never felt fear when walking at night. 'I don't sense much aggression on the streets either', I told her. We both came to the conclusion that we know it when things are not all right. Somehow we sense it.

Although a fair number of people were killed in the Sarphatipark, I can't remember feeling any fear while taking this photo of the Sarphati monument. Strangely enough...

Green, white, red on the Amstelkade

Blossom tree in the Burgemeester Tellegenstraat

Rialto

German shepherd on the Richard Wagnerstraat

After I took this picture, the German Shepherd, that you see vaguely on the left side of this picture, attacked me. It was a very eerie and oppressive incident. At last the owner entered this peculiar square and took the dog away. 

Weeping willows on the Mozartkade

Apollo House

On this very clear night I finally got a nice shot of the Apollo House building (1938-1939). I'm always surprised how big the building is when standing in front of it. I read now that it's also known as Oceaan Stomer (Ocean Steamer). The construction is made of a metal skeleton covered with white ceramic plates. It used to be the main office for an insurance company but since 2000 it is used by an international law firm. See how bright the moon was shining on that evening and look at the Iodestar (polestar) just above the Apollo House. Or is it Venus?

Kerk van Onze Lieve Vrouw Koningin van de Vrede (“Vredeskerk”)

Rai, Daf, Heineken and the mounted police coming from the left

 

White house Herman Gorterstraat

It is now almost 10 months ago that I started with my evening walks. Later on I will post a drawing with the routes that I usually walk. Certain places, like the Amstel, the Stadhouderskade, Museumplein, but also these bungalows on the Bernard Zweerskade are the places that I come around more often. I see them as the checkpoints or better the anchorpoints of my blog. It still is very nice to make the walks and to search for new perspectives for these motifs.

Oosteinde

Green and yellow lights on the Stadhouderskade

DNB

Victorieplein

Apollohal seen from Muzenplein

From here to "Apollo House"

Smoke on the Hobbemakade

Full Moon Museumplein

Passing by the Nicolaas Witsenkade

Albert Cuypstraat

Albert Cuyp

Een markt met een ingang, omdat het een straat is.

Ik sta stil bij de ingang, fiets aan de hand, kan naar binnen kijken.

Als het donker is kan ik door de straat heen fietsen.

Van liefde alleen het begin willen, dat is tot waar?

Nachoem M. Wijnberg * Geb 1961

ALBERT CUYP * Uit tien * Contact, Amsterdam, 2007


On my 39th birthday a friend gave me this nice poem of Nachoem M. Wijnberg.

Stadhouderskade

The other side of the Dijsselhofplantsoen

't Blauwe Theehuis (Blues Before Sunrise)

Vondelpark "Blues Before Sunrise"

Tonight I made an interesting journey through the Vondelpark. Steve McQueen made an artwork of the park by exchanging the white streetlights for blue ones. I looked forward to go there already yesterday (as it was my birthday yesterday) but it was raining unfortunately. 
In this photo the park looks very blue but I experienced it as something more subtle, especially when I was wandering around there for a while. The paths were dark and at the same time there were many people on the move. Bikers and joggers mainly but also other strollers like me. I crawled into the bushes to get good shots of the scenery (not so easy without a tripod). There was a full moon but still it felt dim. Disorientation. The blue lights added something strange mechanical to this whole experience.In a reaction on this image a good friend send me this following quote: "Tibetan myths relate how the earth was created from a void that emitted a blue light."On the left side there are two men recording the scenery on video.

Vondelpark "Blues Before Sunrise"

"

Stadhouderskade

I was standing on the bridge over the Stadhouderskade at the Weteringlaan and looking at the Rijksmuseum when I made this image. Look at how black and still the water was on that evening. I think that the purple lights come from Van Beek but I'm not completely sure.

Another view on the Amstelkade

Sloestraat seen from the Joseph Israëlskade

When I make the evening walks I never take my tripod with me because it feels not right somehow. It would be more like work. Or maybe like fishing. Anyway sometimes there are no good spots, like garbage cans, hurdles or benches to place the camera on. The canon was placed right in the mud to take this shot of the Sloestraat.

Bernard Zweerskade

Emmastraat on a friday evening

Atelierwoningen Zomerdijkstraat

When I moved here in 1990 I found a house in the Kribbestraat (what a good place to start). This street in the Rivierenbuurt is right around the corner of the atelier building in the Zomerdijkstraat. 

The atelierwoningen (artist residences) were made in the thirties by the architects: Piet Zanstra, Jan Giesen and Karel Sijmons. Jan Wolkers was living in the Zomerdijkstraat 22 from 1950 untill 1981. I found a nice picture of Jan Wolkers on the website of Sandra van Beek (Jan is the man looking from the door on the right). 

I also read that Gerrit van der Veen was living in the same studio where Jan Wolkers was housed later. A lot of information about the building and it's inhabitants is found on the site of Sandra van Beek. Other information is found on "Het geheugen van Plan-Zuid", a comprehensive website with stories, photo's and other interesting information about the district.

A lot of stories meet in this post about the Zomerdijkstraat.

Gerrit Rietveld Academie

Foggy Night (Amstelkade)

There will be more photo's of this strange, nervous walk through the Rivierenbuurt later on. For today I stick with an impassioned image of the Amstelkade. Notice the group of teenage boys on the left (Joseph Israëlskade). It is not so often that people appear in my images. This was made on the 28th of Februari 2012.

Kribbestraat

I already wrote about the Kribbestraat in the post about the Zomerdijkstraat. I lived here for almost six years while studying at the art academy. I still go there once in a while to meet with my friends (one of them still rents the apartment). Good old Kribbestraat.

I remember now that the winters in the Rivierenbuurt could be quite grey, quite gloomy.

Another picture of the Reijnier Vinkeleskade

Jan van Goyenkade

Last week I made a long walk to the other side of Zuid. Beginning at the Ceintuurbaan I walked to De Lairessestraat and half way there I took a little side-route to look at the Emmastraat. This neighbourhood (I must say) looks good at the daytime but maybe even better in the evening. From the Koninginneweg I walked to the Valeriusplein and than under the Amsterdams Lyceum. It was quiet early and there were a lot of people on the streets (cars, bikes, tourists etc.) Passing through the Lyceum I entered the beautiful and calm Jan van Goyenkade. From the greytones in the sky you can tell that it was still freezing that night.

Ice floes on the Amstel and the Mauritskade

Amstel (looking at Oost, looking at Zuid)

The Museumplein on a very cold night

This photo was taken on a very cold night in Februari (look at the blue smoke coming out of the Rijksmuseum). I hope to post more pictures of the Museumplein in a later stage, because the plane-trees are very beautiful in the summer and beginning of fall.

Lekstraatsynagoge

When I came to Amsterdam in 1990 I lived around the corner of the Lekstraatsynagoge in De Rivierenbuurt.

A few years ago I heard a story from a Jewish man called Stan Rubens. In September 1942, when Stan was 11 years old, he and his family were caught during hiding and subsequently imprisoned in the Hollandsche Schouwburg. Stan found a way to escape from the childcare building that was located across the street. He managed to stay alive during the rest of the war by fleeing and hiding in different places around Amsterdam and Utrecht.

After the war, when he was 14 years old, Stan and his family reunited. The years after the war were very difficult for the Rubens family. In that period Stan got gitarlessons and he soon started his own music group. It was a "Hawaiian Ensemble". Around 1947 he got the opportunity to organise some lively music-evenings in the Lekstraatsynagoge. The thought of this fourteen year old boy making exotic-music in this bleak synagoge in the Rivierenbuurt moved me deeply.

At the age of 19 Stan emigrated to Australia and in his later life he became a professional musician in Hawaii.

Go to: Stan's webite

Churchilllaan

When I went to the Rietveld Academy I passed by this house everyday but I never took much notice of it (the modern houses on the Bernard Zweerskade were more interesting in that time). However I found out that I always experience a subtle sense of nostalgia when passing this building. Melancholia would be a better term I think to decribe this specific atmosphere. It is strongly connected to my feelings of Amsterdam as my hometown. The desire to have a home at least, unfulfilled, almost like an ancherpoint.

Ruysdaelkade

When I took this picture I was standing on the bridge of the Van Hilligaertstraat with my nose towards the Ruysdaelkade. This canal is the border between my area of De Pijp and the western part of Amsterdam-Zuid. I have some pictures of that area (Museumplein, Concertgebouw) but not so many. I hope to post some pictures of de Lairessestraat-neighbourhood in a later stage.

Roei- & Zeilvereniging "De Amstel"

When I made this picture I was focussing on the lights, the colors and the feeling of space. There is also a specific historic story connected to the rowingclub (on the left). All in all there were a lot of focuspoints when I was standing out there in the snow.

Later when I looked back on the computer I noticed by accident the little yellow car parked on the Jozef Israëlskade (a bit off-centre, straight under the streetlight). This mini-mobile is owned by a couple that I got to know this last summer. (just like me they have a habbit of making eveningtrips around the south-part of the city). Whenever I see them driving by I think: "It's a big miracle that they both fit in this tiny, yellow machine but they really do".

Former girl-school Gerrit van der Veestraat (Voormalige meisjes-HBS Gerrit van der Veenstraat)

Although I love Amsterdam a lot and enjoy the lively beauty of it, I experience a sentiment of emptiness or desolation in this town as well. For years I took these impressions for granted but only since a couple of years I became more alert to them.

From 2009 untill 2010 I did freelance work for The Shoah Foundation. This organisation, that was originally initiated by Steven Spielberg, collected world wide more than 50.000 video testimonies of Holocaust-survivors. Around 2000 interviews were about Holland (1000 of them were Dutch spoken and another 1000 in other languages). The coördination of these interviews was (and is) done by Denise Citroen.

I was watching the interviews, summarizing the stories and classifying it so people can easily search through them. It was very inspiring to hear and learn so much about this period. In total I indexed 128 interviews, from mainly Jewish survivors, but also quite a few Jehovah's Witness survivors, political prisoners, people that were active in the resistance and a Roma survivor.

For more information go here: Tweeduizend Getuigen Vertellen.

In many testimonies there were recollections about the Meisjes-HBS in the Gerrit van der Veenstraat (wich was called Euterpestraat than). After the German invasion the headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) were stationed there. People were interrogated in this building, imprisoned and more than often tortured. In 1944 the school was partly bombed and the headquarters moved to the Apollolaan.

In the first picture we see the square in front of the Meisjes-HBS. In the second picture we see the building itself.

Go to: A picture of the school during world war II