Jodenbreestraat now and than

 

Stumbled upon some beautiful old photos of Jodenbreestraat and went into a rabbit hole, searching for more. Since we are in a lockdown again, our streets are deserted and it just seems so fantastic that on these old photos everything was always so crowded, like people genuinely lived on the streets. There are always literary hundreds of faces constantly walking, strolling, enjoying the view. This particular street which is right in the centre of town, does not look as anything special today, thanks to city mayors who did not understand the importance of preserving history - the mainly Jewish neighbourhood was completely looted as the citizens were arrested and deported to concentration camps during WW2. Eventually sometime in the 1960s the street was more or less transformed into what we see today - the left side keeps the same original line but the right side is completely gone, the only buildings that still exist  from the previous era are Mozes en Aäronkerk (a church), Rembrandt House and Huis De Pinto. The church tower in a distance is Zuiderkerk which still exist.

"Baltimore" by Nina Simone (1978)

 

Accidentally, this happened to be the very first Nina Simone album I have ever heard. Her major 1960s LPs were not available at the time and this was something current, so I bought it with my pocket money - this was time when you actually had to purchase albums to listen the music at home - and the introduction was lukewarm, as I didn't know what to make of it. Curiously, there were some very positive reviews around and I felt perplexed why the magic of this particular album eludes me. 

Fast forward several decades later, re-visiting "Baltimore" again. At this point its an old friend. By now I know who is Simone, where she comes from, the source of material, what producers probably wanted to achieve. In fact, I am pleasantly surprised that I appreciate everything that I had initially disliked - namely her idiosyncratic voice, random song choice that goes from reggae to gospel, folk and pop - now I pay much more attention to classical touches on piano, excellent backing vocals, production. And with amusement I note how it was via this album that I first heard majority of these songs and THAN much later found out the originals. I would not recommend it as introduction to Simone, because this was not really representing her best points - for that you might turn to anything from 1960s - "Baltimore" is more like phase where producers tried to modernise and update her sound. It feels as a hybrid between what Simone wanted - artsy piano ballads - and what producers had in mind - pop music. Very probably it was frustrating for both sides. To be honest, I cannot find any faults with Simone's albums in general - she is fascinating artist - its just that this might be not her strongest point. If you are familiar with the rest of her discography, this might be rewarding little gem.

Old Amsterdam

Some of my earliest memories are connected to the area where I lived as a toddler, the famously disreputable Tkalčićeva street where I played in the streets and parks, not understanding what was actually going on around me - looking back, I see poor people making the best with time that was given to them, but there was a lot of poverty, hand-to-mouth life, alcoholism, wife beatings, etc. Come to think of it, two things were constantly missing; money and prejudice. Because the crowd who lived in these crooked little houses was themselves on a funky side, being an alcoholic or a streetwalker was nothing unusual for them. They were very accepting about that. However, back than I had no idea who are these people and was thrilled to death discovering old basements, dusty attics and houses that have generally been in various stages of complete neglect. To this day I have preserved that, perhaps ridiculous kick, where I just love to see old houses with their amazing stories of the past times. Mind you, not only elegant buildings but actually really, really old huts where roof is leaning one way and the door another. Why exactly I am so drawn to the old houses, I have no idea except that I feel they speak to me and I can sense there was a story here. (Above mentioned street of my childhood eventually got cleaned up and is now sort of chic promenade but I never ever go there)

I have several very interesting old pictures taken around Amsterdam that fascinated me for the longest time and I get a kick out of them. The first photo was taken by famous Jacob Olie in 1892 and it shows a completely abysmal scene of some incredibly impoverished huts on a canal that was very soon covered and later became De Clercqstraat. As with all the houses inside the canal belt, sewers were connected directly to canals, so you can imagine the smell that was going on. 

The next photo comes from 1916. and it shows typical life in what was The Old Jewish area Uilenburg that in a modern days is very much re-constructed, re-designed and re-populated. As expected, people who comment on these photos are all glorifying some nostalgic nonsense, while in reality people were dying from TB left and right, living in a overcrowded tiny basements and it was basically a slum. 

The last picture shows crooked, old houses in a oldest part of town, around Oudekerksplein and they are still here, except nowadays eclipsed with gaudy signs advertising restaurants, bars and yes, girls in the windows. But the way we see it here was probably going on for centuries. To me this is like the most exciting time machine. I needed to post this because too often people have idea about Amsterdam as some romantic place full of canals, swans, bridges and quaint little houses - true, but as with every big city, there is also a slum, gutter and survival going on.