One of the reason why I mostly prefer to do my walks alone is that in real life I actually hardly know anyone with interest in history, art or architecture - recently I spoke to some acquaintances who are, just like me, ex-patriots transplanted to new country and no, they had absolutely no curiosity about what its all about (Alfie) - for them, it was enough to know practical things like bus and tram stop, the location of the nearest supermarket and such. My enthusiasm about the place I decide to live was obviously annoying to them, like why such a fuss about some old houses. Well, I better do my walks alone than - besides, while travelling for many years as a cruise ship employee, I trained myself to look at the world around me with curiosity so yes, I have an eye for details and a sense of feeling the atmosphere.
On my walks I admired the beautiful, historical building that is now The National Maritime Museum (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) but has trough the centuries always been connected with maritime one way or the other, like the whole neighbourhood here - because of epidemics, I have not visited the museum yet but I walked around the area and noticed that right after the museum, the street is dominated by stern, prison-like Royal Navy gate (from 17th century) and the rest of the street is strangely modern. "This can't be" I said to myself "If the museum and royal navy had buildings here centuries ago, these must have been normal civilian houses on this spot as well". Boy, was I right. I did some research and this is what I have found.
Amsterdam is of course, much more than pretty canals and fairy tale houses - step outside of the famous canal ring and you will see modern buildings like anywhere else in the world. The more I discover about the town, the more I witness that surprisingly large parts of centre have also been completely erased and demolished to make space for new ideas. In this case, the whole neighbourhood of Kattenburg has been eliminated and re-designed. I am not talking just a few old houses, I am talking about the whole darn neighbourhood.
What my eye noticed immediately was a strange dichotomy between old Royal Navy complex and the characterless modern buildings opposite - these two had absolutely nothing in common. So I checked the collection in the City Archives and voilà it turns out there used to be not one but two narrow streets in this spot: Grote Kattenburgerstraat and the Kleine Kattenburgerstraat. And the busy neighbourhood it was, with literary hundreds of people crowding in here, mostly people working in the docks and living in poverty. So gradually this whole area became neglected until sometime after WW2 the whole neighbourhood was demolished and re-built again, very cleverly they had built facades on Kattenburgerplein in the old style, as a tribute to what used to be here earlier. I am still shocked that municipality made such decisions to completely erase the whole neighbourhood, not just one building or a two but everything - however its been said that it was a depilated ghetto not worth saving and locals probably prefer to live in a new, modern buildings.
Being an old softie who does not belong to these modern times anyway, there is no doubt which face of Kattenburg I would prefer, given a chance. My heart aches as I look at the old pictures of the neighbourhood that is not here anymore. Than again, people who live here now have immensely more comfort now than previous Kattenburgers, so they probably don't miss living in old conditions. Myself, I could probably be perfectly happy even without the electricity. Give me a candle and a log to put in the fire place.
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