Raepenhofje on the Palmgracht: A Canal With No Water
Why is it significant?
You are standing on a canal, although there is not a drop of water in sight. This street is the Palmgracht, and gracht means canal. The water was filled in at the end of the nineteenth century, when the Jordaan's narrow canals had become open sewers, and the name simply stayed behind, like a ghost.
Key Facts
| Place | Raepenhofje on the Palmgracht: A Canal With No Water |
|---|---|
| Address | Palmgracht 28, 1015 HN Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.38240, 4.88380 |
| Part of Walk | Behind the Green Doors: Hidden Hofjes and Market Days of the Jordaan, Amsterdam |
| Generated | Generated |
You are standing on a canal, although there is not a drop of water in sight. This street is the Palmgracht, and gracht means canal. The water was filled in at the end of the nineteenth century, when the Jordaan's narrow canals had become open sewers, and the name simply stayed behind, like a ghost.
Now look along the row of houses for a plain doorway with a name above it: the Raepenhofje. Behind that door is a hofje, and you need to know the word, because this whole walk is a hunt for them. A hofje is an almshouse built around a hidden courtyard. A wealthy merchant, or his widow, left money to house elderly women of small means, rent free, in little homes facing a private garden. From the street you see nothing at all. That was the point.
This one dates from the middle of the seventeenth century and carries the name of its founding family, Raep. It sounds almost exactly like raap, the Dutch word for turnip, and Amsterdammers have never been able to resist that joke. Right beside it hides a second courtyard, the Bossche Hofje, so this short street is really a little nest of secrets.
Life inside was generous, but it came with rules. Regents, the trustees, chose the residents and could throw them out. In many hofjes the gate was locked at night, men were not welcome after dark, quarrelling could cost you your home, and you were expected in church on Sunday. A rich man's charity was also his monument: his name over the gate, his reputation, perhaps his soul, polished for ever by the gratitude of the women inside.
People still live in the Jordaan's hofjes today, so if a gate is closed, it stays closed, and if one is open, you go in quietly, as a guest in somebody's garden. That small courtesy is the price of the most peaceful places in Amsterdam. Now walk south through one of the narrow cross streets until you reach the broad Lindengracht, another canal that lost its water.