Westerstraat: The Cloth Market on a Buried Canal
Why is it significant?
Notice how wide the Westerstraat is compared with the tight little streets crossing it. Trees down the middle, bicycles in thick hedges, plenty of sky. That width is the shape of a canal.
Key Facts
| Place | Westerstraat: The Cloth Market on a Buried Canal |
|---|---|
| Address | Westerstraat 180, 1015 MP Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.37820, 4.88120 |
| Part of Walk | Behind the Green Doors: Hidden Hofjes and Market Days of the Jordaan, Amsterdam |
| Generated | Generated |
Notice how wide the Westerstraat is compared with the tight little streets crossing it. Trees down the middle, bicycles in thick hedges, plenty of sky. That width is the shape of a canal. Until the nineteenth century this was the Anjeliersgracht, the Carnation Canal, and then it was filled in and renamed.
Carnation, rose, lily, laurel, palm, linden, eglantine: the Jordaan's builders named almost every street and canal after a flower or a tree. And the name Jordaan itself? A favourite story says it comes from the French jardin, garden, in the mouths of Huguenot refugees who settled here. It is a lovely idea, but most historians are sceptical, and some prefer the river Jordan of the Bible. Nobody has settled it, which suits the Jordaan perfectly.
On Monday mornings the Westerstraat turns into the Lapjesmarkt, the rag market: bolts of cloth, buttons, ribbons, zips, curtain fabric by the metre, joining up with the flea market on the Noordermarkt. For generations this was where Jordaan women bought the material to make and mend the family's clothes.
Because behind the flowery names, this was a hard place. The Jordaan was built in the seventeenth century for workers, craftsmen and immigrants, and by the nineteenth century tens of thousands of people were packed into its narrow houses, often a whole family in one room or a damp cellar. In July 1934, in the depths of the Depression, the government cut unemployment benefits. The Jordaan rose. Barricades went up, the police and the army came in, and several people were killed in what is remembered as the Jordaanoproer, the Jordaan Riot.
Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, planners drew up schemes to tear down large parts of the old neighbourhood, and residents fought to keep their streets. Much of what charms you here survives because people refused to leave. Now turn left down one of the narrow cross streets to the Egelantiersgracht, and look for number 107, where a passage of blue tiles is waiting.