180811

In the early seventies of the last century the Jordaan, Amsterdam’s oldest workers quarter, just outside the ring of canals, was still just that; a workers quarter,  well known throughout the country for its distinct dialect/language, (sub)culture of music, songs, stories, jokes, kitschy interiors, etc.  Since then gentrification has hit the area big time and nowadays it is mostly a yuppy-ish inner city neighbourhood with lots of fancy restaurants, deli’s, shops and galleries.

I moved into the area in 1972 as one of the first students/outsiders to do so. In fact, my friends and I rented an old warehouse , which for the previous hundred years (at least!) had housed a business in scrap metal and old textile ("lompen en metalen"): four empty floors, in the middle a hole with double hatches and on the top floor an old, 19th century cast iron pulley to haul the wares up and down.
Our first job was to clear out the remnants of the old business before we could start converting the building into liveable apartments.  One of the remnants is depicted here: the old signboard which for many, many years had hung  On its outer layer it reads “buying textiles and olds metals, firm of A.Smit” but showing through is the lettering of an earlier sign when the business was owned by one W.C. Pannekoek or Pancake…