ED VAN DER ELSKEN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS - 1947 - 1970
TOP NOTCH - UITGEVERIJ BAS LUBBERHUIZEN - LECTURIS
My Amsterdam. My Amsterdammers. Often chums you greet with ‘Ah, Uncle Jack’ or ‘Aunt Nel!’ or ‘Hey, you old pansy’ or ‘Hello love’. People from decent neighborhoods: Nieuwmarkt, Zeedijk, De Wallen, Nieuwendijk, Haarlemmerstraat, the Jordaan, the Jewish quarter, the Kinkerbuurt, De Pijp, the islands Wittenburg, Kattenburg. People who never make it over to Apollolaan or to the ritzy Goudkust...well maybe as a milkman, or as a burglar. In my book I’ve got a lot of cops, I notice. Quite a few creeps. But some nice ones too. This photograph dates from 1955: Amsterdam’s mounted police training horses for city noises.
On the left, demolition of ‘de Galerij’ on Frederiksplein. Former site of the Paleis voor Volksvlijt (imagination) and now that of De Nederlandsche Bank (tasteless drabness). Right page: police visiting the street, in this case Koestraat, near Nieuwmarkt. Offensive, but kind of exciting too.
Previous page, 1948. Old people not yet receiving the pension set up by Drees. 1949. You buy clothes on Waterlooplein, from the rag-andbone man.
Big photograph: 5 May 1950. Opposite this, Wilhelmina in 1948. On the way to her jubilee celebration at Olympic Stadium. A stalwart individual, it has been said. During the war Churchill described her as the only real man among the governments-in-exile in London. But she had much too much money, and so do that daughter and granddaughter of hers. Meanwhile, they’re always flirting with the underprivileged, with the third world.