Vijzelgracht

The station is named after the Vijzelgracht, the canal filled in in 1933 under which it lies. The canal was most likely named after 17th-century residents Cornelis and Jan Vijselaar; the name only became official in 1874.

Where the North/South Line nearly came undone

The platform at Vijzelgracht lies about 26 metres underground. You reach it on the longest escalators in the Benelux: 47 metres long, at the south end of the station. It sits beneath the former Vijzelgracht canal, filled in in 1933, with entrances near Maison Descartes and the Weteringplantsoen.

This is exactly where construction went wrong. On 19 June 2008 water leaked through a gap in a wall of the building pit and four historic houses on the Vijzelgracht sank 15 centimetres. Residents were evacuated and work stopped until September. On 10 September new leaks followed and other buildings sank as much as 23 centimetres. A Deltares investigation found 114 weak points in the concrete walls, mostly due to poor-quality concrete and reinforcement. The Veerman committee examined the project, which then continued with extra risk controls.

A 2011 proposal to name the station after Ramses Shaffy did not go through. Instead, Marjan Laaper designed a portrait of the singer and actor built from the lines of a metro map, shown in the station and above the southern escalators.