Fallen sporting hero
Nowadays this street of tall buildings forms the business heart of the city, but not so long ago there were mainly sports fields to be found between Amsterdam Zuid and Buitenveldert. Entirely in keeping with that theme, the street was delivered in 1958 as the Karel Lotsylaan, after the Dutch sports administrator Karel Lotsy. At the end of the 1990s, however, controversy arose around this man. As an official at the KNVB (the Dutch football association) during the war, Lotsy was said, among other things, to have done too little to prevent the dismissal of Jewish referees.
A new name for a new area
Of all years, it was in the one that turned out to be the eve of the creation of a new economic heart with international allure that Lotsy disappeared from the street signs. It was 1998 and across the country various initiatives sprang up to rename streets and squares named after the fallen sporting hero. That same year the new ABN AMRO tower reached its highest point, to open a year later and so fire the starting gun for the unstoppable growth of the area. The bank's new address: Gustav Mahlerlaan 10, after an Austrian composer and conductor of Jewish descent.
Controversy about the controversy
Ten years after the street was renamed, a book about Lotsy appeared. In it, question marks were placed against the accusations levelled at the administrator. So although Lotsy did not in the end become the namesake of the main artery of the Zuidas, his name still graces a street and a square in Dordrecht.
