Fast and sloppy
De Pijp rose from the ground around 1870, quite literally. Where hipsters now sip their oat milk cappuccinos, there were once soggy meadows. The city was growing like mad and more houses were needed. Lots of houses. Fast and cheap, because workers and their families had to live somewhere. That didn't always go well: walls without mortar, collapsing facades and planks instead of beams. The city authorities looked the other way, and that could only end badly. In 1871 the first of these relatively new, badly built houses were already collapsing.
Sin, sweat and singalongs
De Pijp soon became notorious. Not only because of the rickety buildings, but above all because of the nightlife. It was a constant coming and going of cafés, smoky back rooms, suspiciously cosy boarding houses and 'establishments'. On the Ceintuurbaan, the Jan Steenstraat and around the Sarphatipark, a shadowy economy of pleasure and company flourished.
Dutch cabaret was born here too, in a little venue on the Quellijnstraat that went by the name De Kuil. Singer Eduard Jacobs sang songs there about the poverty and the morals of his time. And yes, also about the ladies of De Pijp who knew life 'of joy and shame'.
Mail from Pst-Pst!
As if that wasn't colourful enough, a saucy little paper appeared in De Pijp: Pst-Pst! For ten cents you could enjoy dirty jokes, dubious lonely hearts ads and letters full of relationship drama. The editorial office moved regularly, from the Hemonystraat to the Govert Flinckstraat, probably because the neighbours were getting a little too curious.
A selection from the adverts?
"Elderly lady, 74, very wealthy, would like to love once more."
"Heir wanted, my husband is failing. Who will serve as 'creator'?"
Adverts from Pst-Pst!
Well, Tinder has nothing on that.
From the slums to the salons
De Pijp is no longer the wild jungle of old. The houses no longer collapse, but they do now cost an arm and a leg. Where songs about sin and poverty once rang out, you now hear laughter on sunny terraces. Yet the soul of the neighbourhood lives on. You only have to walk down the Albert Cuyp market to feel it.
So the next time you stroll past the Gerard Doustraat, spare a thought for Eduard Jacobs, Vlaamse Jet, and of course the lady of 74 with her fiery desires.
- 01De Pijp started out as a working-class neighbourhood, but because of the high rents, students were often taken in as lodgers.
- 02We don't actually know exactly why De Pijp is called De Pijp. There are, however, a few theories.
- 03In 1900 there were five times as many Amsterdammers as in 1815, and many of them ended up in De Pijp,
- 04The neighbourhood was almost demolished in the 1960s to make room for motorways? Plan Jokinen wanted to tear right through the neighbourhood. The same Jokinen also had a plan for The Hague, which was never carried out either.
- 05The 'civilising offensive' of the 1920s made De Pijp a good deal more liveable, with better housing and social services.
