Category: About Amsterdam

A man described by witnesses as ‘confused,’ let out a lengthy scream during the 2-minutes of silence observed as part of Remembrance Day commemorations in Amsterdam.

The disturbance caused panic in the crowd, with a 50 people injured in the stampede that resulted.

Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen later this month will present the city councel with a handful of alternative measures designed to prevent the forced closure of coffeeshops located near schools.

Federal rules to go into effect no later than December 2011 will prohibit coffeeshops from operating within 250 meters from a high school.

An Irish drug dealer whose remains have been found in an Amsterdam canal had fled Ireland to avoid imprisonment and to escape gang members who held him responsible for revealing information that led to discovery of their drugs factory.

Amsterdam police found his remains three weeks ago in the water near Diemerzeedijk.

The body of Keith Ennis (30), from Clondalkin, Dublin, had been dismembered and stuffed into bags, suitcases and trash bags.

Radio Netherlands reports that rubbish is dredged from Amsterdam’s waterways at the rate of 18,000 cubic metres per year, including beds, couches, small boats, stethoscopes, guns and even a dead body. Not to mention hundreds of discarded bicycles.

Ashleigh Elson goes out on patrol with Waternet’s dredging team.

The Netherlands is among a handful of countries where — under certain circumstances — squatting is not forbidden by law. If a building has not been used for a period of twelve months, and the owner can not demonstrate that he plans to ‘soon’ start using the building again, squatting is tolerated.

The squatters movements gained much sympathy during the seventies and early eighties, but in recent years the increasingly anarchistic nature of these groups has had politicians calling for changes to the squatting laws.

The City of Amsterdam has announced it will close 43 of its 228 coffeeshops because they are located too close to schools.

In doing so, Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen “reluctantly” follows up a federal government directive to establish ‘distance criteria’ between schools and coffeeshops.

Amsterdam’s medieval core is divided in an ‘Old Side’ and a ‘New Side.’ We’ll show you which is which, and tell you how these terms came into use. And yes, the Old Side is actually slightly newer than the New Side.

Included in this entry: the oldest known city map of Amsterdam, painted in 1538.