Facts, figures, and other must-know information about Amsterdam.
For instance:
Amsterdam’s historic grachtengordel (literally, belt of canals) around the city’s center will be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July, a spokesman for the organization has said.
But not everyone is pleased with the decision.
The Amsterdam city council wants to experiment with coffeeshops — those establishments where soft drugs like marijuana and hash are legally sold and consumed.
In one variant drugs would only be consumed on the premises. The other consists only of a take-way counter open during established store hours.
The man whose scream caused a panicked stampede of a crowd gathered at Amsterdam’s Dam Square for the national Remembrance Day commemorations last Tuesday has apologized, his lawyer says.
“By crying out at the end of the two minutes of silence my client acted impulsively due to frustrations in his personal life as well as have imbibed an excessive amount of alcohol that day,” van Essen explains. “He could not have foreseen the consequences of his scream.”
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.
Rental rates for retail space in one quarter of Amsterdam’s shopping streets have gone down this year, Amsterdam daily Het Parool reports.
The crisis is to blame, but in some streets so are the much-delayed construction activities surrounding the problem-plagued new metro line.
Meanwhile, shop keepers in one popular shopping district are being priced out of their stores.
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.