Carice

The former windows that are under the control of Amsterdam Centrum were the portfolio of 18 properties  comprising  51 windows, purchased from brothel owner Charlie Geerts in 2007.  The majority of these buildings were located on Oudezijds Achterburgwal and some of the side streets off it. These are the properties which potentially  could revert to their proper use,namely : Oudezijds Achterburgwal  13,17,19,27,40,60,64,66, 80,82,121,  Boomsteeg 1, Oudekennisteeg 5 and Stoofsteeg 1 and 6. Presumably, the purported deal that has been done with the owner of the sexyland kamers detailed in an earlier post in this thread, will relate to some of the above buildings. Whether Amsterdam Centrum will ultimately concede to all of these windows reopening remains to be seen!

In respect of your other query, Project 1012 will see the closure of all windows in the sexyland area including Bethlemsteeg and Sint Annestraat.

Doc

I suspect that the nights will become even more noisy and that noise will continue well into the early hours.

I get the impression that girls on OZA only really start to earn their money from 11pm onwards - i.e. the time where the tourists are safely wrapped up in their warm beds. Maybe there are many reasons for this, but one of these I suspect if that your average mongerer doesn't want to be seen coming out of a kamer within sight of thousands of tourists.

That was the great thing about the Sexyland area, the average tourist didn't walk around the Sexyland area (I bet that many of them don't know it even existed), apart from the guided tourist party, which tended to be all finished around 10pm. So from 10pm I could go to an area where there I knew that were good performing girls and I wouldn't be ridiculed by tourists when coming out of the kamer.

Oza around midnight is still pretty busy with tourists, so mongerers would only start to visit the girls on OZA in the early hours when the tourists have gone, the girls would begin to start later knowing that they wouldn't get any customers until late, all resulting in more and more noisy people staying out later and later.

Generally I don't think that noise pollution will be reduced as the two noisy areas were OZA and Warmoestraat. And I consider that the Sexyland was just an extension of the Warmoestraat area.

Therefore I suspect the residents will continue to complain about the noise in the area (and don't even start me on people who move to an area and then complaint certain attributes of it, such as noise - it was like that before you moved there ffs)

bb69

IF for every kamer they closed in the sexyland area they opened one on or near OZA I would be OK with the idea. Let's face it OZA is a lot prettier/more interesting than the sexyland area (with the exception of the Oudekerksplein, but few of us do much mongering there). And a more compact vibrant RLD would be just fine with me.

Problem is there are many more kamers in the sexyland area than are available for reopening in and around OZA. So it seems we will soon be faced with yet more rounds of whittling down the number of kamers.

I suspect enough (kamers and coffehouses) will be left to market Amsterdam as a tempting somewhat forbidden place to causal tourists.
But will there be enough left for us serious punters?

If not I am sure some other location with step up and fill the void
If that turns out to be the case I will truely miss Amsterdam, it has been a special place to me for a long time.

I have rarely sessioned on OZA, it feels way too public and open. The alleyways give some sense of privacy when entering and leaving a kamer.

Thanks Doc for infos.
Naive question, but I do ask : is La Vie en Proost the stripclub, still be open in Bethlemsteeg anyway or not ?

In the long term, I doubt it. That entire area between Damrak and OZA will be "cleaned up".

Carice, I think cocksure is spot on......La Vie en Proost's days are numbered, nothing that is sex related will remain in the sexyland area post Project 1012.

My concern was to know is La Vie en proost could be transfered to another location on OZA.

I've just learnt that Lucia (who has a really good reputation though I had no session with her) would be in De Wallen for working every two weeks and then may return to Czech Republic. So I would say the fans must pay her a visit as soon as possible.

Hi guys, go to www. Amsterdam.nl and write project 1012 in the search area. There you will find a lot of information about the "whats" there going to do with the sint anna area. Gr dutchie tineke

Thanks for the info Tineke!

Looking on that amsterdam.nl site, there's a fairly detailed policy document showing which windows are planned to close around the Oudekerksplein area here:

http://www.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/396760/101005_def_visie_oudekerksplein_db.pdf

I haven't had time to look through it properly, but there are maps showing the windows affected around the Sexyland area. The document is too big for Google Translate to process the whole thing in one go, but a bit of cut & paste and everything should become clear....

Wow. They're really taking out all the little streets.

I guess one good thing is that Elodie will have to move. Hopefully she'll get a kamer with a bigger bed. I finally figured out that the reason I don't have a good time with her is because her bed is so small that I can't get in a position that doesn't hurt.


the dogs

Wow this really does suck. More and more windows closing. its going to get very crowded if we all just have two or three streets to walk around.

And unfortunately, in the words of "The Talking Heads", it will not be..."same as it ever was......"

It make me angry that the SO-CALLED leaders of Amsterdam are so keen to bite the hand that feeds it.
All the way down the tree, people make a liveing from it, oneway or another" If anythink , makeing it better is the path to go on.

When peoples livelihood are put at risk they"ll see a side to human nature they wont like.

will82 has taken the words out of my mouth, my thoughts since this news broke !!!

when the Amsterdam council have closed most of the windows, and pat each other on the shoulders with a job well done smile, in a few months time, when there are virtually no tourists or mongerers like us, they will then be saying....

what the fuck have we done ?
by then, too late. i love Amsterdam after all these years, im totally in love with the Dutch people, but, i will happily seek my pleasures in Frankfurt, or another German city, where their governments, councils arent so bloody pedantic.
Countries like Poland. Bulgaria, Lithuania are the places for me to visit in the future !!
Sorry Amsterdam, you had your chance, and blew it big time

regards

I share the disappointment, but I think the only ones who will really notice to the point where it impacts their behavior will be the seasoned sex tourists like guys here.

The typical tourist will keep visiting and we won't. And that's probably exactly what those in power right now want. They aren't stupid. They just want something different than we do. And it's not for we non-Dutch to decide. They have a right to their elections and we can only watch.

I think no, they wouldn't say like this - they will just count money in their pockets, not in a city's budget. I think all these changes are about money and nothing more. Morality and other reasons announced are only used to justify the changes, but they are not true.
I guess people who have big money, huge companies or may be private investors are interested in that part of Amsterdam (the best for business and one of the most expensive I guess) and it's much easier and faster to deal with a city council than to buy buildings and businesses at DeWallen one by one. So then everybody is satisfied - the business people get the territory (and open boutiques, Michelin star restaurant, whatever), city government get a rollback (backwash or how is it called? - sorry for my english, it's not native for me), tourists think that Amsterdam become more moral, more safe, more clean... and budget get more taxes (because I think really all those coffeshops, kamers, sexshops, pubs are hard to control and get proper taxes from)... Everybody is satisfied except us, micers... and the girls... but who cares about us?

alexmalta
i agree to disagree.

Tromp is probably one of the oldest parts of Amsterdam, i cant see how the council can justify pulling that area down ( listed buildings ? ), even if they kept it, cant see a business wanting to buy a property there, can you ?
regards

Pattaya looks much closer to me now ,than used to be before. It will still be some fun in De Wallen, but no, no, no, Amsterdam will never be the same!

What's their reasoning?

My hunch is that a political entity will frown generally upon any mongering location that appears to be "on the sly." Narrower, shorter streets, and streets which have overhangs or low roofs over them, will be disliked, whereas large open areas will be preferred. The perception (and it might often be true) would be, I guess, that if the windows are "out in the open" then the police can better control the area. Less women who should not be working can be "hiding" for example, so that might cut down on trafficking and on under-age prostitution. Also, there could be less illegal drug dealing because the cameras can catch it better if it's out in the open. Also, you "force" the mongering customer to go admit that he's doing it, rather than getting away with "happening" in on a location without being seen.

Basically, the arrangement in Den Haag, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Antwerp -- wider, "open" streets, with a main entrance and exit, and then sterile and very public windows lined up one after another.

Really, I don't dislike the theory. I like mongering in all the RLDs of those example cities. There's something monger-friendly about the fact that the tourists aren't really interested in strolling through on a tour. It feels almost dirty, kind of like being in a peep show, to walk the Hunsestraat / Geleenstraat corridor in Den Haag. There are always about 30 men, and they're all mongers, and they're all keeping aloof from one another and letting us all mind our business. It's not a bad arrangement!

And in fact, all those cities that have the antiseptic arrangements, are places where mongering is surviving and thriving. For Brussels, to the contrary, which is famous for having ONCE IN THE PAST had a good mongering zone, there's been talk here on the board about how people can't enjoy themselves as much as they used to be able to, because of the risk of crime. Maybe the cleaned-up arrangement works in the other cities? I kind of like those other cities.

The thing is, it's not AMSTERDAM-STYLE. Sure, it's a nice clean efficient method of interfacing client or customer to product. But it's not very boheme, is it? I can't imagine plopping the Den Haag monger-zones into Amsterdam. Sure, I like Geleen/Hunsestraat, and I like Doubletstraat. But I like them IN DEN HAAG. I don't think I'd like them in Amsterdam, and I can't really imagine that Amsterdam can accommodate that kind of arrangement.

Down on Ruysdaelkade, there's a pretty good set up. The women are "arranged" in that very sterile, organized way, and the strip of kamers is very much "out in public" in the sense that the cameras, and the police, can readily get to you. There's no way to hide an illicit deal -- or a trafficked girl -- behind the corner or in a nook or cranny on the Tromp. I like Ruysdaelkade.

But for different reasons, I really like the Covered Area (La Vie En Rose) and the street leading up to it. And Tromp. And Sint Annen. Those places seem like I can "get in the zone" by disappearing into the dank alleyway. I like the idea that there's not a vista. It's my territory, it's monger-man's land, it doesn't belong to the tourist.