I remember Amsterdam in the late 70s being real classy - on my first visit I wound up in an overcrowded unofficial hostel, in the middle bunk between deranged German and Scottish druggies, or dealers, who spent the night coming and going and trying to kill each other. Another night I was chased by a goon in the red light district while trying to photograph a large bright red neon sign advertising "Real fucking live sex". In recent times I've had to make do with enjoying Russell Shorto's book Amsterdam.

Pal above - "I occasionally walked thru the [RL] area just to see what its current status was."

Yes!, that's it, that was what I would have been doing there in the late 70s and why I ended up being chased by the goon.

AMSTERDAM SQUATS IN 80'S AND 90'S:

Interesting article on some famous Amsterdam squats in the 80s and 90s - note how colorful many looked on the outside. I went into quite a few and on the inside they looked really ramshackle - ah an interesting time in Amsterdam.

https://whatsupwithamsterdam.com/amsterdam-squats/

Lots of people were squatters in the 1980s/1990s. I know two Ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church, even then married to each other, who studied theology in the late 1980s and who were squatters. I used to live in an ex-squat myself, but in The Hague. That was the Pander Factory, which we renovated with help from the local Housing Department. For young people in large cities there wasn't an alternative way to get into proper housing. A lot like today's situation, really.

Don't mean to hijack the thread with something about London, but one of my sons lived in a squat in London years ago; the Libyan Embassy no less. You may not recall, but in 1984 a demonstration outside the Embassy against Muammar Gaddafi was fired on by machine guns by someone inside the building. A number of the demonstrators were wounded, and a British policewoman was killed. This rather pissed off the Brits, as you might imagine, and the Libyans were kicked out of the country and the Embassy closed.

My boy was going to college in London at the time and he and a group of his friends quickly moved into the building. When the police came around and told them to leave, they explained that they were not in Britain, but on the soil of a foreign country and the coppers had no authority to make them move. This caught the ear of the press and even tickled the police. They were allowed to stay and the original occupiers were checked in and out by the peelers guarding the front door. They were gleefully able to stay there for several months, taking everything movable out the back door and selling the items to buy adult beverages to fuel the parties they threw. I have always rather admired my kid for doing that.

One of the few if not only squats of the 70s still going strong is in Copenhagen, in a disused military base - and a very interesting weird but neat place - one of Copenhagen's most popular tourist spots.

SEX VIDEO PARLORS AND STALLS:

Though no doubt gone today with the Internets providing all that folks need to get off on - from the first time I came to Amsterdam- Sex Stores selling hard-cor porno videos along with an eclectic assortment of sex 'toys' had private small stalls where one could chose any of hundreds of porn videos (heterosexual and gay sex as well as fetishes and sado-machistic, etc, videos to watch - feeding a guilder every few minutes into the machines to keep them going.

These parlors were clustered in a few venues - one by the Munt and many on Haarlemerdijk (?) Straat near the train station area and of course the Red-Light District. Many reeked of a certain suspect smell! And as was mentioned above the RLD also had touts out front of places shouting out 'real live xucky xucky! (These may still be around I suspect.)

I assume sex gadget stores may still remain but the old porn stalls are gone. And though these were also common in German cities in places like Hamburg's Reeperbahn and in Copenhagen (where shockingly even there were child porn listed!), I assume they are a thing of the past but for the time they were part of Amsterdam's sordid reputation!

Well Pal, you sure did get around. Happy I'm not of your "persuasion"

Menachem - I was always an observor of all things - does not mean I am of any sordid 'persuasion' as you rather cluelessly imply - I did watch a few just to see what was else but had much better things to spend my guilders on than porn in Amsterdam, like psychedelics and cannabis. Anywhere I traveled I saw as much as I could of many facets of places - that was part of the adventure of travel and as a journalist specializing in Europe for decades, I saw many eye-opening unsavory things and wrote about them. You'd rather close your eyes I guess and that is fine too.

But observing things is not necessarily supporting or condeming them as you may judmentally do. And, that's fine too.

Anyway too quick to condemn!

No not closing my eyes, but not closing my eyes either for the way in which women are used as a commodity to produce porn and how they are exploited in prostitution, the odd exception excepted of course.

If you spent your money, you supported it.

There are more than women being exported in "the" industry.
Moving on a bit look how The Netherlands is changing. Some cities are spying on you.

I did not spend my money on hat porn except a few times not to get my jollies off but to see exactly what was available as my role as a journalist - you jump tpconclusions and condemn me for something overall I never did except for research for my articles.

I too condemn the exploitation of women or men sexual to make profits for others. I do not condemn it if the women or men were doing it voluntarily that would be enforcing your morals on others. That said I would never pay for sex nor porn, etc,

"IT'S GONNA BE A L O N G HOT SUMMER!"

Long hot summer and Amsterdam are usually an oxymoron IME. Oh there can be heat waves when temps soar in 80s (all based on spending 15 straight summer in Amsterdam and vicinity doing our bike trips but before effects of Climate Change felt more recently perhaps) but usually 60s and low 70s with some daily highs much lower and not uncommonly wet weather (one year on bike trips thru Lowlands and bit of neighboring Germany it rained at least once for 45 days - often an all-day drizzle - not very nice for a bike/camping trip!)

But one early June when walking around there was an obese gypsy-looking in dress old hag sitting at an outdoor cafe who said right to me as I walked by "It's going to be a long hot summer!"

Sure, sure you ole bag, I thought to myself, I bet you say that every year in late spring when the sun pops out and dismissed it as nonsense.

But lo and behold that summer turned out to be an infamous heat wave where temps often were in 80s and 90s, hardly cooling off at night, for the rest of the summer. And, I often thought back to that lady and what she predicted.

(this was about 1985 or so - a year or two after the consant cool rainy summer where in our Paris campsite we could see our breathe one August morning it was so cold!)

Weather in this area can be very variable - IME - from day to day and even hour to hour.

Does Amsterdam get wet weather? Just look at all those Dutch elms lining canals, etc - green moss growing on their westward ho faces - the way the wind blows - wet winds!

"But one early June when walking around there was an obese gypsy-looking in dress old hag sitting at an outdoor cafe who said right to me as I walked by "It's going to be a long hot summer!""

Nastier and nastier.

FLYING DUTCHMAN DAYS...

The Flying Dutchman is a small pub (cafe in Dutch parlance) near Centraal Station:

Cafe The Flying Dutchman

Today it looks like a normal Amsterdam cafe where folks come to get pissed and have a good time. (Last time I was there in 2013 and by the site's photos.) But back in the 80s and early 90s it was one of those 'only in Amsterdam' type places. At that time it was patronized largely by Brits from the Manchester area who were living and working in Amsterdam - kind of being their 'local', a rather rough-looking crowd but amiable.

Rarely was Dutch heard spoken except by the then tough-looking red head young 30s type Dutchman who said he owned the place and ran it, sometimes like a thug when some patron got out of line.

Manchester United football games were broadcast on large - for then - TV screens and on game days the small pub was packed to the gills, cheering on the local favorite.

But a normal pub it was not...

TBC

The FLYING DUTCHMAN no was not your usual pub - it was not a coffeehouse (pot parlour) but many folks were toking up as they sat around the long bar - I liked to get a seat by the window and gaze onto the street - especially on a foul rainy day -sit there toking and what the flotsam and jetson or whatever go by. The reason me and my friend Tom discovered the Dutchman was that someone told us that it was a place to buy acid. Which we did for several years. More on that next time - being in Amsterdam whilst on acid was well surrealistic at times.

TBC

There is also the Flying Dutchman martini bar not far away from the old Flying Dutchman - not sure of any connection but don't confuse the two if seeking out the older Flying Dutchman which now from web site has changed into a more upscale place - I have not been there since 2012 and even then was changing - pot smoking gone and of course with no-smoking laws now probably smoke free - man that was one smokey place before!

Gosh. And to think that my highlight for a night out was going to the final instalment of the Gay Dating Show.


With Hetty Blok singalong.

I think Amsterdam has been (or still is) getting a bit too much of a bad rap.
You have to keep in mind that the city center is of fairly compact size. Warmoes straat, central station, Dam.. that's just a few minutes of walking apart.
There have also been not so quaint areas in London or Paris in the 1980s - but further away from the obvious tourist spots, nicely segregated in Brixton or Belleville (speaking of those decades).
So much easier to ignore or literally undiscovered by the regular tourist who thought that everything in Paris was just dancing in the rain with Fred Astaire and Ginger Roberts and sipping cafe au lait on Boulevard St. Germain after strolling in the Tuileries.

Anyway.. I liked (most) of Amsterdam when I was 18/20 in the late 1980s. And having grown up near the Dutch border, A'dam was the obvious first choice for most people I knew in my age group.. and yes, it had something (but MUCH less than Puritans may expect) to do with cannabis ;-)