August 6, 2009; 20 Vijzelgracht, Amsterdam @ 16.30
Imagine, you're sleeping in your historic monument home and all of a sudden you experience something like an earthquake in a place where there are no earthquakes. What could it be? For these poor people, it was just the underground retaining wall of the under-construction subway tunnel giving way. And inside of a few minutes, several 438 year old, million dollar monumental homes unevenly sink 9 inches into the ground turning these heavenly homes into condemned buildings. They only remain standing thanks to the external and internal wooden support skeletons that you can see here.
This building, and the sister building next to it, have literally fallen victim to some poorly planned and technically poorly executed tunnel digging on Amsterdam's multi-billion white elephant project called the Noord-Zuidlijn (North-South Line).
This building is called the wevershuis (weaver's home) and was built in 1670/1671. At that time this neighborhood now in the heart of the center was on the outskirts of the city. The textile industry was one where poor people could be trained in order to make a decent living. In order to stimulate this and the industry in general which was going through tough times in 1670, the city government donated land to several charity organizations on the condition that they construct living and working facilities for prospective weavers, wool dyers, wool spinners and their families. These were then a very early example of government economic stimulation along with what we today call a public-private partnership.
The city has purchased these homes from their owners for undisclosed amounts.
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