The municipality has mapped out a walking route highlighting the history of Oud-West, designed to be followed using a mobile phone.
The route officially starts at Ten Katemarkt, the historic heart of the neighbourhood, before leading into the Bellamystraat. Until 1896, this street and the surrounding Bellamybuurt belonged to the municipality of Nieuwer-Amstel, which is known today as Amstelveen.
Walkers will continue toward the Kostverlorenkade, passing the more than 600-year-old Kostverlorenvaart canal and the site where the city’s first Amsterdammertje bollards were cast.
From historic canals to the Autopon building
The path heads via De Clercqstraat to Bellamyplein and De Hallen, before continuing to the WG-terrein.
That site once housed a seventeenth-century pesthouse located outside the city walls to prevent contagion, which was eventually demolished in 1937 after the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital opened in the late nineteenth century.
The route then proceeds via J.J. Cremerplein to the Overtoom, a fourteenth-century waterway filled in during 1903 that historically served as the border of Oud-West.
The walk ends at the Autopon building near the Overtoomse Sluis, though walkers can also complete the route in reverse.
