Watercolour Painting Spooksteeg Amsterdam Blue Hour by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About "Watercolour Painting Spooksteeg Amsterdam Blue Hour"

by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About the artwork

A Watercolour Painting of the Spooksteeg/Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam during a Blue Hour.

The Spooksteeg is a short alley in the Oudezijde in the centre of Amsterdam. The alley starts after Vredenburgersteeg and Vredenburgerbrug and ends at Zeedijk. Following it is the Waterpoortsteeg. Due to the nuisance of drunken tourists, drug dealers and prostitutes, the alley has been closed with a fence since the 1990s and only accessible to residents of the flats above. Since the 10s, the alley has been reopened to the public but only to pedestrians from 8am to 6pm. The alley has no house numbers; the premises housing a nightclub and a music shop with the flats above have an address on the Zeedijk but with a back door to the alley. On the other side, the properties border the water of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal. The alley is also used for parking bicycles.

The origin of the alley's name is unknown, according to Amsterdam's explanatory street name book, before 1800 the name did not occur anywhere.

One possible explanation of the name is a myth surrounding a tanner and his daughters Helena and Dina who both fell for the same man, Wout. On 24 July 1753, an icy groan, a terrible howl and a heap of screams sounded on the Zeedijk. It was the ghost of Helena who had to pay for the terrible deed she had done, the death of her sister, for all eternity. Twice in a row, she haunted the Zeedijk for days on end.

A hundred years later in 1853, according to the Algemeen Handelsblad, for about ten days, thousands flocked to the Zeedijk every evening, where, it was said, a ghost disturbed the peace of some houses by grim noises. However, the alley that was still part of Waterpoortsteeg in 1853 was called Spooksteeg in 1855