November 24, 2020

Dutch artist Streetart Frankey unveils huge car pick

Filed under: Art,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:23 pm

You know those ‘paper picks’ you might have seen in real life at a dinner or in a movie featuring a dinner where after the bill was paid, an employee would put it on a paper pick?

This new outdoor piece by Streetart Frankey does the same, but with cars, a nod to when there were more cars than green space at the art installation’s location. The artwork can be admired on the corner of Hondsrugweg and Hettenheuvelweg in Amsterdam Zuidoost, the city’s only exclave. Amusingly enough, I saw it this morning from a bus, but was not quick enough to snap it.

The general area features many large businesses like the big Swedish furniture warehouse and the Johan Cruijff Arena. Soon the are will have a park, surrounded by 5,000 new homes, which are sorely needed in Amsterdam.

The cars are what the Dutch call ‘old timers’, which means cars that are at least 25 years old in this case DAF cars, a Dutch brand.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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November 8, 2016

Amsterdam-Zuidoost to get its first coffeeshop

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 9:22 pm

While Amsterdam is busy closing down coffeeshops – the ones that sell marijuana and hash – the district of Amsterdam Zuidoost is going to get its very first coffeeshop, and I bet many people didn’t know that they didn’t have any in the first place. I didn’t know and I’ve lived there.

The coffeeshop will be close to the Bijlmer Arena station and will probably be called ‘Roots’. The city gave the green light for a coffeeshop there in 2000, but the rules regulating its eventual location were still an issue and it took a long time for it all to get sorted. The new business is not in a residential area or close to schools, so it should be fine.

(Link: at5.nl)

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May 14, 2013

Police accused of brokering a wedding to save a girl’s family’s honour

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:09 pm

Dutch police in Amsterdam Zuidoost have been accused of acting as ‘matchmakers’ for two underaged Dutch Muslims of Pakistani and Hindustani background. Together with Fier Fryslan, a Friesland-based organisation specialising in ‘relationship violence’, the ones who were involved in redesigning women’s shelters to put them out in the open, had their hand in a religious wedding performed to save the girl’s family’s honour.

Dutch law apparently forbids religious weddings, and the couple have agreed to attend a civil ceremony when they turn 18 to make it nice and legal, but the critics aren’t happy with that at all. They argue that traditional Islamic marriages put women in a subordinate role by denying them equal rights such as divorce.

Both the police and Fier Fryslan say that the media attention is being taken out of context, as they would not actually have agreed to a forced marriage. However, a social worker in Amsterdam Zuidoost has accused both parties of acting as if they have ‘saved the day’.

(Links: www.amsterdamherald.com, www.volkskrant.nl, Photo by Anthony Kelly, some rights reserved)

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March 24, 2009

The friendly neighbourhood mood wall

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 4:16 pm

 

moodwall

Here’s the Mood Wall, another urban project from back in Feburary that was also meant to liven up a notorious rough part of town, in this case, Amsterdam Zuidoost.

“Some 2,500 LEDs under a ribbed, semi-transparent wall create a wonderful light effect, which provides a pleasant moment under the underpass. Presence of ribbed sheets ensures that the wall isn’t very vulnerable to graffiti, while making the lights look better.”

(Links and photo: cube-architecten.nl, gizmodo)

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October 13, 2008

Amsterdam, king of the Nigerian spam jungle

Filed under: General,Online by Orangemaster @ 10:09 am
419

According to Dutch newspaper NRC, Amsterdam Zuidoost (South-east Amsterdam) is the centre of a worldwide network of Nigerian con artists who send those e-mails asking for big bucks, commonly known as 419 fraud. “Nigerian fraudsters regard the Netherlands as a safe haven. The police are seen as soft and, moreover, Amsterdam Zuidoost is home to a close-knit African community making it easy to go to ground. It is also conveniently near to Schiphol airport.

According to Yvette Schoenmakers, a police academy criminologist, the first Nigerian swindlers started using the Netherlands as a base back in 1990. The police were unaware of what was going on because the scam was not directed at Dutch citizens. Most of the victims were foreigners, often American, some of whom lost thousands or even hundreds of thousands of euro.

How much money is involved in the Dutch-based scam is unknown, says Schoenmakers, although police figures from 2005 suggest that foreign victims may have lost a combined 22 million euro. But the real damage could be at least ten times that, she says.”

(Link: nrc.nl)

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