Recently I have talked with some of my family (my fathers side of the family) about the Valentijnkade in Amsterdam. The reason we talked about this street is rather simple, it is the street where my grandparents lived and where my father grew up. Pictures from long ago showed up, which was wonderful to see them.
Some years ago I visited the Valentijnkade, but that was just a short visit to have a look around. But now, after all the new information I got and the pictures I have seen, I waited to go there again and have a better look around. Make pictures and such.
I had not planned anything for this yet, but when two weekends ago Marion heard that the weather would be very nice for the time of the year, she suggested to go there that weekend. A grand idea and so we went to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is one of those cities you really don’t want to go to by car. We took a train from Heemskerk to the Amsterdam Muiderpoort rail road station. The idea was to hire there bicycles. Although the sun was shining brightly, the wind was strong. And all of a sudden I had visions of bicycle wheels stuck in tram rails (something that happened to me some years ago). So we decided not for bicycles, but we took the bus. Just a short ride of two bus stops.
When you walk from the Molukken Street onto the Valentijnkade first thing you will notice is the Hartmanbridge (in Dutch “De Hartmanbrug”).
The Hartman Bridge was named in the past “Bridge 109”. But in 2007 it was renamed to the “Hartmanburg” after André Hartman, who was the owner of the cigarette shop on the corner of the Valentijnkade and the Molukkenstreet and who died in 1993 by a robbery of his shop.
My grandfather lived at the Valentijnkade 32, 1 floor (European way, for American people he lived at the second floor). It is also the place where my father (and the others of my grandparents family) lived.
On the picture above almost the complete family of my grandfather (only one uncle and my grandfather himself of course are missing).
And here another picture made of the family on the Hartmanburg or Brigde 109 as it was called at that time.
One thing I am very happy about it that the houses at the Valentijnkade have almost not changed over the years. Of course they have been modernized to nowadays standards, but from the outside they are almost not changed, very unlike what happened to the street where my mother grew up.
It was very nice to wander around. We sat for the longest time on the Hartmanburg, enjoying the sun and chatting a bit which other. So many stories about my father that I still needed to share with Marion. There were so many things buried in my memories and visiting this place brought them all back up…
It really was a very nice and enjoyable day!
ps. The names of the people in the older pictures are known to me, but I found no use in it to tag all the names in this article.
Here some more pictures I made around the Valentijnkade:
Hi Rob. I lived at Valentijnkade 32 (2nd floor) back in 2002/3. ☺️ Lovely photos!
Hi Hannah, very nice to hear from you. And what a coincidence that you lived there.
Can you tell me a little how the houses look from the inside? I am very curious about that. Thank you!