Apartment Pijp

This completely renovated apartment is situated 5 min the world famous Albert Cuyp Market. "De Pijp" is the most wanted neighborhood in Amsterdam. Lots of very nice (local) places are around this apartment. It is a beautiful ground floor apartment in a lively area full of great and authentic small restaurants, bars & shops. Queen-size double bed, spacious living room and a lovely ensuite shower. We would love to be the one to host you during your trip and share an unforgettable experience.

You have access to the whole apartment. You do not have to share the apartment with others. Make yourself comfortable as if it is your own home.

The house is easily reached via public transport - several tram stops are just around the corner, subway station is 1 block away.

You have access to the whole house with kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room. You do not have to share this apartment with others. Make yourself comfortable as if it is your own apartment!

De Pijp is now regarded as an example of 19th-century cheap revolution construction, but it was once intended to be very different. In the second half of the 19th century, urban expansion was necessary because of the population explosion. In the spirit of Sarphati, the young urban engineer Van Niftrik drew up a plan (1866) for a complete expansion belt in the polder area along the edge of Amsterdam, the area where De Pijp is now located. This area, called neighborhood YY, would become a beautiful new center. According to the plan, the Central Station of Amsterdam was built in the middle, on the site of the current Sarphatipark, and a modern railway line along the current Ceintuurbaan. North of the railway was a neighborhood with large residential blocks and wide streets, and to the south a luxurious residential area with lots of greenery and wide avenues in a star-shaped pattern. Plan YY had a grandeur that could rival that of the new districts of Paris and Vienna. However, the city council rejected the plan. Van Niftrik's street plan required extensive reparcelling, and expropriation per lot would become expensive and time-consuming. This certainly applied to the Zaagmolensloot (the current Albert Cuypstraat), a timber industry area where all sawmills would have to be demolished. In the corner to the north of the Gerard Doustraat, the construction of Van Niftrik's street plan began.

A new plan was drawn up by Jan Kalff, the director of Public Works (plan-Kalff, 1876). He only maintained the raising of the polder area by about one and a half metres, for the purpose of drainage and the sewage system. He refrained from reparcelling, so that the street pattern became a copy of the old polder ditch pattern. The railway line expired, and the Central Station would later be built on the IJ. Kalff left the filling in of the buildings to the free market, which mainly consisted of small 'own builders' who worked with borrowed money and who wanted to make a quick profit. They filled the available space as quickly as possible using the cheapest building materials (revolutionary construction). Nobody built villas there. De Pijp became a neighborhood of long streets with a characteristic streetscape: usually four storeys with a roof, the height of the residential floors staggered between the building plots, each building crowned by a white cornice with a roof and hoisting beam, and each house three windows wide. Sometimes the pattern is monotonous.

Plan-Kalff allowed the Zaagmolensloot to continue to exist undamped as water. Later during construction, it was decided to fill in the ditch after all, so that the current width of Albert Cuypstraat is due to that former ditch. According to the Kalff plan, De Pijp would be built up without squares or public gardens. At a later stage, a park was built, the Sarphatipark. In this park the ground was not raised, so that the old polder level can still be seen there, the park therefore suffers from flooding when it rains a lot. All in all, De Pijp was not an expensive neighbourhood, it was revolutionary construction, but the living conditions were better than in old neighborhoods such as the Jordaan.

The official name of the neighborhood was YY, because in the 19th century Amsterdam was divided into 50 neighborhoods that were designated by letters (A-Z, followed by AA-ZZ). The common name was soon de Pijp. It is not entirely certain where that name came from. The oldest statement comes from the Amsterdamsche Courant (1892): "To which the Pijp owes its name, one can actually best see it in the morning between eight and nine o'clock. When one then posts at the Hemony, Van Wou, Van der Helst- and Ferdinand Bolstraten, which are the actual funnels for the Pijp, then one sees what a stream of people rush through those streets to the old city; then they are actually long wide pipes, blowing out living 'clouds' towards that part of the city where the offices are, the business is done". Other explanations have also been suggested later, such as that the name is derived from the word pipe in the sense of long straight polder ditch.