PHOTO
INSERT CREDIT HERE
and 30-something nostalgia freaks occupies the former
home of Sexyland, an insalubrious den of video-related
entertainment of a very different stripe, slap-bang in the
middle of De Wallen, the area otherwise known as
Amsterdam’s red light district.
You could even say that being on the game here has
taken on a whole newmeaning. Today, the profile of
visitors to the city’s notorious, but breathtakingly
beautiful, medieval core has shifted subtly yet
perceptibly and you’re just as likely to bump into a
dandyish young couturier in a green velvet suit walking
his beagle around the Oudekerksplein as you are a shifty
individual promising something nefarious.
Measuring a whopping 230m
2
, the Ton Ton Club is by
far the biggest player in a glut of newcomers that
includes a coffee-and-cuts hair salon (the Cut Throat
Barber on Warmoesstraat, once the city’s foremost LGBT
street); the meticulously curated art space-cum-café
Ultra de la Rue
(ultradelarue.tumblr.com)
; and Quartier
Putain
(quartierputain.nl)
, a coffee house with a built-in
hip-hop record label which, as its French name implies,
is situated in a former brothel. Elsewhere, lurid fast-food
joints selling cures for the munchies are giving way to
sophisticated wine bars such as Mata Hari
(matahari-
amsterdam.nl)
, while one former den of iniquity is now a
radio station, called, you guessed it, Red Light Radio.
Appropriately, given the neighbourhood’s new-found
entrepreneurial get-up-and-go, there’s a tidal wave of
high-end caffeine washing about the place, meaning
GAME PLAYERS
03
Ton Ton Club
co-founders Serdar
Tonkas (left) and
Tony Michiels
04
Amsterdam’s first
barcade is proving
rather popular
05
Cut Throat Barber
& Coffee Shop
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A M S T E R D A M
