Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Cities being destroyed because of money - Amsterdam

've spent one year at Paris and has visited some cities. Amsterdam was one of them and it was a great pleasure being in such a peculiar and beautiful architecture.
Today I went after this photo of the city at Richie's blog and discovered that money... - yep! always money - is putting in jeopardy this amazing place:

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Such a lovely city!

This was my day trip on Saturday. The funny building in the middle was once bought by speculators with a view to knock it down and put an office in it's place. Squatters occupied it for years and did what they could to preserve it until the City of Amsterdam was forced to recognise it and it was declared a monument and money found to save it.
Posted by Richie at 4:50 AM (click at the picture to see it clearly)

I left a comment and got this reply:
Ana said...

I didn't realize that you wrote that they wanted to ruin the city.
Don't let them!
I've seen a documentary on how Alexandria's coast is being destroyed with a lot of Hotels being constructed.

February 25, 2009 10:03 AM
Richie said...

Sadly the city is always under threat.
How to launder drugs money in Amsterdam: Set up 2 property development companies. Each buys an historic building that badly needs repair. Then sell the buildings to each other at inflated prices thus generating a legitimate income. Eventually the historic building will fall into disrepair (foundations shift constantly- we live in a drained swamp). Get permission to demolish. Sell as prime development project or invest own money and realise even more profit. If you remember to keep the right people sweet you can go on indefinitely

February 25, 2009 12:37 PM
I believe that I shouldn't mind all these changes. It has always been this way. Human all too human.
at

2 comments:

  1. susanFebruary 25, 2009 at 6:37 PM

    I loved Amsterdam when I was there a few years ago thought it was beautiful.

    I thought this was going to be about the plane crash there this morning.. . but no... this made me so sad.

    I hate seeing places I love being ruined.

    Thank you for posting this Ana.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnaFebruary 25, 2009 at 8:57 PM

    Susan,
    Finally an answer from you.
    I was a little bit concerned.
    Isn't it amazing even to consider destroy one of those buildings?

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for the visit.
I'll be very happy if you share your ideas.

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