Kalverstraat&rsquo;s name comes from the cattle market which was held here until the seventeenth century. All kinds of cattle were traded here: cows, oxen and calves. Little of that remains. After the market was moved, the street became a fashionable shopping street. In the nineteenth century the street changed again as a new commercial climate took hold. Larger businesses swallowed up the smaller specialist shops. Famous department stores and clothes shops such as Vroom &amp; Dreesmann opened. Today, Kalverstraat is still a top location. Indeed, it has some of the most expensive real estate in the Netherlands. Yet businesses are willing to pay the price to be able to sell on one of the busiest streets.

Kalverstraat

That a miracle once took place on the very spot where Amsterdam Dungeon now draws in the crowds is news to many. This is the story. In 1345, a man lies dying in his home on Kalverstraat. A priest gives him the last rites: and he swallows the wafer. But he is sick, and the vomit is thrown in the fire. The next day, his nurse finds the wafer in the fire in pristine condition. A priest brings it to Oude Kerk or Old Church. But mysteriously, it reappears in the house on Kalverstraat. And again. It is a sign from God. So a chapel is built on the site: The Holy Stead Chapel. Pilgrims soon flock to Amsterdam. And these pilgrims are a boon to the economy. They buy products and visit the annual fairs. They pay for lodgings and for food. And to remember their pilgrimage and their arduous journey, they buy symbolic trinkets sold at the chapel.

The Holy Stead

To start a business, you need capital. You can borrow money from a bank, and pay interest on the loan, or you could go to the city&rsquo;s own lending bank: Stadsbank van Lening. This credit bank was founded in 1614. Which makes it Amsterdam&rsquo;s oldest financial institution. It was originally set up to enable the less fortunate residents of Amsterdam to borrow cash. You could get a loan from the bank by leaving jewellery and valuables as surety. Among Amsterdammers, the Stadsbank van Lening was known as the lommerd, and Uncle Jan. These days, anyone over eighteen can get a loan from the Stadsbank van Lening against collateral.

City Lending Bank

At one time, this was the site of a meat market known as Sint Pietershal. In the Middle Ages, trades and professions were organised in guilds, and St Peter&rsquo;s guild had a monopoly on the sale of meat. It was in 1582, that the guild opened this special meat market for meat sellers. All kinds of meat was sold here from around the country, and even from other countries, such as Denmark. Meat had long been a luxury and a privilege for the wealthy. The poor had to make do with fish. Although the market hall was demolished in 1931, there is one part of the old building that survives. Take a good look around and discover what it is.

Meat Market

It was in this building here that Amsterdam&rsquo;s chamber of the Dutch East India Company was based. The VOC was a commercial company founded in 1602 to trade in Asia. Its organisation was revolutionary: it was the first company to have shareholders, combining the risk of the long voyage to Asia and back. This form of modern entrepreneurship proved a model for success. Merchants who made their fortune trading in spices, porcelain and other products became the upper class of Amsterdam. Naturally, the city tried to keep a firm grip on the company&rsquo;s organisation. Other cities with VOC chambers, such as Enkhuizen and Middelburg, often complained. But to no avail. Amsterdam footed the bill. They paid, so they laid down the law!

East-Indies House

This massive, palatial residence was founded on blood and iron. The owners, Hendrick and Louis Trip, were merchants whose business was weapons, firearms, ammunition and war. They had learned their trade in the early sixteenth century, working for their uncle Louis de Geer, an arms dealer in Sweden. It was a lucrative business. The many wars of seventeenth-century Europe created an insatiable appetite for weaponry. The Dutch Republic was well known as a prompt supplier of cheap products, which made it the ideal place to buy arms. And the Trip brothers supplied everyone. They even sold arms to Spain: the enemy of the Dutch Republic in the Eighty Years War. Spanish gold was as good as anyone else&rsquo;s! With their amazing wealth, they climbed the social ladder. Success in business is often rewarded by status.

Trip House

Jan van der Heyden is one of the most innovative, creative and multi-talented people Amsterdam ever produced. He was a painter and an inventor, and involved in politics too. Van der Heyden&rsquo;s inventions included a new lamppost, which burned longer. He also designed an improved fire extinguisher. He devised an ingenious arrangement of pumps and hoses, shown here in the illustrations. It meant that water no longer needed to be collected in buckets: it could pumped directly from the canal. Van der Heyden demonstrated how his system worked and documented it, as a printed report of his demonstration here shows. His improvements to the fire extinguisher were a groundbreaking achievement for Dutch fire brigades. Indeed, today&rsquo;s prize for innovations in fire fighting is named after this enterprising Amsterdammer.

Jan van der Heyden

It was in the Dutch Golden Age that the first Dutch gin distilleries were built, not least in Amsterdam. Because the city was a centre for the spice trade and spices were freely available here, these were also used in the genever industry. Wynand Fockink set up his distillery in this road in 1730, and soon emerged as one of Amsterdam&rsquo;s biggest liquor distillers. The firm acquired an international reputation. They even supplied drink to the French emperor Napoleon. In 2013, the company was taken over by Bols, another distillery that had started in Amsterdam, founded in the sixteenth century by the Bols family. Today, you can try the genevers and liqueurs here that are still made in the old traditional way.

Wijnand Fockinck distillery

Adolphe Wilhelm Krasnapolsky was one of many migrants from Germany who came to Amsterdam in the nineteenth century to make their fortune. His father was a tailor who had settled in the city in the mid-nineteenth century. The young Krasnapolsky began his career tailoring at a leading department store: Winkel van Sinkel. In 1866, he left his job, having resolved to try something different. He took over the loss-making Nieuwe Poolse Koffiehuis and changed its name to Caf&eacute; Krasnapolsky. A smart move, it turned out. Caf&eacute; Krasnapolsky became so successful that he was able to expand and rebuild as a hotel. Famous features included the winter gardens and the billiard room. The splendid garden is illustrated in the picture, and you can well imagine why those who could afford it spent their time here. Krasnapolsky took risks and rose from humble tailor to hotel owner: a true self-made man.

Hotel Krasnapolsky

One of the key elements in Amsterdam&rsquo;s commercial success was its stock exchange. Amsterdam&rsquo;s stock exchange was the first in the world to deal in shares as well as commodities. There was an exchange here on Dam Square in 1611, where Gebouw Industria now stands. Merchants from around the world came here, to trade at the exchange built by Hendrick de Keyser. As Olfert Dapper wrote in his chronicle of Amsterdam, here the world and all its wealth was traded. The glory days of the exchange came to an end in 1835. The subsiding building was demolished to make way for a new exchange, designed by J.D. Zocher, on the site of today&rsquo;s Bijenkorf. This edifice was roundly disliked in Amsterdam. They called it the mausoleum, and it was small and draughty. In 1883, a new exchange was planned. It was designed by H.P. Berlage and opened in 1903, after which the Beurs van Zocher was demolished.

Stock Exchange

When the city selected a location for the new stock exchange designed by H.P. Berlage in 1883, there was considerable opposition. Business people and architects had other ideas for the site. Now that Amsterdam had a Central Station, it should also have a broad boulevard. There was plenty of support for the boulevard plans. Three thousand signatures were collected for a petition presented to the city council. Two proposals for a boulevard are shown in the illustrations: by architects W.P. Werker and J.H. Springer. Springer&rsquo;s plan had the support of Amsterdam entrepreneur Adolphe Krasnapolsky. Small wonder, since the planned boulevard happened to lead right up to his hotel: Krasnapolsky. A happy marriage of private and public interests? It did not help. The city eventually chose to go with the planned stock exchange and the proposals for a boulevard were scrapped.

The Boulevard Issue

A typical motto of the Dutch Golden Age is emblazoned on this building: Count the cost, then take the profit. A saying as old as the road to Rome. Indeed, it comes from an ancient Roman play. The motto goes to the core of entrepreneurship: you have to invest before you can return a profit. And it symbolises the business acumen of Dutch traders in the Golden Age. Going into business involved considerable risk, especially in the unstable seventeenth century. Traders who lost their fortune had to go cap in hand to the town hall, now the royal palace on Dam Square. Here they registered as bankrupt at the Desolated Property department. The illustration shows a print of a relief of the Fall of Icarus above the door to the chamber. This represents the pride that had once characterised those who now entered through the door. They had flown too close to the sun, and so they too had plummeted down to the earth.

'Count the cost before the profit'

There is more to the Dutch Golden Age than successful trade and growing prosperity. This is also the age of the first financial bubble and speculative trade: tulip mania. Tulips were originally imported from Turkey; merchants first brought them to Europe in the sixteenth century. In Amsterdam it became all the fashion to own these exotic flowers. Tulips were increasingly popular, and traders demanded ever higher prices. Speculators began buying and selling bulbs that were still in the ground. Some varieties of tulip became so expensive that they changed hands for the price of a house on a canal. It spiralled out of control. A tavern at Oudebrugsteeg 23, The Ox at the Wedding, was a popular haunt for tulips dealers. In 1636, the market collapsed. Tulips lost their value completely. Suddenly they were practically worthless. Many investors in Amsterdam lost huge sums of money.

Tulipomania

This free-standing building opposite, is one of the few remaining guild houses of Amsterdam. It was home to the guild of grain weighers. It was they who ensured that the grain which was sold at the corn exchange was accurately weighed in standard amounts. Amsterdam owed its economic growth to the grain trade. Merchants from Amsterdam bought cheap grain from the Baltic in exchange for Dutch products such as herring and cloth. This may have been less spectacular than the trade with Asia, but it was more secure and profitable. Many of Amsterdam&rsquo;s merchants accumulated their capital in the Baltic trade. That enabled them to invest in the more risky trade with Asia. Above the entrance to the grain weighers guild-house is a relief featuring the attributes of the trade: a weight, a barrel and a strickle

Grain Weigh House

Strategically located on the rivers Amstel and IJ, Amsterdam has been a hub of international trade since the fourteenth century. People of Amsterdam naturally developed a sense of enterprise. And it was equally true then that you might get stinking rich, or end up dirt poor. This route features several key enterprises and locations from Amsterdam’s commercial history. The first stop is on Kalverstraat. Starting from Amsterdam Museum, the best way to begin is to walk along the museum café and out through the gate. This walk is one of a series of Amsterdam DNA Tours: thematic routes through the city linked to the Amsterdam DNA exhibition. Check out all four routes on Enterprise, Freedom of Thought, Creativity and Civic Virtue. Enjoy your walk!

Amsterdam

Amsterdam DNA - Spirit of Enterprise

Overview:

Listen to sample

To get the full experience, please download GlobeTrott Travel app

LIST OF SITES