Amsterdam’s red light district is an uncomfortable place for a woman to walk at night. Drunk tourists from all around the world wander the streets, leering into the red-lit windows where prostitutes rent a space and ply for trade.
Thanks to years of problems, the city’s residents are demanding action. The local government coalition was elected on a plan to roughly halve the number of sex-worker windows, and to move them to an “erotic center.” But there’s a problem: no one wants it on their doorstep.
At the city’s NDSM Wharf on Monday evening, the letters EC (“erotic center”) were set on fire. This Docklands site in north Amsterdam had been shortlisted to host what will be Europe’s largest brothel. On Tuesday, a decision was finally made as to where the EC should go; the Wharf’s residents can breathe a sigh of relief: the mega brothel will, in fact, be located in the south of Amsterdam on Europaboulevard, a well-to-do district a stone’s throw from the RAI conference center.
Irate locals will have little choice about her new neighbors
House prices in the nearby residential neighborhoods are, according to one estate agent, among the highest in the capital, at up to €9,300 euros ($10,250) per square meter. People like Cynthia Cournuejouls, who chose to settle her family in the Rivierenbuurt, are livid. “You will be making a new tourist magnet for the kind of tourists that you just don’t want,” she said.
But it seems her and other irate locals will have little choice about her new neighbors. “The location is in a strong, socially-resilient neighborhood compared with other researched locations in the city,” said the press release announcing the location of the brothel. “It is outside the A10 ring road and easily accessible by public transport and car. It will be easy to connect to existing events and visitor streams… and the nearest homes are on the other side of a wide road.”
Entering a second term as mayor, Femke Halsema is determined to make the brothel part of her legacy. Halsema wants to clamp down on criminality in the red light district, make the historic area livable again by halving the number of window brothels, and create an alternative, safe and inclusive space for sex workers.
The brothel forms a key part of the solution. When she described the erotic center to me a year ago, she depicted a seductive venue, inspired by the Baz Luhrmann film Moulin Rouge. It would be a multistory center with “some class and distinction (that) isn’t a place where only petty criminals and the most vulnerable women gather.”
Locals obviously don’t see it that way. They fear that the new location will be so extravagant that it will attract even more lusty crowds: the kind of tourists the city has told to “stay away” in recent years in its crackdown on louts.
Over the summer, a self-described “monster coalition’” formed of businesses, residents, brothel owners and sex workers presented the mayor a protest petition with almost 11,000 signatures. Several sex-worker demonstrations have also been held, although curiously many of the women were wary of commenting — even anonymously — when I asked why they were there. The European Medicines Agency, which recently relocated to Amsterdam, is unhappy at the prospect of an erotic center close to its offices, as is the NH Hotel Group. At a residents’ meeting in the RAI earlier this year, some locals from the south said they were considering legal action or civil disobedience campaigns. Publicly naming and shaming visitors to the erotic center is one option being put forward by fed-up locals.
For visitors to boring conferences at the RAI, the prospect of an erotic center within walking distance may well spice up their work trips. But, even if the council votes through the latest recommendation, there’s a long road of reports, consultations and studies to go. If the mega-brothel is built, it will be at least 2030 before the first punters arrive.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
