‘Tick off chalices until 11 o’clock in the evening, to stump up the editors shortly before midnight’

Journalists Rudie Kagie and Paul Arnoldussen at Café Scheltema on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam.Statue Simon Lenskens

In hotel Ink (‘Inkt’), located at number 67 of the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam, the Nieuwezijds for short, the rich newspaper history of the street is benevolently brought to the attention. The restaurant is called the Pressroom, suites have names like The Printer and The Journalist. As wallpaper on the upper floors, prints of the Catholic newspaper that had been based at this address since 1904 were chosen. The time

Old typewriters accentuate the history of the building and the interior designer of the hotel has had a text written on a wall in large letters that should make guests, mostly foreigners, think: ‘Where stories are yet to be written’. The promotional text on the facade, ‘Gun U De Tijd’, has unfortunately disappeared.

‘I’ve handed in a piece here once,’ says Rudie Kagie (71) and it’s time for an anecdote. ‘Further up at The Telegraph the typewriters and telephones were bolted to the desks. Otherwise they’d be flying through the air when the reporters, inebriated or not, argued again.’

With a kindred spirit and contemporary, Paul Arnoldussen (72, ex-The Parool) wrote Kagie (ex-Free Netherlands) a book about what the manager of hotel Ink calls the ‘newspaper district’. In De Nieuwezijds, memories of a newspaper boulevard they describe a lengthy episode in press history. It is a tribute full of anecdotes and personal memories of ‘the Dutch Fleet Street’ – a reference to the center of the national press in London.

Readers in 1959 in front of the window of the Algemeen Dagblad on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.  Image ANP / Maria Austria Institute

Readers in 1959 in front of the window of the Algemeen Dagblad on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.Image ANP / Maria Austria Institute

Another similarity: no newspapers have been established in both newspaper boulevards for a long time. Logistical problems drove the newspapers in both Amsterdam and London to suburbs from the 1960s. De Volkskrant for example, moved to Wibautstraat in a then still open part in the east of the city in 1965, The Telegraph in 1974 to the polder behind Sloterdijk train station.

Twelve national newspapers, plus four weekly newspapers (The Hague Post and Elsevier inter alia) and related services such as printing, photo studios, news agencies (ANP), publishing and advertising agencies. The short distance to the station was decisive.

The origin of the wide newspaper boulevard – there was once a canal, which has been filled in – dates back to 1620, when the Tydinghen uyt Versheyde Quarters appeared for the first time. The news came from an open-air fair in Amsterdam, the emerging trading city.

The visible remains of history are sparse on the Nieuwezijds. Here a facade with inscription (‘Algemeen Handelsblad’), there a hotel that entices potential guests with old typewriters and The time-wallpaper. And there is café Scheltema, the most famous since the 1930s, you could say iconic headquarters of the (mostly) gentlemen journalists. Unlike the clientele, the interior is almost unchanged.

Rudie Kagie and Paul Arnoldussen in Café Scheltema on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam.  Statue Simon Lenskens

Rudie Kagie and Paul Arnoldussen in Café Scheltema on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam.Statue Simon Lenskens

Arnoldussen lives up to Scheltema’s reputation by drinking a few glasses of old jenever on the terrace while smoking. He is a Scheltema expert. Together with Ko van Geemert, he wrote a book in 2009 about the illustrious journalists’ café. Kagie and Arnoldussen spend their old age usefully, they are the editors-in-chief of the biweekly ‘opinion newspaper’ Argus

The history of the Nieuwezijds is also, and certainly not least, characterized by drinking: excessive drinking. In Scheltema, reporters from The Parool and The Telegraph in the majority and later had HJA Hofland of the General trade magazine a fixed table. In the post-war years, reporters from The Parool the biggest mouth. They were young and had been in the resistance.

Hotel Polen on the Rokin was also a popular stopping place. Editors of de Volkskrant were, also during the day, mainly to be found in Hoppe on the Spui and De Koningshut in the Spuistraat. Reporters often reversed the k and the h, which they thought was funny.

Also the communist The truth avoided Scheltema. Kagie: ‘And all the other cafes too, because when the work was done, there had to be canvassing. In addition, they had the mange of colleagues from The Telegraph† Reporters for that newspaper were told by their editor-in-chief that alcohol was the fuel of journalism and learned that it was the custom to have a ‘sandwich’ at lunchtime.

‘Unquenchable thirst and marital infidelity’ characterized the profession and lifestyle of the journalists. Even at the neat Protestant-Christian newspaper Fidelity the sound of clinking bottles could be heard when a drawer was pulled open in the newsroom. The divorce rate in journalism was above average.

A little journalist was surrounded by the smell of alcohol, printing ink and nicotine, write Kagie and Arnoldussen. ‘Tick off chalices until 11 o’clock in the evening and have fun at Scheltema, only to stumble to the editors shortly before midnight to pass on the scoop that would make the people astonished the next morning – that work.’

Editorial of NRC Handelsblad in December 1978, Paleisstraat/Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, Amsterdam.  Image ANP / Netherlands Photo Museum

Editorial of NRC Handelsblad in December 1978, Paleisstraat/Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, Amsterdam.Image ANP / Netherlands Photo Museum

According to Kagie, the café, Scheltema in this case, was the central place of the editorial staff. ‘When the newspaper was called, it was often said that the reporter could be reached at another number. And then Scheltema’s number was passed on.’

Arnoldussen: ‘Max Nord’s daughter from The Parool thought the newspaper was made in Scheltema. She didn’t know any better than the presses in the back of the cafe.’

This continued for a while after the exodus on the Nieuwezijds. Arnoldussen: ‘In the early seventies I spent a few years with de Volkskrant worked on the Wibautstraat. The editorial assistant was sent to café Hesp on the Weesperzijde to get beer and old gin. That was one of his regular duties.’

The other times weren’t necessarily better times. The gentlemen (and a single lady) were highly regarded, but the reporting was not always reliable. Simplicity didn’t help either. It sometimes happened that an apprentice journalist was sent to a fire on a chicken farm, after which he came to Scheltema to report to those who stayed behind, who, competitor or no competitor, then all quickly typed out the same piece.

Arnoldussen: ‘The work was easier. There was no TV, there was nothing. Journalists were very good at using their big thumbs. The facts were unverifiable. You could only talk about something in the newspaper.’

Newspapers were club magazines that preached for their own parish, depending on their place in the pillarized Netherlands. Self-censorship was a habit. At the Catholic Volkskrant was a ban on words like prostitute. The Parool did not report murders in gay circles.

Volkskrant located in the Concordia building on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, April 1955. Image Amsterdam City Archives

Volkskrant located in the Concordia building on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, April 1955.Image Amsterdam City Archives

Kagie: ‘It was allowed to report about a man who had killed his wife. It was a romantic time, but also cramped. Journalists were not allowed to step outside the framework of the newspaper.’

But there was also laughter. It happened that journalists from The Telegraph quickly left café Scheltema at the same time, suggesting that there was big news and thus creating panic among colleagues from other newspapers. Arnoldussen: ‘The humor of that Telegraph-boys wasn’t that bad.’

Arnoldussen and Kagie themselves are too young to have experienced the golden years of the Nieuwezijds. Melancholy is lurking. Arnoldussen is not bothered by it, Kagie is. “It was more fun then in journalism than it is now.”

From their book about the Nieuwezijds, slightly dissatisfied and a bit disapproving: ‘The newspapers have disappeared, so there are a lot fewer journalists, they can be found more in the gym these days than in the pub.’

null Image

Paul Arnoldussen and Rudie Kagie: De Nieuwezijds, memories of a newspaper boulevard† The Republic; 248 pages; € 19.50.

Rommeldamse Courant

The presentation of De Nieuwezijds, memories of a newspaper boulevard will be accompanied by the unveiling of Argus, a bronze statue in the street in Amsterdam on Thursday. Argus is a reporter for the Rommeldamse Courant (and a little tout) from Marten Toonder’s stories about Olivier B. Bommel. With the statue, the authors honor the mostly anonymous reporters who filled the newspapers on the Nieuwezijds until the middle of the last century.

ttn-21