Houthaven

M/V Rochdale One was a cruise ship built by the French shipyard Ateliers et Chantiers Dubigeon-Normandie at Nantes in 1977 for the Soviet Union. As the Ayvasovskiy (Russian: Айвазовский) she was operated by the Danube Shipping Company, mainly in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. At around 7,600 GRT, with a length of 121.5 metres (399 ft) and a draught of 4.5 metres (15 ft), she was small for a cruise ship and carried only 328 passengers.In 1997 she was chartered by German company Phoenix Reisen, and renamed Carina. In 2000 she was sold, and renamed Primexpress Island, sailing out of Cyprus as a floating casino. However, in 2001 the ship was arrested at the port of Limassol because of unpaid bills.Eventually the ship was acquired by three Dutch housing associations; Algemene Woningbouw Vereniging (AWV), DUWO, and Woningstichting Rochdale agreed to cooperate in order to alleviate the extreme shortage of student accommodation in Amsterdam. The ship was towed to Greece to be converted into an accommodation vessel before sailing to Amsterdam, arriving there on 8 July 2004. Renamed Rochdale One, she was used at Amsterdam from 2004 until 2009 as a home for 194 students. The ship was then laid up until August 2011, when she was towed to 's-Gravendeel, before being sold to a Lebanese company. In February 2012 she was towed to Tripoli, Lebanon. In July 2013 after a failed attempt to sell the ship to Russian buyers, she sailed to Aliağa, Turkey to be scrapped.

As a continuation of the existing warehouses in the center of Amsterdam, around 1900 several new warehouses were built near the IJ bay. Most of these warehouses were converted into apartments at the end of 20th century.

On 21 April 2012 at 18:30 local time (16:30 UTC), two trains were involved in a head-on collision at Westerpark, near Sloterdijk, in the west of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Approximately 117 people were injured, one of whom later died in hospital. The collision is thought to have been caused by the driver of one of the trains passing a red signal.

NDSM is a neighborhood in Amsterdam, Netherlands located on the former terrain of the Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM) shipbuilding company. It is located in the Amsterdam-Noord borough along the IJ river and can be reached by ferry from Amsterdam Centraal station. After the shipyard closed, the various buildings were occupied by squatters before being gentrified in the 2000s, becoming offices for groups such as Greenpeace, MTV, Pernod Ricard, Red Bull and ViacomCBS.

The Smallepadsgracht is a short and narrow canal in the Amsterdam-Centrum district of Amsterdam. It is in the Westelijke Eilanden (Western Islands) neighborhood.

The Zoutkeetsgracht (Salt sheds canal) is a canal to the west of the center of Amsterdam.

Het Schip (The Ship) is a building complex in the Spaarndammerbuurt neighbourhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The complex in the architectural style of the Amsterdam School was designed by Michel de Klerk in 1919. It originally contained 102 homes (now 82) for the working class, a small meeting hall, a post office, and an elementary school. Since 2001, the former school and post office are used as a museum about the Amsterdam School.

Westelijke Eilanden (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌʋɛstələkə ˈʔɛilɑndə(n)], Western Islands) are three islands in the Centrum district of Amsterdam: Bickerseiland, Prinseneiland and Realeneiland. They are located to the south of the IJ and the Zeeheldenbuurt, to the north of the railway line between Central Station and Amsterdam-Sloterdijk, to the west of the Westerdok and to the east of the Planciusbuurt on the Westerkanaal. The Westelijke Eilanden form the core of the Golden Reael area, which also includes the adjacent Westerdok island, the Haarlemmerbuurt and the Planciusbuurt. The Westelijke Eilanden form a small world apart from the city. They are suitable for walks, which Joannes Antonides van der Goes recommended in a poem, Ystroom, as early as 1671. They are often used for filming. There have always been warehouses and shipyards on the Westelijke Eilanden. They formed an important part of the atmosphere on the islands, a combination of working and living. The islands are sometimes called the "Mokum Archipelago".

The Realengracht is a canal in Amsterdam, in the Centrum district.

The Westerpark (English: Western Park) is a public urban park in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The former borough (stadsdeel) of Westerpark is named after the park, as is the current neighborhood. The verdant space of the former Westergasfabriek gasworks along Haarlemmerweg has become a place for cultural avant-garde businesses and events.

The Prinseneilandsgracht is a canal in the Centrum district of Amsterdam. It runs between Prinseneiland, an artificial island, to the east and the mainland to the west. Until after World War II (1939–45) the canal was bordered almost exclusively by warehouses and factories.

The Gouden Reael is a traditional designation for an area of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It consists of the current neighborhood Westelijke Eilanden ("Western Islands", i.e. Prinseneiland, Bickerseiland and Realeneiland) plus the Westerdokseiland, Haarlemmerbuurt and Planciusbuurt. A 'Gouden Reael' ("golden real") was a Spanish coin from the 16th century. The birth house of Laurens Reael (1583–1637), third Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, had a golden real on its signpost or gable stone, from which the family took its name. In 1648, the Reael family, which counted several prominent Amsterdam citizens, built a warehouse on the Zandhoek, again with a golden real gablestone. Around 1800 this building turned into a popular inn, "De Gouden Reael", which was made famous by a 1940 Jan Mens novel by the same name, and after which the neighborhood has been named. In 1610 and 1615 three artificial islands (Prinseneiland, Bickerseiland and Realeneiland) were built as an extension of the harbor. Until the end of the 19th century this was an area with many wharfs, little industries and warehouses, related to the shipping trades. After the second World war the desolated area was discovered by many artists (Jan Sierhuis, Johan van der Keuken, Jef Diederen, Reinier Lucassen, Peter Schat among others), who established their homes and studios in the vacant buildings. During the second half of the 20th century the old warehouses were transformed into apartments one after another, and new apartments were built. Nevertheless, a lot of the atmosphere of the past is still present in the old buildings and wooden drawbridges.