” A laugh and a tear in the Jordaan”

The Jordaan Area was built on to the city right after the famous canal area had been built , in the seventeenth century. Whereas the canal area offered place to houses of wealthy businessmen and governors from local authorities, the Jordaan was meant to be a , working class neighbourhood. Also people who had fled from other countries such as Welshmen and French Calvinists known as the Huguenots, lived in this area. As opposed to the canal area, the constructors hadn't used a proper urban development plan. The area consisted of ' built-in' houses, slums, corridors, alleys, and ditches, used as drainages and for transport.. From 1965 on people joined forces to make sure that the Jordaan area wouldn't become a completely new housing estate but that it could remain its original character combined with newly constructed houses built on a low scale base. The guide is taking you along these relatively newly built houses ánd the typical almshouses scattered along the Jordaan, which were often built by wealthy persons in order to offer widows, poor or elder people a place to live. They thought when they did something right for society, they would earn a nice place in heaven.