The short answer
An Amsterdammertje is the red-brown steel bollard that separates the pavement from the street in Amsterdam. The name means “little one from Amsterdam”, and each one bears the three Saint Andrew’s crosses of the city’s coat of arms. In 1984 there were about 100,000 of them; by 2003 there were 37,616.
A post with the city on it
Walk down almost any street in the old centre and there is a row of them between you and the traffic: red-brown steel posts about 1.35 metres high. An Amsterdammertje is a traffic bollard, and the word means “little one from Amsterdam”. Its job is to keep the pavement apart from the street.
Each one bears three crosses, one above the other. They are the three Saint Andrew’s crosses from the coat of arms of Amsterdam, so every post carries the city’s own mark.
It began with old cannons
Around 1800, many people in Amsterdam started putting posts in front of their houses to protect the pavement. These were made of stone, of wood or of metal, and the metal ones were at first old cannons.
The first cast-iron posts were made in the late 19th century. From 1915 there was a standard one: cast iron, 70 kilos, with the three crosses on it. It already looked like the post of today, only thinner and heavier.
Lighter, and then fewer
From 1972 the posts were no longer cast in iron but made from plates of steel, and weighed only 20 kilos. That is the kind in the streets now: every post of the 1915 kind has been replaced or removed. In 1984 there were about 100,000 of them.
They turned out to be no match for lorries, which ran over them more and more often, and cars could still pass between them. So in the 2000s the pavements were raised a little instead, and about two thousand posts a year were taken away. In 2003 there were 37,616 left. The city council sells the ones it removes.
Find the crosses again
Once you have seen the three crosses on a post you will find them, and the crown that belongs with them, as decorations all over the city. In the coat of arms an imperial crown sits on top of the shield. Look up at the Westerkerk: the crown at the very top of its spire is that one, the Imperial Crown of Austria of Maximilian I.
So the next time you lean a bicycle against one, count the crosses. Then see how far you can walk before the row of posts runs out.
Where to see it
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