The Empire on the Nes

The Nes has been the theatre street of Amsterdam for centuries, with auditoriums behind narrow fronts that fill up in the evening. At number 17, from 1911 until 1937, stood The Empire, the earliest café in the city known as a place for homosexual men.

Around that time there were about five such places in Amsterdam. All of them were watched by the vice squad, which withdrew the licence as soon as too many conspicuous men turned up for its taste, so a bar usually lasted a few years and then disappeared. The Empire kept going for twenty-six years, which makes it the exception.

In the same year the café opened, article 248bis entered Dutch law, making contact between an adult and a person of the same sex under twenty-one a criminal offence. Anyone stepping through this door knew the police were watching from outside, and came anyway.

At the end of the Nes we follow the Rokin south to the Munt, and from there head west along the Singel to number 460.