there was a neighbourhood bar on Ceintuurbaan in a suburb known as De Pijp, now the ‘Quartier Latin’ of Amsterdam just off the typical tourist trail.
For a period of nine or so years this bar was a second home to a most unlikely and diverse bunch of characters from all nationalities and creeds, from all walks of life. This led to enduring relations and ideas about friendship and life which still have an effect, at least on us, Jet (one of the original owners) and Paul (one of the original customers). Approaching the 40th anniversary of the opening of the bar we wondered if the same applies to you. So, we would like to invite you to an online scrapbook of memories (inevitably a bit faded) and ask the following question:
“If you were in Amsterdam and the Café Cor-rupt in the eighties, how would you describe the atmosphere to people nowadays who were not there (and may mis-interpret the joke in the name)?”
The website
The Café Cor-rupt website is a story of a community that existed for nine years and that experienced all sort of events. A community that was the image of that time, with all the good and the bad that came with it: a history of personal events but also of all that was going on in the 80.s, in the capital of the Netherlands.
The story is made by the customers of Café Cor-rupt: They tell each other how they remember that time, what they liked and disliked about the pub and the world around it. Our role (that of Jet and Paul) is to facilitate: We collect the stories, scan the photos, postcards, poems, jokes etc. and hope that it will be a feast of recognition for everyone that was part of the story.
We hope that our peers that weren’t there at the time can’t help but smile when they visit our website and say to themselves: “That’s how it was, back in the 80’s in Amsterdam.” And most of all we hope that it will be a funny and sometimes moving document for anyone who reads it.