forwarded message...
Dear friends of Amsterdam Cafe, Five years ago, on march 13 2002, we opened Amsterdam Grand Café on strada Covaci in the middle of Lipscani, the old city centre. For a long time people consider Lipscani as an area with a lot of growth potential, but by then rubbish, empty houses, destroyed buildings and shady streets battled for negative attention. But, stubborn as we were, we continued the renovation of our building and opened Amsterdam Grand Cafe. The Café became a landmark in Bucharest, a place that everybody knew and/or heard of. Now, after 5 years, I have come to the conclusion that one day Lipscani will a beautiful centre with great shopping, nightlife and touristic attractions, but not in 2007. In these 5 years I have seen the neighbourhood only going down, especially after the municipality decided in march 2005 to close the area for traffic. With the argument that renovations would start soon, it became forbidden to enter with cars after 09.00 in the morning. The Lipscani streets were blocked by police and barriers, Lipscani was closed like a ghetto. Due to this restricted traffic access and the disappearance of 800 parking places in Lipscani, the sales of the local businesses in the area fell dramatically, sometimes with 50%. Add never working streetlights, streets filled with holes and rapid developing petty crime and pretty soon Lipscani's image and economic development went down the drain. If you walk through the streets these days you see closed businesses, empty shops, dust and trash everywhere. The result of a strange decision from the municipality to damage the business climate in the old city centre. In March 2007 the long awaited renovation project of the old city centre started. I have to say that until now it has been quite a mess. Business owners and inhabitants are not informed what happens in their streets, time consuming archeologic excavations delay the works, the planning is chaotic, the architectural design is unfinished, and works are performed in a rush, because part of the project has to be ready on September 1 when the mayor wants to show off with his new centre. I know they will start digging in Strada Covaci this year, but I have no clue when and for how long. The conclusion is that I will close Amsterdam for at least a year, starting on july 16. It doesn't make sense to run a nice bar in a business unfriendly and worn down environment. I do it with pain in my heart, because I love the café, I love it when it is full and noisy and people have fun. But at this moment I see that my guests are not willing to make the trip to Amsterdam by foot through this construction site. No guests, no money, no fun…. So I will take a break, or start a New Amsterdam somewhere up North….. To quote a famous Austrian body builder: 'We'll be back', because Amsterdam belongs to Bucharest. And Lipscani will be beautiful one day. Have a great summer, see you soon, Jerry van Schaik *** sustineti [romania_eu_list] prin 2% din impozitul pe 2006 - detalii la http://www.doilasuta.ro *** Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romania_eu_list/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romania_eu_list/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
