Street noise
- Reines des trotoirs Postcard
When you see a postcard, you don't immediately think of sound. Yet it is interesting to consider what these women heard on the streets of early twentieth-century Amsterdam in front of the Stadt Hamburg café. Whoever thinks there was less noise then than nowadays due to the absence of cars, busses and heavy machinery, is mistaken. Between 1875-1895, Amsterdam experienced a period of growth. Industrialisation had finally started in The Netherlands and as a result, the population grew, and the city expanded. Amsterdam therefore had to deal with 'modern' city sounds. Think of the sounds of various machines and the introduction of trams. The population growth that Amsterdam experienced also increased street noise. The passing of pedestrians, hawkers, organ grinders, handcarts, and carriages in the center of Amsterdam made it a very noisy city.
In 1875 trams were introduced, which were pulled by horses. After 1900 there were also electric trams in Amsterdam. All the carriages and coaches that were pulled by horses caused a lot of hoof clatter. There was also a lot of everyday noise from activities on the streets, such as sharpening scissors and washing kitchen utensils.
In 1938, the literary scholar Aegidius Willem Timmermans wrote about his experiences with late-nineteenth-century street noise while living in Amsterdam. From early morning until late at night, the streets resounded with vendors selling their goods. ‘Musicians’ with barrel organs and buskers were also crawling the streets. Timmermans also tells about the rattling of the 'vullisman' (garbage man), soldiers, policemen on horseback, and military bands who sang songs on the streets almost every day. At night after eleven, there was the sound of drunken men and women coming out of the pubs. The noise they made kept people awake late into the night. Jacobs, A. E. G. The sound of yesterday: why Amsterdam used to be quiet too (Datawyse / University Press Maastricht 2014) accessed 17-08-2021, 48-50.
Besides the music of musicians and barrel organs, a familiar sound was the singing and banging of pile drivers. Hand piling was a profession that was still common at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It eventually disappeared with the advent of steam and diesel pile drivers. Piles up to twenty meters long were driven into the ground by a small group of men. They had to pull and release the rope simultaneously to drive the pile up and down and give it enough force. The pile driver sang the tempo. The songs often consisted of about thirty lines. After singing, the workers could rest. Piling was associated with sex, and the songs were often about this. Singing kept the spirits up during the heavy and dangerous pile driving work and determined the rhythm of the pile driving. If something went wrong, the pile could fall onto the group of pile drivers. Kieskamp, W., ''That's three, that beautiful Marie'' in: Trouw, (2002) https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/dat-is-drie-die-mooie-marie~b1b079e2/ accessed 17-08-2021.
Between 1876 and 1888, constructions took place at many different sites in Amsterdam, including Central Station, Rijksmuseum, Panopticon, Concertgebouw, and Parkschouwburg. The singing and banging of the pile drivers must have been audible at all the major building sites.
These are two verses of a piling song:
''_That's three
That beautiful Marie
And above the knee.
Or:
''_Five that old bitch
That whore queen
Who let her fuck
You know in which._''