The Nieuwe Kerk and the Town Hall on the Dam in Amsterdam

The squat block of grey stone at the end of the Nieuwe Kerk is all that was ever built of a tower meant to rise over 100 metres. Amsterdam laid its first stone in 1647. Then the old town hall burned in 1652, a war with England began that same year, and the money went elsewhere. Building stopped in 1653. The new town hall, today the Royal Palace, fills the other half of this view. Isaac Ouwater painted the two side by side in the 1780s, looking from the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, which was then still a canal. Its railings run across the foreground, and near them a man with a long pole is cleaning the water. Elegant couples stroll by with their dogs, and a cart waits beside the church. The canal was filled in 1884, and the street Ouwater stood on looks nothing like this today.