The streets at night
The Plantage goes quiet earlier than any other corner of the centre. The zoo closes its gates in the early evening, the botanical garden shortly after, and by nine the Plantage Middenlaan belongs to trams, cyclists and residents coming home from the theatres along the Amstel. Residents near the zoo walls grow used to the odd exotic call drifting over at dawn, and the Entrepotdok at midnight, its warehouse fronts reflected in black water, is one of the loveliest views in Amsterdam that almost no visitor sees. In summer the benches of the Wertheimpark hold a few readers until dusk, and then the quarter hands itself over to streetlamps and the rustle of leaves. The quarter's hotels keep night staff, and their lobbies are calm rather than busy, so a composed visitor crossing one at eleven draws no attention. Mansion-block apartments have heavy street doors, shared marble halls and sometimes a lift the size of a wardrobe. The warehouse lofts on the Entrepotdok are reached through communal entrances and long corridors, so send the entrance number as well as the house number, because the facade repeats for hundreds of metres.
