 The Stadsschouwburg on Leidseplein | |
  Location in Amsterdam-Centrum | |
| Namesake | Leiden [1] |
|---|---|
| Location | Centrum, Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Nearest metro station | Vijzelgracht |
| Coordinates | 52°21′51″N4°52′59″E / 52.364242°N 4.882978°E |
Leidseplein (English: Leiden Square) is a square in central Amsterdam, Netherlands. It lies in the Weteringschans neighborhood (Centrum borough), immediately northeast of the Singelgracht. It is located on the crossroads of the Weteringschans, Marnixstraat and Leidsestraat.
Leidseplein is one of the busiest centres for nightlife in the city. Historically, the square was the end of the road from Leiden; it served as a parking lot for horse-drawn traffic. Today, modern traffic travels through the square and side streets are packed with restaurants and nightclubs. The Stadsschouwburg, a national-renowned theatre, is the most notable architectural landmark on the square; the American Hotel is close by. [2]
On February 22, 2022, a 27 year old man took at least one person hostage inside of an Apple Store in Leidse Square. After a forced breach of the store by Dutch Police, all hostages were safely rescued. However, as a result of the breach, the hostage taker was killed. [3] [4]
It is approximately 150 meters from where well known crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, a key figure in the Marengo trial, was murdered. [5] [6]
Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de Vries was a Dutch philologist, linguist, religious studies scholar, folklorist, educator, writer, editor and public official who specialized in Germanic studies.
Peter Rudolf de Vries was a Dutch investigative journalist and crime reporter. His television program Peter R. de Vries, misdaadverslaggever covered high-profile cases and set a Dutch television viewing record. For decades he was famous in the Netherlands for his works in unsolved crimes. He also became internationally renowned for his programme covering the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. In 2005, he founded his own political party which was disbanded soon after.
RTL Boulevard is a daily television programme on the Dutch TV channel RTL 4. It was set up as a television equivalent of a tabloid, with a lot of airy subjects, news items and gossip about the stars, fashion and criminality.
Willem Frederik Holleeder is a Dutch criminal. He is nicknamed De Neus because of the size of his nose.
The Gladbeck hostage crisis or Gladbeck hostage drama was a bank robbery and hostage-taking that took place in West Germany from 16 to 18 August 1988. Two men with prior criminal records – Hans-Jürgen Rösner and Dieter Degowski – robbed a branch of the Deutsche Bank in Gladbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia, taking two employees as hostages. During their flight, they were joined by Rösner's girlfriend Marion Löblich, with whom they hijacked a public transport bus in Bremen. With twenty-seven hostages aboard, they drove towards the Netherlands, where all but two hostages were released, and the bus was exchanged for a getaway car. The hostage-taking was finally ended when the police rammed the getaway car on the A3 motorway near Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Man Haron Monis was an Iranian-born refugee and Australian citizen who took hostages in a siege at the Lindt Chocolate Café at Martin Place, Sydney on 15 December 2014, lasting for 17 hours, until the early hours of the following morning. The siege resulted in the death of Monis and two hostages.
Amsterdam-Centrum is the inner-most borough and historical city centre of Amsterdam, Netherlands, containing the majority of the city's landmarks. Established in 2002, Amsterdam-Centrum was the last area in the city to be granted the status of self-governing borough. The borough is 8.04 km2 and covers the UNESCO-listed Amsterdam canal belt. In 2013, the borough had approximately 85,000 inhabitants, who on average had the second-highest income per household in the city and one of the highest in the country.
Organized crime in the Netherlands, sometimes called penose is the organised criminal underbelly in Amsterdam and other major cities. Penose usually means the organizations formed by criminals of Dutch descent. It is a slang word coming from the old Amsterdam Bargoens language.
Amstelveenseweg is an Amsterdam Metro station in the south of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The station opened in 1997 and is served by line 50 and 51.
Freddy Heineken, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of the brewing company Heineken International and one of the richest people in the Netherlands, and his driver Ab Doderer, were kidnapped on 9 November 1983 in Amsterdam. They were released on a ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders on 30 November of that year. The kidnappers—Cor van Hout, Willem Holleeder, Jan Boellaard, Frans Meijer, and Martin Erkamps—were all eventually caught and served prison terms.
On 9 January 2015, Amedy Coulibaly, armed with a submachine gun, an assault rifle, and two Tokarev pistols, entered and attacked a Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes in Paris, France. There, Coulibaly murdered four Jewish hostages and held fifteen other hostages during a siege in which he demanded that the Kouachi brothers not be harmed. The siege ended when police stormed the supermarket, killing Coulibaly. The attack and hostage crisis occurred in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting two days earlier, and concurrently with the Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis in which the two Charlie Hebdo gunmen were cornered.
Karel August Pekelharing was a Dutch dancer and choreographer who, when World War II broke out, joined the Dutch resistance, and was executed by the German occupying forces in 1944.
On 5 June 2017, Yacqub Khayre, a 29-year-old Somali-born Australian, murdered a receptionist and held a sex worker hostage at the Buckingham International Serviced Apartments, located in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. In a subsequent shoot-out with a police tactical unit, Khayre was killed and three police officers were wounded. Police consider the siege an act of terrorism.
The Marengo trial or Marengo case is a trial of alleged leading members of the Mocro Maffia, a Dutch-Moroccan criminal organisation. Seventeen suspects are standing trial for involvement in a number of murders and attempted murders. The name of the trial was picked at random by a computer and relates to a fabric named marengo.
In the evening of 6 July 2021, Dutch investigative journalist and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was shot in the head after leaving the television studio of RTL Boulevard in Amsterdam where he had appeared as a guest. Several bullets were fired at him in the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat, near the Leidseplein, while he was walking to his car. He was taken to the VU University Medical Center in critical condition. De Vries died of his injuries on 15 July.
Events from the year 2022 in the Netherlands.
Willem van Boxtel, better known as "Big Willem" is a Dutch "rocker" and alleged gangster who founded the first Hells Angels chapter in the Netherlands.
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