New Market. Home to the striking Waag gatehouse -- where Rembrandt came to watch Professor Tulp in action before painting The Anatomy Lesson -- and also some of the most festive holiday celebrations in town, the Nieuwmarkt has been a marketplace since the 15th century. In those days, de Waag -- or Sint Antoniespoort (St. Anthony's Port) as it was then known -- formed a gateway in the city defenses. It was not until 17th-century expansion that the current form of Nieuwmarkt was established and farmers from the province of Noord-Holland began setting up stalls to make it a bustling daily market. The Kruidenwinkel van Jacob Hooy & Co. (Kloveniersburgwal 12), Amsterdam's oldest medicinal herb and spice shop, and a small row of vegetable stalls are the only vague reminders of those times.

Before the 1796 Civil Liberties Act, when Jews were restricted from most trades, many took up street entertainment and Nieuwmarkt evolved into a favored location for many fairs and circuses complete with acrobat, horse, and freak shows. Nieuwmarkt still maintains these festive roots, especially on Chinese New Year, as the area forms the heart of the city's modestly sized China Town (that is, until New China Town, envisioned as a mini-Singapore, arises in the next years to the east of Centraal Station), which extends down Zeedijk and Binnen Bantammerstraat. The community originates from a 1911 seafarers' strike that motivated the hiring of Chinese sailors from England and Hong Kong. Many more came via Suriname after its 1975 independence from Dutch colonial rule. A slightly more curious celebration is the medieval-rooted Hartjes Dag ("Heart Day") in August, which involves that holy trinity of alcohol, firecrackers, and cross-dressing. Suffering a decline in recent decades, it is now experiencing a renaissance since being embraced by the city's ever-growing transvestite population.

The Waag (Weigh House) in the center of the square was built in 1488 (as can be attested by the stone tablet emblazoned with MCCCCLXXXVIII, placed on the small tower facing Geldersekade), and functioned as a city gate, Sint Antoniespoort, until the early 17th century. During those centuries, the gate would be closed at exactly 9:30 PM to keep out not only the bandits but also the poor and the diseased who built shantytowns outside the wall. When the city expanded, it began a second life as a weighing house for incoming products -- in particular such heavier goods as tobacco bales, ship artillery, and anchors -- after a renovation added a tower and covered the inner courtyard. The top floor of the building came to accommodate the municipal militia and several guilds, including the masons who did the evocative decorations that grace each of the towers' entrances. One of its towers housed a teaching hospital for the academy of surgeons of the Surgeons' Guild. The Theatrum Anatomicum (Anatomy Theater) with its cupola tower covered in painted coats of arms (many of which disconcertingly reflect many of the doctors' original trade as barbers), was the first place in The Netherlands to host public dissections. For obvious reasons, these took place only in the winter. It was here that Rembrandt sketched Professor Tulp in preparation to paint his great Anatomy Lesson. The good professor procured his bodies from those hanged on the southeast side of the Waag. The surgeons must have mourned the coming of the guillotine during the reign of King Louis Napoléon -- a time that saw the Waag's importance as weigh house increase when the one on the Dam was cleared to improve the king's view from his palace. Now the building is occupied by a café-restaurant with free Internet service and the Society for Old and New Media. How things have changed.