The building in front of you, Warmoesstraat 90, counts as the oldest house in Amsterdam. The timber behind the front dates from around 1485, older than the well-known wooden house on the , although the façade gives little of that away. Behind the door sits the leather bar , so this one address sums up the whole street.
The leather scene arrived here in the middle of the fifties. Sako Jan Tiemersma and Ton Kennedy received friends in their kitchen for a drink and a game of cards, and those evenings grew so full that they turned the place into a guesthouse for homosexual men. In 1965 they opened the Argos in a side alley of this street, the first leather bar in the city and probably in Europe, with what is called the first on the continent in its cellar.
The Argos moved to number 95 across the street in 1979 and closed in 2015 after fifty years. The Eagle stayed, which makes this the only street in the city where the subculture has held its ground without a break since the fifties.
We carry on southwards along the Warmoesstraat, until the street opens onto Dam Square.
Sources. Story: homohoreca.amsterdam and gayvillage.amsterdam on the history of the Warmoesstraat; Gay News (2012), Amsterdam's oudste leerbar Argos heropend; Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser on the dendrochronological dating of Warmoesstraat 90 Photos: Wikimedia Commons, file 2025 Amsterdam, Warmoesstraat 95.jpg
