The city council is always promising to clean up the Damrak - a horrible mishmash of cheap hotels, pizzerias and tatty souvenir shops. But it does have a few redeming features.

One is the Berlage stock exchange - which is possibly the most important building to emerge from the Amsterdam School. It was only used for a few years, because the stock brokers did not like it. It now houses exhibitions and concerts and, if you have enough cash, private parties.

In the main exhibition room a frieze shows the evolution of man from Adam to stockbroker. The beautifully-restored art deco cafe is worth a visit if you like that kind of thing.

The city centre borough council wants to sell the Beurs because they can't make any money out of it. They must be doing something wrong.

Overlooking Beurs Plein to the right of Hendrick Berlage's building is the current stock exchange, the Effectenbeurs which, despite its appearance, was actually built 10 years after Berlage's. But now screen trading has replaced the pit, it too is largely redundant.

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