The Face of Amsterdam’s Nightlife: Freek Wallagh on his first month as Night Mayor
While Femke Halsema, Amsterdam’s daytime mayor, is tucked away, fast asleep in bed, Freek Wallagh is typically in the midst of his work. But today, we meet around 15:00, “this is when I first start my day” he laughs. I can’t tell if he’s joking. What should one expect from a Night Mayor after all? “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks. I say it’s more than fine with me, and as he brings the cigarette up to his lips, an assortment of rings glitter on his fingers. When you hear the title of “mayor,” you most often picture someone who looks over 40, and definitely not someone with style. He’s cooler than I expected anyone with the title of mayor to be (no offense Halsema, you’re cool too, in your own way). “You’re much younger than I expected,” I say. He chuckles, “a lot of people underestimate me because of that.” He tells me that at 24, he is the youngest Night Mayor of Amsterdam.
But what even is a Night Mayor? The “Mayor of The Night” seems so fantastical of a concept it hardly seemed real when I first heard it. But the seriousness of his title is not to be underestimated. Administratively begun by GroenLinks in 2002, the Night Mayor is not in want of responsibilities. Anyone who knows Amsterdam knows that Amstedam’s nights are notorious for their abundance of drugs and sex ™. Paid sex, most infamously. I can’t help but wonder how one person can take responsibility for such an important and controversial section of our 24 hours. He does comment on the controversial nature of many aspects of the night, and stresses the importance of keeping a discussion going about these issues such as a sex work and drugs.
“What is your relationship to the daytime mayor?” I ask him. He tells me that he works closely with Halsema, has countless meetings, legislation to arrange, and events to organize and attend on top of projects to continue and others to begin. How does one have the time in the day to do all that? Let alone the night? I wonder what kind of person it takes to face such an undertaking, to not go gently into this good night.
“I’ve worked as a poet and a writer since around 15, when I started interviewing people in the Red Light District. Bouncers, bartenders, sex workers – you name it. That’s also when I became politically active. I’ve been an activist since I was 16.” Wallagh continues this activism to this day. Just last year, when David Ike, an Anti-Semite who has been denying the Holocaust for 20 years, attempted to make a speech at Dam Square, Wallagh, who is Jewish himself, was a part of the resistance against him. “I organized the demonstration to get him denied entrance. So now he isn’t allowed in the Schengen zone for 7 years.”
Wallagh is also a political scientist specialized in the power dynamics of nightlife and cities, providing him an excellent skill set for understanding and standing for the night. Though he seems the perfect fit, Wallagh is the first person to comment on how little people actually know that the Night Mayor even exists. I asked how he first learned about the position himself. He told me that, due to his love for poetry, he learned that the first ever Night Mayor was in fact the late poet Jules Deelder. Deelder was the Night Mayor of Rotterdam for many years, ever since he was first called the Night Mayor by a bicycle repairman in the 1970s and the name stuck. Being intensely passionate and familiar with Amsterdam’s nightlife, Wallagh found himself running for and eventually winning the position of Night Mayor just last month.
The night gave me so much; this is my chance to give something back
On the night he was elected, he was interviewed saying, “The night gave me so much; this is my chance to give something back.” Now, a month into his service as Night Mayor, I asked Wallagh what he plans to do to give back to the night “I want to play my part in combating bigotry and gentrification, and help protect the things that gave me so much, and that aren’t available to everyone.”
On the night of his election, Wallagh spoke about making the night more accessible, and sitting down with the GVB and improving public transportation at night. Now, Wallagh also speaks about focusing on squatters, illegal parties, experimental artists, punks, and sex workers. He tells me he wants to invest in solidarity networks providing venues for squatters. He also wants to invest in neighborhoods and create new legislation supporting the community and making the night safer for everyone, especially sex workers.
When I asked him what a Night Mayor is, he told me that “the Night Mayor should be there to support voices that are usually not heard.” Wallagh is responsible for “representing the interests of night life communities to the city government, international government, and the media, from the perspective that our interests are often forgotten or ignored in the political process.” Wallagh wants to make a difference. “I’m also a bit of a workaholic. So when I got the gig, I kind of decided, you know, I’ll give this my all. Being Night Mayor is my top priority… I want to help in every way I can to support the networks that are already there, investing in solidarity between nightlife communities, and protecting the freedom of the night.”
As we spoke, I found myself wondering what that nightlife really means, from both the Night Mayor’s perspective, and from Wallagh’s personal point of view. From someone to whom “the night has given so much.”
“I like to look at nightlife in the most literal sense of the word - I just think the most fun stuff starts the moment the sun goes down. It’s the clubs, bars, restaurants, night supermarkets, and snack bars - there’s a lot of reasons why so many people prefer to live at night. I think it’s very important to have an inclusive definition of what the night is because all our fates are tied together, there is this idea that nightlife by its very nature is just a nuisance - I think we need to get rid of that stigma.”
There is this idea that nightlife by its very nature is just a nuisance - I think we need to get rid of that stigma
“The night has given me a sense of community and a sense of belonging, a place where I can be myself, to figure out who I am and what I want in life. It’s a bit of a cliché answer, but I do think that is the transformational power of the night, I think that is why most people come there. Because there is a relative freedom that you can’t experience during the day, even though freedom in the nights aren’t granted, especially around gentrification and bigotry. There are still a lot of threats.”
If you’ve ever dipped your toes into the Amsterdam nightlife, or the nightlife almost anywhere, you’ve probably witnessed first hand a thing or two you wish you hadn’t. From bodily fluids, nudity, a range of substances, to overall obscene behavior and even violence, the night has its horrors. Some are more mundane than others. With a unique access to drugs and sex work in Amsterdam, there are shades of Amsterdam nights’ darkness that are incredibly dark. But there are also aspects of the night that are exceptionally beautiful. There is a particular freedom to the night that Wallagh hails. Once Amsterdam is veiled in darkness, we may shed who we are during the day, and what separates people from one another seems to lessen. “At night time it’s often easier to forget our differences, there can be less scrutiny than there is during the day. On the other hand, racism, misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia are also prevalent at night. I don’t want to create this fake romantic image as if the night is this safe haven where everyone is always happy and safe at all times. I think we should recognize that if there is a potential for solidarity and tolerance it is mostly at night. But that these things are not self-evident. They are worth being defended.”
Amsterdam is a city of outsiders, it always has been
Though the night has its fair share of prejudice and hatred, there is an authenticity to the strangers you meet in the smoking terrace, a special type of honesty in a club bathroom and a freedom of running along the sidewalk and dancing in a club until you can’t dance anymore that keeps people coming back. “Amsterdam is a city of outsiders, it always has been.”
Wallagh is Amsterdam’s Night Mayor. The mayor of the night, of all that happens in the night. Of the clubs and parties, of the drunken stupor and bikes plunging into canals. Heavy drugs and blissful moments of sublime amidst sweaty bodies with terrible music and good music alike. Of sex work and squatting, and the time where those without a place to stay amidst Amsterdam’s ongoing housing crisis truly have no where to sleep, no home, no bedroom, no bed. Of gentrification happening in real time and the hours when the thrum of Amstedam’s heartbeat is loudest, Wallagh’s fingers are on the pulse. As mayor, Wallagh spends his time and energy preserving the freedom of the nightlife and ensuring it is a safe, and lively place for everyone. But “as a poet, I just very much admire the beauty of the night.” The life, death, and rebirth of Amsterdam happens at night. I personally, will be sleeping soundly knowing that Wallagh is advocating for it.