l'Ambassadeur, Rochussenstraat 172
l'Ambassadeur was a white-plastered nightclub, a dancing, bar and cabaret by the words on its own front, and a creature of the ruined city. It went up around 1941 as a noodvoorziening, an emergency provision, and came down in June 1967. It was the third of Rotterdam's makeshift emergency nightclubs to be cleared away, after the Cascade and the Habanera. Its posters, photographs and newspaper notices place it beside the street, but never make it part of no. 169.
A wartime emergency, still running in 1943
The club kept working through the occupation. Its opening poster for the 1943–1944 season survives: a full-colour A1 sheet printed by the Gemeentedrukkerij, with a caricature bandleader and his musicians across it.
It promises a full evening out. It announces the Openingsprogramma Seizoen 1943–1944 of Jean Buurman and his nine soloists, a sterk bezet cabaret-orkest, with the radio singer Wicky Stan and the accordion virtuoso Albert Kock on the bill. It advertises an Internationaal Variété-Programma for fifty cents, or a guilder on Sunday evenings.
Opening programme, season 1943–1944. Jean Buurman and his 9 soloists, a strongly staffed cabaret orchestra, in their original winter repertoire. Wicky Stan, the well-known radio singer. Albert Kock, the celebrated radio-accordion virtuoso. International variety programme. Admission 50 cents; Sunday evening f 1.—. L'Ambassadeur, Rochussenstraat, Rotterdam.
So in the middle of the war the club was a going concern, as a noodvoorziening raised around 1941 would be. The poster gives the address only as L'AMBASSADEUR / ROCHUSSENSTRAAT / ROTTERDAM, though, with no house number and nothing to place it on the street.
A Stadsarchief finding-aid lists a 1946 poster as “Reopened l'Ambassadeur, Rochussenstraat, Rotterdam. Dancing-Bar-Cabaret.” What is kept is the catalogue text, not the poster image. It describes a poster announcing a reopening, but does not independently document the reopening itself.
Finding-aid record from Stadsarchief Rotterdam's "Collectie Affiches" (toegang 4006). Record G-0000-0676: "Reopened l'Ambassadeur, Rochussenstraat, Rotterdam. Dancing-Bar-Cabaret", a poster dated 1946, size 79 × 54.7 cm, made by and rights-held by Grijseels, J. No street number is given.
The corner in 1957
By the mid-1950s the club was a fixture of a busy crossing. On 18 July 1957 the Fototechnische Dienst of Gemeentewerken Rotterdam took an elevated view that catches it whole.
Hall l'Ambassadeur (dancing, nightclub, cabaret, bar) on the corner of the 's-Gravendijkwal and the Rochussenstraat (left in the foreground).
In the near foreground stands the low, single-storey white building with the club's own signboards, DANCING AMBASSADEUR / BAR / CABARET and a Cinzano panel. Around it lie cleared lots and a broad traffic junction busy with buses and cars. The catalogue line for this frame settles what the wartime poster and the street number alone could not. The Stadsarchief describes it as Zaal l'Ambassadeur … op de hoek van de 's-Gravendijkwal en de Rochussenstraat: the club on the corner of the 's-Gravendijkwal and the Rochussenstraat.
Demolished, June 1967
On 13 June 1967 Het Vrije Volk reported that the old club was retiring and would soon be pulled down, under the headline L'Ambassadeur in nieuw onderkomen, "l'Ambassadeur in a new home".
Het Vrije Volk, Tuesday 13 June 1967, p.4. "L'Ambassadeur in a new home." Twenty-six years after it was thrown up as an "emergency provision", the white-plastered nightclub l'Ambassadeur on the Rochussenstraat has been pensioned off. Yesterday the new l'Ambassadeur opened, diagonally across from the old establishment, at the end of the 's-Gravendijkwal, offering a handsome club with two bars and a large dance floor. The new venue contrasts sharply with the old, which — in its interior too — was clearly all but dead. After Cascade and Habanera, this third "emergency" night-club now also disappears: very soon the demolishers will raze l'Ambassadeur to the ground. The photograph shows the old club's neon "L'Ambassadeur" sign.
This report frames the club's whole documented life. Twenty-six years after it was put up as a noodvoorziening, the paper said, the white-plastered nightclub was "pensioned off," and a new l'Ambassadeur had opened the day before. The new club stood diagonally across from the old one, at the end of the 's-Gravendijkwal, with two bars and a large dance floor. The report added that "after Cascade and Habanera, this third emergency night-club now also disappears," with the demolishers yet to raze it. A separate Stadsarchief photograph is catalogued as the demolition. Painted signs on the boarded-up windows read Cabaret, FREE DANCE floor, CASINO, LAS VEGAS and a hand-lettered SHOW EVERY 30 MIN.; the neon l'Ambassadeur is still up.
Demolition of nightclub and cabaret l'Ambassadeur at Rochussenstraat 172. In the background, part of the Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik. — A new home for l'Ambassadeur opened on 12 June 1967 at 's-Gravendijkwal 151.
The Stadsarchief catalogues this frame as the sloop, the demolition, of the nightclub and cabaret l'Ambassadeur aan de Rochussenstraat 172. It also records that the replacement venue opened on 12 June 1967 at 's-Gravendijkwal 151.
A separate address
The catalogue description of the 1967 demolition photograph puts the old club at Rochussenstraat 172, a different address from no. 169. The catalogue description of the 1957 aerial view independently places l'Ambassadeur on the corner of the 's-Gravendijkwal and the Rochussenstraat. The newspaper's "diagonally across from the old establishment" refers to the replacement venue, which the archive records as opening on 12 June 1967 at 's-Gravendijkwal 151. Neither catalogue entry fixes exactly where the old club stood in relation to no. 169 . It remains a documented neighbour of the mid-century , at its own address.