Amsterdam » Tourist information, travel guide. Amsterdam is one of the greatest small cities in the world. From Amsterdam canals to world-famous Amsterdam museums and historical Amsterdam sights, it is one of the most romantic and beautiful cities in Europe. A summary of the Hamsterdam story line from Season 3 of 'The Wire'.The Hamsterdam T-shirt is available at http://www.hartzilla.com.
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By Lee Gardner
This article is about the fictional location in Baltimore. For the episode, see Hamsterdam. Hamsterdam was a legalzied drug zonein Baltimore, established by Major Howard Colvin. Distressed by the rampant selling and use of narcotics in the Western District following the demolition of the high rise towers and without the approval of his superiors, Colvin enacts a radical plan to herd low. The once peaceful town of Hamsterdam is in danger! The vile chinchilla Marlo and his Vermin Gang are wreaking havoc. Swing, swipe, and strike your way through the streets of Hamsterdam. Experience the frantic action, flawlessly execute rhythm combos, and become one with the fabled Hamster-Fu.
Baltimoreans who venture beyond the I-695 beltway always know it’s coming. We meet someone from another city, or another country. They find out we’re from Baltimore, and after a suitably polite length of get-to-know-you chat, they bring up the award-winning HBO series The Wire.
And really, it’s okay. There are worse things than being linked with one of the best television series ever made. But is Baltimore really like The Wire? It’s a complicated question to answer.
It would be handy if we could all pull out our cell phones or laptops and host an impromptu screening of Charm City, Marilyn Ness’s Independent Lens documentary, to provide a somewhat fuller picture of some of our hometown challenges.
But despite grousing from local politicians during the series’ run, The Wire got it right—mostly.
Take the very first minutes of the opening episode, wherein an African American man talks at length to a Baltimore Police detective about the murder of a man named nicknamed Snot Boogie. They’re sitting on the white marble steps of a rowhouse—accurate. The police lights and yellow police tape—accurate. British actor Dominic West’s Bawlmer accent—no so much, but not everyone in Baltimore has one. Co-creators David Simon and Ed Burns spent time as a Baltimore Sun crime reporter and a Baltimore Police detective, respectively, so they know both the city’s cops and streets far better than most. Snot Boogie is based on an actual person and his fate.
But in Baltimore, where “Stop Snitchin’” is as familiar a phrase as “Go, O’s,” it still seems a little off to watch a black man talking to a white cop about a murder out in the open. It’s tough to imagine the real-life East Baltimoreans of Charm City doing the same—even though Clayton Guyton, “Mr. C,” the grizzled community activist at the heart of the film, rails against the fear of being branded a snitch. [As seen in clip below:]
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the series’ view of Baltimore, season by season.
Season 1: “all in the game”
West Baltimore, as seen in The Wire, generally rings true. It is predominantly African American, predominantly lower-income, and largely bereft of opportunity for young black men, for whom the most obvious future lies in the booming street trade in heroin and cocaine. The pagers everyone carries marked the series as a period piece, even during its first run, but Baltimoreans of a certain vintage can also date it by the high-rise housing projects CGI-ed into some scenes—most were torn down more than 20 years ago, before the series filmed.
Charismatic drug moguls such as Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell were based in part on real people, including “Little Melvin” Williams (more on him later). Omar Little, the charismatic stickup man/anti-hero supreme, likewise drew from several actual Baltimoreans. The dysfunctional police department and its hapless response to the drug game is fairly accurate, sadly. The tough, scuffling lives of young dealers on the corners are, too—getting in the game isn’t a path to immediate riches any more than making a latte makes you the president of Starbucks.
Hamsterdam Real
Charm City was filmed largely around Rose Street in East Baltimore, but it captures a world similar to that of The Wire in many ways. Generational poverty and lack of opportunity have taken their toll on the communities and their residents, and gun violence is commonplace. The city has maintained one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country for decades, and most of the victims are African American men. As burly anti-violence mediator Alex Long marvels in Charm City, if that many white people were killed, the city would declare a state of emergency. (Ness also spends time with several members of Baltimore City Police, especially young African American patrolman Eric Winston, who help humanize a force typically seen as oppressive outsiders.)
Meanwhile, on more trivial details, like what Baltimoreans eat, The Wire is always dead on. When West’s Jimmy McNulty needs to convince a couple of uniformed officers to do him a favor, he brings them beer and crab cakes. But not just any crab cakes—Faidley’s crab cakes, because that’s how you bribe someone. And when drug enforcer Wee-Bay says he’ll confess to a few more murders if someone will bring him another pit beef (the city’s indigenous barbecue variant) with extra horseradish, it might be the most Baltimore thing ever.
Season 2: Labor Unions and Human Trafficking
Baltimore does indeed boast a long history as a busy port, and the docks have suffered a long decline as cargo traffic slowed to a low ebb in recent decades. At this point in the series, Simon and Burns are preaching, calling out the shame, tragedy, and punishing effects of the city’s industrial decline on its ordinary stiffs, black and white.
That said, no shipping container full of dead Eastern European girls has ever showed up on the docks. On sinister Greeks—this writer can’t speak to it. The show is after all a cop drama, at some level. But the fact that the investigation that gives the season its narrative motor starts off with a petty feud involving a parochial police commander and a stained-glass window in a church seems utterly plausible.
Season 3: Local Politics
This is where it gets really fun for locals, because politics. Despite disavowals from the show’s creators, young white ambitious City Councilmember Thomas Carcetti is clearly a fictional simulacrum for young white ambitious former City Councilmember Martin O’Malley. Carcetti wins the mayor’s race in a predominantly black city thanks to a black vote split in part by his close colleague, an African American councilmember, which is precisely what happened when O’Malley won the Democratic primary for mayor in 1999. O’Malley went on to serve two terms as governor and make a brief run for president in 2016. The uncanny parallels certainly make Carcetti’s kvetching and sleeping around more fun to watch. (Irish actor Aidan “Littlefinger” Gillen, who plays Carcetti, makes Dominic West’s accent sound pretty good.)
Baltimoreans also note fictional ambitious black City Council President Nerese Campbell bearing a strong resemblance to ambitious former City Council President Sheila Dixon. In the show, Campbell is a tough political infighter resentful of Carcetti barging ahead of “his turn” at leadership. Dixon succeeded O’Malley as mayor before being forced to resign in 2010 after being convicted of theft and embezzlement.
Glad-handing state Rep. Clay Davis may not be so obviously based on a particular Baltimore politician, but recent events have validated his casual corruption and matter-of-course shakedowns. State Sen. Nathaniel Oaks resigned in 2018 after being convicted of fraud and bribery. And Catherine Pugh, the current mayor, is under fire for allegedly dunning local companies and organizations with business before state and city government into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy thousands of copies of her Healthy Holly children’s book series. It’s a story that even Simon and Burns couldn’t, or wouldn’t, make up.
One of the areas where Charm City and The Wire coincide most closely concerns their depictions of city government effectively ignoring or actively failing the residents of West and East Baltimore. The Wire takes you inside City Hall and its power squabbles and venal dysfunction. Charm City illustrates that it might as well be on the moon as far as most Rose Street residents are concerned. As Long puts it at one point, “Ain’t nobody gonna help us, man. We’ve got to help each other.”
There never was a real “Hamsterdam” police-led de facto drug-legalization experiment, or at least no such situation has ever been made public. But Kurt Schmoke, mayor from 1988 through 1999, entertained the idea of fighting the drug war in Baltimore by decriminalizing narcotics. He appears in a couple of episodes in this season, playing a public-health official.
Remember Little Melvin? He takes up a recurring role this season and next, playing the Deacon, a churchman who’s seen it all.
[Here’s Little Melvin in a scene from the subsequent season:]
Season 4: Public Schools
Burns also spent time as a teacher, and you can detect the metallic whir of his axe grinding when The Wire turns its attention to the city’s public schools. The ongoing narrative adds a quartet of West Baltimore teens and goes inside the fictional Tilghman Middle, which is just as radically segregated and under-resourced as many actual Baltimore public schools.
Over the course of the season, three of the four teenagers slip into their respective fates: the drug game, addiction, and a group home. Only one “escapes” to a stable middle-class life. Charm City makes those outcomes seem a little reductive by comparison. Getting tied up in the drug game isn’t a life sentence, and neither is addiction. The real-life Alex Long, for example, is candid about a past arrest, but he clearly has not let that define him or his life.
Drug enforcers entombing bodies in vacant rowhouses was never a thing. When the characters Chris Partlow and Snoop figure out if a new drug slinger is a member of a crew moving in from New York by asking him who did “Jiggle It,” a local hit in the ‘00s, it might be the second most Baltimore thing ever. (The correct answer is Young Leek.)
You know the assistant principal at Tilghman? She’s played by local actress Tootsie Duvall. She has a good Baltimore accent.
Season 5: Journalism
The series wraps up with perhaps its least successful season, possibly because of a truncated schedule, and possibly because of a cockamamie plot line about McNulty inventing a serial killer to get police brass to sign off on the overtime needed to close the series’ big case. Did not happen. It is a TV show, after all.
The final season’s storyline detours through the newsroom of the beleaguered Baltimore Sun, David Simon’s former stomping grounds. Anyone who’s ever worked in a newsroom can tell you that he captures it pretty well. When the city editor starts awake one night and drives to the office due to the dawning realization of a possible mistake in a story intruding on his sleep? Been there. Simon and Burns even give several former Sun journalists cameos, including mystery author Laura Lippman, Simon’s wife.
Simon does more than a little grinding too. An ambitious reporter (played by actor/writer/director Tom McCarthy) with a penchant for fabrication is rumored to have been based on at least one former Sun scribe. And Simon and Burns gave one raging-a-hole police lieutenant the surname Marimow—just like a former Sun editor from the time Simon worked there.
More Right Than Wrong (But Charm City Even More So)
The Wire dramatizes, and even glamorizes, some of the realities of Baltimore. But it gets more right than wrong. Behind Simon and Burns’ Balzac-for-broadcast fiction, however, lies a more mundane world of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Baltimoreans with more ordinary problems—people and communities trying to get by, and maybe get somewhere, in spite of the many systems that continue to fail them. Charm City gets them right.
Amsterdam Netherlands
Lee Gardner was formerly the editor of Baltimore City Paper (R.I.P.) and has written about movies on and off for almost 30 years. He co-produces the Essential Tremors podcast.
| 'Hamsterdam' | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Wire episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 4 | ||
| Directed by | Ernest Dickerson | ||
| Story by | David Simon George Pelecanos | ||
| Teleplay by | George Pelecanos | ||
| Original air date | October 10, 2004 | ||
| Running time | 58 minutes | ||
| Guest appearance(s) | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
| |||
| List of The Wire episodes | |||
'Hamsterdam' (called 'Amsterdam' in some releases) is the fourth episode of the third season of the HBO original series The Wire. The episode was written by George Pelecanos from a story by David Simon & George Pelecanos and was directed by Ernest Dickerson. It originally aired on October 10, 2004.
Plot[edit]
While having dinner with white friends, Carcetti expresses disapproval when they make disparaging comments about African Americans and tells them he intends to run for mayor. He approaches Theresa D'Agostino, a political consultant he knows from law school, and courts her interest in becoming his campaign manager. D'Agostino dismisses his chances since he would be a white candidate running in a majority-black city. Elsewhere, Bunk is unable to find Dozerman's missing gun. He asks McNulty to locate Omar to help with the murders of Tank and Tosha. Later, a drunk McNulty visits Pearlman's house and demands to come inside when he notices Daniels' car out front. Daniels and Pearlman see McNulty through the window.
In the Western, Colvin attends a town hall meeting where residents vent their frustrations on rampant crime and the perceived lack of policing. Colvin admits everything they have done has failed; while the residents seem to appreciate his candor, they are enraged that he has put forth no tangible solutions. Later, Colvin looks into working security at Johns Hopkins University following his retirement. When Carver's squad fails to corral the Western's drug crews into Colvin's free zones, Colvin orders school buses to round up the dealers. They are gathered in a school gym and are unwilling to listen to Colvin as he tries to explain how the free zones will operate. Elsewhere, Cutty learns that his landscaping crew is entirely composed of ex-convicts. He approaches Slim Charles, offering himself for anything that pays.
McNulty observes a meeting between Bell, developer Andy Krawczyk and State SenatorClay Davis, who discuss plans for revamping Bell's properties as residences in gentrifying areas. Donette tells Bell about McNulty's visit. Avon is granted parole despite Pearlman's protests. Meanwhile, Cutty, Slim Charles, Gerard, and Sapper survey one of their dealers who has been short on his count. Later, Bodie hosts a party where he plies Cutty with drugs and women. At the behest of McNulty and Greggs, Bubbles explores the Barksdale territory in the Western and sees Marlo talking to Fruit, memorizing his license plate number.
Back at the detail, Freamon admonishes McNulty and Greggs for showing disloyalty towards Daniels by investigating Bell, despite what the lieutenant has done for them. Freamon and McNulty almost come to blows. Bubbles reports to the detectives about how Marlo has stayed out of the collaboration between the Barksdales and the East Side dealers. Using the license plate number, they pull up Marlo's criminal record. Greggs visits Homicide to talk to Detective Vernon Holley, who describes Marlo as pure evil. She theorizes that Marlo is working for Bell. Greggs spends a day with Bubbles mapping out the territories of the dealers, learning that they are using disposable cell phones.
McNulty visits Bell's community college and, using the school's phone records, traces a cell number to Bell. Freamon has Prez check property purchasing records for Bell's front organization. From this information, the detail learns that Bell is trying to build a 'legitimate' business as a property developer, either parallel to or instead of his illicit drug operation. McNulty worries about how they can wiretap Bell's disposable phones. Freamon tells McNulty to swallow his pride and return to the Major Case Unit. Daniels has an awkward drink with McNulty as they discuss Daniels' new relationship with Pearlman. McNulty tells him that he wishes them all the best and Daniels thanks him for making it 'easy.'[1][2]
Production[edit]
Title reference[edit]
The title refers to the Dutch city of Amsterdam, which is famous for its liberal drug laws; Officers Thomas 'Herc' Hauk and Anthony Colicchio use the city's name as an example to the drug dealers. This subplot was introduced to explore the potential positive effects of de facto 'legalization' of the illegal drug trade, and incidentally prostitution, within the limited boundaries of a few uninhabited city blocks. The posited benefits were reduced street crime citywide and increased outreach of health and social services to at-risk populations. The name 'Hamsterdam' comes from the drug dealers' mishearing Herc when he refers to Amsterdam, although some viewers have noted that the 'Ham' reference may also be a pun based on the dealers' view of the police as 'pigs.'
Epigraph[edit]
Why you got to go and fuck with the program?
Fruit makes this statement in response to Carver and his team trying to move his crew into one of the new drug tolerant zones. This also ties in with Carcetti's announcement of running for mayor in Baltimore, despite his ethnicity, as well as Cutty's difficulty at changing his ways. To a lesser extent, it can apply to McNulty and Rhonda's dysfunctional relationship.
Reception[edit]
Darkroom Productions' 'Hamsterdam' mixtape series, a collection of work from Baltimore rap artists, takes its name from this episode.
The second soundtrack compilation Beyond Hamsterdam takes its name from this episode.
The term 'Hamsterdam' (or sometimes 'Hampsterdam') has since been used to characterize districts or regions that are ignored by law enforcement agencies.[3][4]
The episode 'The Foot of Canal Street' in the first season of the HBO series Treme contains an inside joke, when Sonny's friends refer to his hometown as 'Hamsterdam' rather than 'Amsterdam'. George Pelecanos wrote this 'Treme' episode, and many of the Hamsterdam episodes of The Wire.
Credits[edit]
Starring cast[edit]
Although credited, John Doman, Frankie Faison, Corey Parker Robinson and Michael K. Williams do not appear in this episode.
Guest stars[edit]
- Callie Thorne as Elena McNulty
- Isiah Whitlock, Jr. as Senator Clayton 'Clay' Davis
- Tray Chaney as Malik 'Poot' Carr
- Chad L. Coleman as Dennis 'Cutty' Wise
- Benjamin Busch as Officer Anthony Colicchio
- Jay Landsman as Lieutenant Dennis Mello
- Delaney Williams as Sergeant Jay Landsman
- Richard Burton as Sean 'Shamrock' McGinty
- Brandon Fobbs as Fruit
- Anwan Glover as Slim Charles
- Mayo Best as Gerard
- R. Emery Bright as Community Relations Sergeant
- Clarence Clemons as Roman (credited as Clarence Clemens)
- Brandan T. Tate as Sapper
- Maria Broom as Marla Daniels
- Shamyl Brown as Donette
- Brandy Burre as Theresa D'Agostino
- Vera Holley as School principal
- Muna Otaru as college records clerk
- Tony Cordova as Sean McNulty
- Michael Kostroff as Maurice Levy
- Eugene Little as Landscaping boss
- Michael Willis as Andy Krawczyk
- Brian Anthony Wilson as Detective Vernon Holley
Clarence Clemons' name is misspelled as Clarence Clemens in the credits.
Uncredited appearances[edit]
Amsterdam Airport
- Joilet F. Harris as Officer Caroline Massey
- Ryan Sands as Officer Lloyd 'Truck' Garrick
- De'Rodd Hearns as Puddin
- Justin Burley as Justin
- Melvin T. Russell as Jamal
- Edward Green as Spider
- Rico Sterling as Tyrell
- Marc Krinsky as Angelo Martin
- Kay Lawal as concerned resident
- Unknown as William Gant's cousin
- Unknown as Pete Sinopoli
Hamsterdam Nintendo Switch
First appearances[edit]
- Spider: a young corner boy who is brought into Colvin's pep talk.
- Theresa D'Agostino: campaign manager for Carcetti
References[edit]
- ^'Episode guide - episode 29 Amsterdam'. HBO. 2004. Retrieved August 7, 2006.
- ^David Simon, Ed Burns (October 10, 2004). 'Amsterdam'. The Wire. Season 3. Episode 04. HBO.
- ^Becker, Sam (April 10, 2015). 'What Exactly Are Rand Paul's 'Economic Freedom Zones'?'. The Cheat Sheet. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
- ^Taekema, Dan (January 15, 2019). 'What's next now that Hamilton has opted in for legal cannabis stores'. CBC News. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
Hamsterdam Real Life
External links[edit]
Hamsterdam
- 'Hamsterdam' at HBO.com
- 'Hamsterdam' on IMDb
- 'Hamsterdam' at TV.com