An experiment to kick-start capitalist interest with a gnome's sexuality.

This metro station's named after the nearby Eendrachtsplein (or square, for the Dutch challenged), which in turn is named in honor of the Eendracht, a sea vessel used by the Dutch East India Company primarily to chart the land down under. The Eendracht lugged loads of valuables back and forth from the empire to its southeast Asian digs until sinking about halfway between the island of Bali and Papua New Guinea. Keeping in mind the ship probably sunk with a berth's load of coins that haven't yet been recovered. You read that right: There's a pile of shipwrecked Dutch gold coins somewhere in the dive-tastic and awesomely azure waters just north of Australia...just waiting for someone to invoke the law of finders keepers.

Since opening on May 10, 1982, the Eendrachtsplein metro station has developed a minor case of fame for all the wide array of people that frequent the stop. There's business folk, hipster folk, elderly folk, schoolchildren folk, and clubbin' folk in the evening. The surrounding coffee shops and clubs offer happenin' far out times to everyone (of age) involved. There's also a solid selection of art available for view from up-and-comers in the coffee shops, with masterpieces available for ogling just down the road at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. 

Of course, if you know the Eendrachtsplein for anything it's probably for its major claim to fame: Paul McCarthy's buttplug gnome. It's become a mascot for the area despite many a business owner's discomfort over the anal bearings of Santa's specious tree. Ignominious or not, the statue's renown amounts to nothing less than a successful coup for those shop owners around Eendrachtsplein metro who lobbied for the work to be set up outside their storefronts under the belief it would draw business. The line of thought was straight out of Field of Dreams. Visitors would come to the square for the buttplug then be all like, "That's the largest buttplug I've seen a gnome hold outside any train station anywhere. Oh look, there's a sale on shirts. Let's go buy a shirt."