It was painted and photographed by George Hendrik Breitner who set up a studio on the canal, at number 8, in 1893 and stayed there until 1898.

[13][14] In Dutch literature the address Lauriergracht 37 is as well known as James Joyce's 7 Eccles Street;[15] in reality, it was an alley in the time of the author Dekker.

From 1897 to 1984 it was the address of a Catholic institution for girls and women named "De Voorzienigheid" run by the Sisters of Providence ; and then a block of flats, a gable stone by the main door of the flats proclaiming it to be the address of Last & Co., Makelaars in Koffie, Droogstoppel's fictional company.

[16][17] The house on number 122 was built in 1889 by architect Herman Hendrik Baanders, the first of a series of successful and impressive designs by his hand.

[20] Numbers 103 and 105 are another orphanage, a Roman Catholic one for boys that was built in the 17th century, run by the Brothers of Maastricht from 1845 to 1900, and by the aforementioned Sisters of Providence from then onwards.