More than 1700 km of historic quay walls exist in the Netherlands, of which many approach the end of their lifespan. Collapses of the structures have already occurred, such as the failure of the Grimburgwal in Amsterdam, which stresses the urgency of assessing these structures. The application of vibration-based monitoring (identifying and tracking modal properties over time) to assess quay wall structures is investigated in this paper by executing a vibration-based monitoring campaign at a historic quay wall in Amsterdam. Based on the preliminary results of this monitoring campaign, this study shows that vibration-based monitoring is a promising field to explore further for quay wall assessment.