HELSINKI ECHO HELSINKI BITES – A GUIDE TO the HistORY OF the CitY WelcOME TO A JOURneY phere of the times. You can take a walk home and listen to the radio. You can thROUgh the Fascinating through the streets of the 1930s and also pop into a bar to play hits on the histORY OF Helsinki! This check out window displays or spend time jukebox or peer into the secret world of journey will take you through various on the beach trying on swimsuits. If you an inner courtyard. Helsinki Echo will eras and lets you experience the atmos- feel tired, you can have a rest in a 1950s show you the way, take it with you! VibRant CitY OF the 1930'S LeisURE TIME AT HOME in the 1950'S GRieF anD DRAMA The Chang- ing Face OF the CITY NOstalgic 1970'S BAR The CARE- takeR'S RealM A Skate- BOARDER'S KEEN EYE 2 | ALONG THE STREETS Helsinki echO | 3 The CAFÉ BRONDin at Etelä- Wäinö Aaltonen, Rudolf Koivu and having a permanent place to stay since Esplanadi 20 becomes a popular meet- Eino Leino. One of the “Brondinistas” student days, and every member of our ing place among artists in the 1910s. is named Ponkki. “Ponkki was no art- coterie felt it their duty to put him up The regulars include such names as ist. He had no speciality, but he under- when he turned up at your doorstep.”* Jalmari Ruokokoski, Tyko Sallinen, stood everybody. No one recalled him * Vilho Nenonen: Tavattiin Brondalla. SPReaDing like ElantO Shops of the Elanto Cooperative were a familiar sight in Helsinki. In 1935 it has a total of 239 corner shops around the city, among them: 101 shops selling bread and milk 39 shops selling meat and cold cuts 52 grocer’s shops 27 drugstores 5 shoe shops 7 fabric and clothing shops 3 shops selling suits and dresses 4 shops selling household goods 1 tobacco shop Winter’s day at Johanneksenkenttä Ritarihuone Park, 1930s. playing field. When Temperature MeRivaaRA'S Plummets, Aho & Soldan, 1933. Film. functionalist furni- home, too, everything so simple yet fashioned, with old, heavy mahogany Yle Archives. ture was high-end design in the 1930s doubtlessly very expensive, those in the drawing room, a tall mirror, a Ice-cream seller at the corner of Sturenkatu and Mäkelänkatu streets. Sakari Pälsi, 1932. and thus not found in every home. In straight, fine lines, the black fabric brown grand piano and candle-sticks, his book Appelsiininsiemen, Mika and nickel-plated tubes of some Dutch plates on the wall above the Waltari describes the interior of a flat chairs, opal glass plafonds. Next to sideboard, old framed lithographs in TRavelling A 1934 Helsinki GUIDebOOK , and flying in in Töölö: “If only it were like this at this, our home seemed very old- Father’s study.” particular, is still a rare luxury. makes a souvenir recommendation: Inauguration of the Malmi airport handicrafts that are appreciated by in December 1936 signals the end of Finns as well – fabrics made by local Talking MOvies Make theiR BReakthROUgh the era of floatplanes and the marine women. “When the paterfamilias in airport at Katajanokka. Towards the Helsinki comes of a certain age, his in the early 1930s. Cinemas have to update their equipment, end of the decade, it is possible to fly wife will in good time start making and Piccadilly in Kluuvikatu street reopens on 30 August from Helsinki to Tallinn, Stockholm, a wall rug for him or perhaps an 1931 under the name Maxim. The cinema auditorium, built Kaunas and Berlin. Domestic flights Oriental carpet.” A gift like this is in 1909, is among the oldest in Helsinki. Sound increases connect to Turku, Maarianhamina, “a masterpiece that bears testimony the popularity of Finnish cinema, and actors become stars Tampere, Vaasa, Viipuri, Imatra, down the generations to the maker’s in Hollywood style, led by Tauno Palo, Ansa Ikonen and Oulu and Kemi. diligence and skill”. Regina Linnanheimo. A couple on Heikinkatu street. Sakari Pälsi, ca. 1930. Trams on Kaisaniemenkatu street, 1930s. 4 | TOWN view Helsinki echO | 5 BIRD'S EYE view OF Helsinki. view of the city. The pictures are PanORAMas Photographer Eugen Hoffers has had taken skilfully and are elegantly the novel idea of climbing up to the stitched into a single panorama. are wide landscape images could still be seen from a tower of the St Nicholas’ Church and The entire panorama costs 72 that are made by taking high-enough vantage point. photographing our capital from that marks, individual plates are four photographs from one High panoramas show the high angle. This produces a new, marks, and they are available point in all directions of whole of Helsinki from enchanting, full-circle bird’s eye from Mr Hoffers’s studio. the compass. Stitching the a perspective that people Cover of Hoffers’s original panorama portfolio. pictures together produces do not have access to. The an unbroken 360-degree boundaries and structure view. When the earliest of the city can be seen at a panoramas of Helsinki were glance, as if on a three- made, the entire built city dimensional map. TRavelling TO the CAPital Hotel Torni under construction. Olof Sundström, 1930. Hotel Torni - RecORDing OLD Helsinki the first skyscraper in Helsinki! In 1906 the town councillors appoint At Hotel TORNI, you have a choice a special antiques board and task it with photographing and recording of first-class, premium rooms for buildings and other places that travellers – in all price categories. will soon lose their former appear- ance due to new construction and Every room has running hot and other changes. They hire Signe cold water, bathroom with toilet, Brander for the job, known as a and a telephone. Spacious show- skilful landscape photographer. The rooms and galleries are available work progresses, and in 1912 Miss for use by travelling salesmen. Brander climbs into the tower of Continental menu and service the newly completed Kallio Church in the restaurant. A comfortable and records a view of the workers’ dining room for hotel guests. district around the church. Café-Restaurant on the 13th floor. A stupendous view over the entirety of Helsinki and its environs! Hotel Torni advertising card, 1930. Kallio Church under construction, Signe Brander, 1911. 6 | LEISURE TIME Helsinki echO | 7 LeisURE in the late 19TH centURY CAUght BY the sleUTH'S CAMERA Differences in standards of living city in cafés, parks and skating rinks. Then they pursue hobbies, partici- In the late 1880s, young Nils Wasastjerna The exhibition includes 40 photographs are great between classes in Helsinki. Workers’ days are long, sometimes up pate in workers amusements and in buys a waistcoat camera and begins to taken between 1889 and 1892. The city grows fast. The wealthy to 12 or even 14 hours, and their only the summer go hiking in the photograph the life of his family and spend their leisure time around the free time is on Sunday. national parks. his friends, young flâneurs, in Helsinki. Born into the family of a wealthy civil In his pictures, people are seen taking a servant, Nils Wasastjerna (1872–1951) walk in Esplanadi park, celebrating May has been an enthusiastic photographer Day in Kaisaniemi and skating in the since his teens. He studies architecture Pohjoisranta rink, a place of amusement at first but switches to insurance busi- and courtship popular among young ness and then to interior design and people. On a sunny spring day, Wasa- architecture. Wasastjerna is a respec- stjerna photographs locals watching ted critic of architecture and a patron Murtaja, the first icebreaker made in Businessman Rudolf Elfving and of culture and architecture, and he Assistant Judge P. A. Rönnbäck on a Finland in 1890, open up the South promenade in Pohjois-Esplanadi street. works as director of Helsinki City Harbour after the winter. Museum from 1913–1920. DO YOU have A PRIMUS STOve? Developed in Sweden, the Primus stove is now available in Helsinki. The stove can be used for A day on the beach in Kallvik, Vuosaari, 1910s. cooking but also for heating water for a washing machine or a clothes iron. It is handy for making coffee on a OUtings are a pastime now SwiMSUit FashiON has become weekend outing. accessible to an ever greater more rational. Even after the mid-19th number of people. On summer century, women’s swimwear included weekends you may come across a skirt with long sleeves, trousers, groups getting ready to board a shoes, a hat and a parasol. No wonder steamship, motorboat or rowboat few women knew how to swim. Today in order to spend a day on the women are getting liberated from the Helsingin Sanomat 14.5.1905 wonderful beaches of Helsinki. A summer’s day on the seaside. tyranny of the corset, and they can be Workers’ associations, tempe- seen wearing comfortable swimsuits rance societies and ordinary that allow them to move their limbs WORRisOME news arrives from Töölönlahti bay and other beaches in working-class families go on freely when swimming. Men’s bathing Helsinki in summer 1907. The seawater has become so filthy in places that even outings to Seurasaari, Korkea- costumes usually have shoulder straps the most eager swimmer will not embrace the waves. A terrible stench assails the saari, Lammassaari or some and striped patterns. Some men even nose on the begrimed beaches. This is because the waste waters of the city are other nearby island. appear in simple short-legged drawers. being discharged directly into the sea. The quality of water in the sea and city pipes must be investigated post-haste and the matter redressed immediately.